Capacity Development for QA Assessors on Site Visits

From November 04—06, 2015, Mr. Chheang Sangvath, Assessor for the Accreditation Committee of Cambodia and Director of the Office of the Internal Quality Assurance at the University of Cambodia, was invited to attend a workshop on further capacity development of assessors on the site visit process, organized by the Secretariat General of ACC in Preah Sihanouk Province. 40 Cambodian assessors and officers from ACC were invited to attend the workshop. During the training process, Build Bright University (BBU) and International University (IU), provided self-assessment reports (SAR) for mock assessment on data collection and report writing. The main objective of the training was to provide all assessors with training on the techni-cal mechanisms of report writing with evidence support.

H.E. Pen Sithol presented the assessment process and procedures by following the guidebook for the 9 standards of assessment. The materials and guidebook on the 9 standards were provided to each assessor after presentations were given. Dr. Srey Malin covered the legal framework and guidelines for assessors to use as support during the process of finding evidence of the 9 standards during assessments. For the third session, Prof. Sharon Siverts presented on assessor requirements and useful techniques for assessment. She covered assessor characteristics, techniques for assessments, and the roles and responsibilities of the team leader, team members, coordinator and technical assistant. After, Dr. Rath Chhang presented a sample assessment report and talked through the best practices for success. Dr. Chhang then coordinated a role-play of an assessor in-terview with a university management team, faculty members and students based on the SAR from BBU and IU. At the end of the training, there were four presentations of sample reports as a result of assessments by dif-ferent team representatives, and a reflection from participants on the format of report writing, including data, references, and proper citation.

Quality assurance is an organization’s guarantee that the product or service it offers meets the accepted quality standards. It is achieved by identifying what “quality” means in context, by specifying methods by which its presence can be ensured, and by specifying ways in which it can be measured to ensure confor-mance. Quality accreditation of higher education institutions is based on student’s learning outcomes, and thus requires quality assessment procedures of learning outcomes. The results of accreditation are utilized in the development of the education system and core curricula, as well as in quality improvement of educational providers and in practical teaching.