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Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions pp 1–6Cite as

External Quality Assurance in Higher Education

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Synonyms

Evaluation; Audit; Accreditation; Assessment

Definition

External quality assurance is a term used to describe a wide variety of undertaken at institutional and/or program level by agencies external to higher education institutions

Introduction

External quality assurance (EQA) is a term that increasingly has been introduced in higher education systems all over the world (Westerheijden et al. 2007b). While the earliest forms of EQA, external accreditation, were established in the USA over a century ago (Ratcliffe 1996), the massive buildup of EQA systems was introduced from the mid-1980s, and a number of countries are continuing to establish such systems even today (Dill and Beerkens 2010).

There are several driving forces behind this development, but in general, national authorities have been a key actor initiating and organizing EQA schemes. These different EQA schemes are typically the key responsibility of quasi-independent national quality assurance agencies that operate...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, University of Oslo, Sem Selandsvei 7, 0317, Oslo, Norway

    Bjørn Stensaker

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  1. Bjørn Stensaker
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Correspondence to Bjørn Stensaker .

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Stensaker, B. (2018). External Quality Assurance in Higher Education. In: Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_523-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_523-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-017-9553-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-9553-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference EducationReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Education

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