How does AKKORK work?



Erika Soboleva: Signing of the Bologna declaration in the year 2003 made Russia one of the countries where all the unified European principles of education and quality assurance are to be implemented. The State Management Bodies started with the change in the education system from a five-year to a four-year concept, but not all the educational programs will be changed. For Russia it is a very difficult question. From my point of view it was one of the prerequisites, but not the only one, in regard to the creation of the Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance and Career Development (AKKORK) in 2005.

The Agency's task is to find a balance in the stakeholders' interest. It also seeks to create procedures and criteria that reflect the interests of both employers and the State, starting from the content of the education programs and didactical units, and ending with management issues, effective management technologies, and the economic stability of universities (which is traditionally called "conditions for education program realization"). Now the Agency is working to unite a range of civil-society institutions, accumulating the approaches from world practice.

AKKORK have many national and international partners. For instance, in Russia it collaborates with the Associations of Universities, Rectors Councils, and the Russian Academy of Education. In the international arena, AKKORK is a full member of well known QA networks like the International Network for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (INQAAHE), Asia-Pacific Quality Network (APQN), European Foundation for Quality in eLearning (EFQUEL), and the Central and Eastern European Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (CEENQA); it is also an associate member of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA).

The results of the AKKORK audits are taken into account during the State accreditation procedures made by the Federal Service on Supervision in Higher Education and Science.

Today, AKKORK renders the following services to foreign, national, and international educational institutions and scientific organizations:

• independent assessment and quality assurance procedures for measuring the compliance of the education standards with the AKKORK requirements, set on the basis of the ENQA ESG;
• AKKORK accreditation;
• international accreditation in eLearning;
• audit and quality management system implementation ISO 9001;
• distance-learning technologies certification on the standard ISO 19796 compliance;
• management consulting in the sphere of education.

What is your concept of "quality" and who are your clients?

Erika Soboleva: From AKKORK's point of view, quality of education reflects the relationship between learning (seen as a result, a process, or as an education system) and the demands, goals, standards (regulations), and requirements set by individuals, businesses, organizations, local community members and the State at large. If we use the above approach, the term "quality of education" should be broken up into the following terms, each of which requires a separate definition:

• quality of teaching (learning-process design, teaching methodology);
• quality of academic staff;
• quality of study programmes;
• quality of equipment, maintenance, and support rendered;
• quality characteristics of the learning environment;
• quality characteristics of students, school students, university entrants;
• quality of university management;
• quality of research.

In achievement of these goals, we are mainly interested in higher-education institutions - there are about 1500 universities in Russia. Lately, AKKORK has started to work with colleges, which in Russia also provide secondary professional education.

Who supports the Agency?

Erika Soboleva: AKKORK is an autonomous non-profit organization. It means that it is supported by the fees of the universities and colleges that use its services. Also, AKKORK benefits from some State grants directed at development of the education sphere.

There are many different definitions of "eLearning Quality". What are your criteria?

Erika Soboleva: From our point of view, electronic learning is not a set of defined technological solutions for educational processes, but a new form of the educational process that is involves the use of high-tech technologies in education. For instance, when a professor is teaching a course on management, he should possess not only the technologies he uses in teaching, but also he should know the teaching methodic based on these technologies.

There are different definitions of "eLearning Quality". In AKKORK we think that this involves adherence to the standards defined on the basis of international best practices at universities combined with international standards for quality, for instance the European Standards and Guidelines (ESG). This type of definition of "eLearning Quality" is integrated into the UNIQUe programme, which is jointly being realized in the region by AKKORK and EFQUEL.

The idea behind the UNIQUe project is to recognize the rise of integrated learning as a historical fact in the world's education system. A university is expected to use the integrated learning system if eLearning courses occupy at least twenty percent of the total time dedicated to the provision of study programmes.

The UNIQUe project has become a proving ground where various approaches to the quality- assurance-system evaluation schemes used by I-learning and elearning users are being tested. In the EFQUEL Forum (Helsinki, Finland) on 24 September 2009, six traditional Western European universities and one Eastern European university - Moscow University of Industry and Finance - were awarded the UNIQUe "eLearning quality label" for 2009-2012.

The main area where the EFQUEL is going to play the role of a consolidator is in the improvement of the quality of provision. New data use, stimulation of new data use, and the principle formation of new eLearning partner relations can help improve quality. The learning content and technology used in eLearning help foster the high quality of provision, as the teaching process is not devoid of the influence of the human factor.

How large is AKKORK's role as an agency in the expansion of eLearning quality standards in Russia?

Erika Soboleva: ELearning or electronic learning is nowadays one of the most actively developing spheres of education. The confirmation of this can be seen in the international conference Moscow Education Online, which was held in 2011 in Moscow's Holiday Inn Sokolniki for the fifth time. The Conference participants are representatives of the above-mentioned organizations and IT-company staff from Europe and CIS countries.

This Conference is held in Moscow, and this facilitates the participation of people from the Russian Federation regions. Participation gives them the opportunity to get acquainted with technological innovations, new projects, practical use of new and existing technologies, and the results of research that exist on the eLearning market. Representatives of education- management bodies also took part in the plenary sessions and parallel discussions, which made a constructive discussion of eLearning problems possible. AKKORK actively participates in this Conference and organizes the roundtable discussions about the issues of eLearning quality and quality assurance.

AKKORK nowadays is the only agency on the territory of the Russian Federation and CIS countries that - together with EFQUEL - provides joint accreditation in eLearning called UNIQUe. This means that the role AKKORK plays is large and important for the sphere of quality standards and quality assurance.

I suppose that UNIQUe is not only the roadmap for those who are on the way to learning how to implement eLearning in their educational job but also the gateway for quality culture.


UNIQUe is not only the instrument to install eLearning, but also serves to check the indicators of success. UNIQUe includes special traffic lights for those who are thinking of eLearning: how to use eLearning and the strategy to obtain competitive advantages.