Evaluation and quality at programmes and specific courses in higher education

Abstract

Distance Education has been always considered with certain skepticism for the quality of the programs in contrast with the education in presence. The distance education based on virtual networks has managed to diminish the mistrust, but it has not made it disappear. The evaluation, as critical aspect of the quality, up to today has not been an object of a deep examination in relation to the new contexts, which implies that the conventional
and proper systems of evaluation of the formation in presence are applied to the environments online. Nevertheless, there exists a widespread intuition in which such systems do not correspond completely to the nature of the education and of learning
in virtual communities, Aspect that has been particularly sensitive in case of the Project Alfa-Miforcal, illustrated with a pair of examples. The scenario of the education online is changing dramatically with the emergence of new ways of teaching and of learning, going on from models of reproduction of knowledge to models of collaborative learning and shared knowledge focused on the activity of the student in Learning Virtual Communities. In these, it is possible to come to a grade of interaction in which the
formative evaluation reaches similar levels to those of the best orientation of learning in presence.