Quality Assurance View of a Management Information

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264553011

Quality Assurance View of a Management Information System Chapter · January 2008 DOI: 10.4018/9781599048451.ch091

CITATION

READS

1

1,726

2 authors: Juha Kettunen

Ismo Kantola

Turku University of Applied Sciences

Turku University of Applied Sciences

270 PUBLICATIONS 699 CITATIONS

4 PUBLICATIONS 37 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

The Implementation of the Key Action 2 of the Erasmus+ Programme View project

Cooperation Between Universities and ICT Enterprises View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Juha Kettunen on 09 August 2014. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Encyclopedia of Information Communication Technology Antonio Cartelli University of Cassino, Italy Marco Palma University of Cassino, Italy

Volume II In-Z

InformatIon ScIence reference Hershey • New York

Director of Editorial Content: Managing Development Editor: Assistant Managing Development Editor: Assistant Development Editor: Senior Managing Editor: Managing Editor: Assistant Managing Editor: Copy Editor: Typesetter: Cover Design: Printed at:

Kristin Klinger Kristin M. Roth Jessica Thompson Deborah Yahnke Jennifer Neidig Jamie Snavely Carole Coulson April Schmidt and Erin Meyer Jennifer Neidig Lisa Tosheff Yurchak Printing Inc.

Published in the United States of America by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global) 701 E. Chocolate Avenue, Suite 200 Hershey PA 17033 Tel: 717-533-8845 Fax: 717-533-8661 E-mail: [email protected] Web site: http://www.igi-global.com/reference and in the United Kingdom by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global) 3 Henrietta Street Covent Garden London WC2E 8LU Tel: 44 20 7240 0856 Fax: 44 20 7379 0609 Web site: http://www.eurospanbookstore.com Copyright © 2009 by IGI Global. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without written permission from the publisher. Product or company names used in this set are for identification purposes only. Inclusion of the names of the products or companies does not indicate a claim of ownership by IGI Global of the trademark or registered trademark. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Encyclopedia of information communication technology / Antonio Cartelli and Marco Palma, Editors. p. cm. Summary: "This book is a comprehensive resource describing the influence of information communication technology in scientific knowledge construction and spreading, with emphasis on the roles of product technologies, process technologies, and context technologies"--Provided by publisher. ISBN-13: 978-1-59904-845-1 (hardcover) ISBN-13: 978-1-59904-846-8 (e-book) 1. Telecommunication--Encyclopedias. I. Cartelli, Antonio, 1954- II. Palma, Marco. TK5102.E644 2008 004.6'5--dc22 2007043957 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. All work contributed to this encyclopedia set is original material. The views expressed in this encyclopedia set are those of the authors, but not necessarily of the publisher.

If a library purchased a print copy of this publication, please go to http://www.igi-global.com/agreement for information on activating the library's complimentary electronic access to this publication.

Section: Process ICT

Quality Assurance View of a Management Information System Juha Kettunen Turku University of Applied Sciences, Finland Ismo Kantola Turku University of Applied Sciences, Finland

IntroductIon Strategic management has been widely applied in public and private organizations. Strategic management adapts educational institutions to their environment, which includes the educational policy, local demand for labour and other circumstances. The increased autonomy of educational institutions has emphasised the role of strategic management. Quality assurance has also gained more attention in recent years when plans have been made to establish the European Higher Education Area (Berlin Communiqué, 2003). European countries develop their own national solutions for evaluating and demonstrating the quality of degrees (FINHEEC, 2006). There are no European or national agreements that provide any specific approaches or tools for the management of higher education institutions (HEIs) (Maassen & Stensaker, 2003). Each HEI is responsible for defining its management and quality assurance systems. Strategic management is a strong candidate for the management system for Finnish HEIs, but there is more variation in the quality assurance systems. Quality assurance refers to quality management and improvement. Quality is understood as the ability of an institution to fulfill its mission or a study programme to fulfill its aims (Harvey, 2007; Harvey & Green, 1993). The purpose of this chapter is to describe the management information system (MIS) which integrates strategic management and quality assurance. Institutional quality audits have shown that quality assurance is quite often separate from the general management system of HEIs. By contrast, a well-functioning quality assurance system produces evaluative information about results and processes and then management uses this information to develop processes. Management at each institutional level determines the corrective action. While providing support for strategic management, the

management information system can also contribute to continuous improvement, which is the core of quality assurance. The balanced scorecard approach developed by Kaplan and Norton (1996, 2001) translates the strategy into action and provides a framework to integrate the strategic management and quality assurance approaches. This chapter describes the case of the Turku University of Applied Sciences (TUAS). At the TUAS, the implementation of the strategic plan includes, among others, budgeting, action plans and HR plans, which are stored in the MIS portal. The balanced scorecard is used to create an understandable structure for the strategic and action plans which include quantitative measures. All these management and quality assurance tools are provided for the managers and personnel as the tools of the MIS portal.

bacKground quality assurance in higher education The Bologna Process Finland has developed its own approach to quality assurance in higher education. The approach is based on the quality assurance systems of HEIs and external quality audits at the institutional level. The quality assurance systems of all Finnish HEIs will be evaluated by the Finnish Higher Education Evaluation Council (FINHEEC) by 2011. Each institution is responsible for the development of its own quality assurance system. HEIs have the responsibility to define what they mean by quality and how they manage and enhance quality. The external audits aim to evaluate how the quality assurance system of an institution performs as a tool for quality management and enhancement. The institutional quality audit ascertains whether a

Copyright © 2009, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Q

Quality Assurance View of a Management Information System

quality assurance system produces useful information for continuous improvement (FINHEEC, 2006). When building a quality assurance system, the first step is to define the concept of quality. In everyday language, the word “quality” has been associated with excellence. However, fitness for purpose is the approach to quality accepted by most quality agencies. Fitness for purpose sees quality as fulfilling a customer’s requirements, needs, or desires. In higher education, fitness for purpose is understood as the ability of an institution to fulfill its mission or a study program to fulfill its aims (Harvey, 2007; Harvey & Green, 1993). This is the definition adopted in this chapter. At the institutional and faculty level, quality is defined in the institution’s mission, strategic plan, and annual action plans and evaluated against these plans. The concept of quality assurance has various definitions in different contexts. According to Woodhouse (1999) quality assurance refers to the policies, attitudes, actions, and procedures necessary to ensure that quality is maintained and enhanced. Quality assurance is defined in this chapter to include strategic management and the performance of the internal processes. A similar interpretation is given by FINHEEC (2006), which states that quality assurance is part of strategic planning and includes the management process and the internal processes of HEIs. Quality assurance refers to the procedures, processes, and systems which safeguard and improve the quality of an HEI, its education, and other activities. At the level of HEIs, the quality assurance system refers to the entity composed of the quality assurance organization, the respective responsibilities, procedures, processes, and resources. The relationship between the strategic management and quality assurance of higher education institutions could be interpreted as a new conceptualization for some of the most essential features of quality assurance. From our viewpoint, two basic ideas of quality assurance are continuous improvement and management’s commitment. According to Beckford (2002), the principle of continuous improvement is an explicit part of the thinking of many quality gurus. Furthermore, John Oakland says, “Quality must be managed, it does not just happen”, and Beckford argues that without adherence to the quality management system, it is impossible for the organization to know how well it is performing. It is evident that management is an essential element of quality assurance. Mostly it is only the managers who

possess the power and resources needed for carrying out the planned development steps (corrective action). One way to look more profoundly at the relationship between strategic management and quality assurance is to emphasise the fitness of purpose and use the phases: plan, do, check, and act (PDCA). This is known as Deming’s cycle (Beckford, 2002). The cycle has been used in various quality awards. The Malcom Baldrige quality award has renamed it and uses the words: approach, deployment, results and improvement (ADRI) (Woodhouse, 2003). Figure 1 presents the quality cycle of continuous improvement. The approach is about planning what will be done and how it will be done. Deployment is about how to implement these plans. The results are the consequences of these actions. At this point, the results may be accepted as such and no changes are made to the approach or deployment. Often results are unsatisfactory and objectives have not been achieved. Then a systematic reflection about what approach and deployment led to these results may suggest useful improvement measures (Woodhouse, 2003).

MaIn Focus oF the artIcle the quality Map The concept of the quality map is introduced to describe the quality assurance of an organization. The quality map is a visual representation of the cause-and-effect relationships among the objectives of education policy, regional strategies and the institutional strategic plans. It provides an insight into the management, personnel and stakeholders to understand the main elements of quality assurance. The quality map is a graphical representation of quality assurance. We have developed the concept of a quality map from the strategy maps introduced by Kaplan and Norton (2004). A quality map describes the essential characteristics of the quality assurance system like a road map, but omits all the minor details. Figure 2 describes the quality map of the TUAS. The quality map shows that quality assurance is a comprehensive concept including the strategic planning, the management process and the internal processes and structures of the organization. There is a continuous flow of communication and interaction between these elements. The description of the quality assurance sys-


Figure 1. Quality cycle of continuous improvement

Q

PLAN Approach

ACTION Assessment and improvement

DO Deployment

CHECK Evaluation of results and process performance

Figure 2. The quality map of the TUAS European education policy National education policy Regional strategies

Strategic planning

Quality assurance

Management process Strategic management and objectives

Planning of operations and resources

Implementation and monitoring

Steering

Evaluation of results and process performance

Evaluation findings and feedback Internal processes Innovation process • R&D

Support processes

Learning process • education


tem is an attempt to formalize the diffuse knowledge and context-sensitive procedures. The management process includes sequential planning and management activities. They include the strategic management and objectives, the planning of operations and resources, implementation and monitoring, and finally, the evaluation of results and process performance. The strategy process produces the strategic objectives for the planning period. The operations of the internal processes are aligned with budgeting and human resources planning. The achievement of results is regularly monitored and ensured to achieve the desired objectives during the planning year. Finally, the achievement of objectives is evaluated and reported to stakeholders. The main internal processes include the innovation process (research and development), support processes (support services) and education (teaching and learning processes). The strategic planning and quality assurance overlap. The involvement of students, members of the personnel and external stakeholders in strategic planning is an important means of quality assurance. The linkages between the management process and internal processes describe the guidance and information flows which have to be taken into account in the continuous improvement of activities. The aim of the management process is to steer the development of internal processes. Another linkage is the feedback and evaluation results from different sources, which include students, employers and self-assessments. The action plans located in the MIS are used to collect and store the steering information and development steps which may be based on self-assessment, feedback, or external evaluation.

the Management Information system Without proper management tools it would be nearly impossible for administrators and evaluators to know how well the institution, department, or program is performing. The introduction of the balanced scorecard approach in 2002 laid the foundation for developing the management information system at the TUAS. Balanced scorecards were planned for all the administrative units of the institution. It was evident from the beginning that without any proper tools the maintenance of the scorecards was troublesome. The consistent aggregation of the scorecards to the upper organizational level needed automation. The data collection from the

various data sources also needed automation. It was evident that the new MIS would provide clear benefits as required generally for development projects of this kind (Galliers & Sutherland, 1991; Galliers, Swatman, & Swatman, 1995). The development and description of the management process started at the beginning of 2004. The entire management process was described in detail. About 700 concepts were defined and the data model was developed. More detailed process descriptions and specifications for the services provided by the portal were written to facilitate the automation of the process. It is important that the management process be entirely developed and described before the planning of the information system. It is also important that there is a well-defined and widely used approach to communicate and implement the strategic plans. The balanced scorecard approach clearly fulfills this requirement (Kettunen, 2004, 2005; Kettunen & Kantola, 2005). The first services of the portal were launched in the autumn of 2005 and the implementation continued through 2006. The MIS portal was developed to support the management process. The members of the personnel have diverse user rights and roles in the interactive management tool. The administrative units are able to draft their strategic plans, action plans, budgets and human resources plans. The action plan of the units is important, because it describes the implementation of the strategic plan, timetables and responsibilities. The action plan also defines the development steps based on the evaluative information produced by the quality assurance system. The portal has been planned to be accessible to the personnel and to make the strategic planning understandable. The portal takes advantage of the data warehouse. Data warehousing effectively utilizes the various data sources including personnel administration, financial planning, and student and study registers. The data warehouse captures data from data sources, makes transformations, and directs data to an integrated database (Guan, Nunez, & Welsh, 2002; Inmon, 1996). Sometimes these are called extract, transform and load (ETL) processes. Before the introduction of the data warehouse, the data were scattered and undocumented. Data collection was also unreliable because it was to a large extent collected manually from separate data sources or personal files.


the Management Information system Integrates strategic Planning and quality assurance The MIS is an electronic platform which effectively integrates the elements of strategic planning and quality assurance. The MIS provides strategic plans which are then implemented using the action plans and the tools for budgeting and human resources planning. This is evident when one compares the stages of the quality cycle (Figure 1) with the tools of the MIS portal. The strategic and action plans represent the approach stage of the cycle. The action plan contains reliable quantitative information about results and process performance. This information strongly supports management in the search for strengths and weaknesses. The MIS portal can be seen as an evaluation tool which supports the evaluation of the results stage of the quality cycle. The action plan includes not only information about process performance but also about how to improve processes. The development steps on the basis of assessment are decided by the management at each institutional level. At the TUAS, the development steps are stored in the MIS as part of the action plans of the institution, its faculties and programmes. This is an illustration of how the portal supports the assessment and improvement stage of the quality cycle. The action plan must identify the strategic initiatives and development steps at different organizational levels. The action plan must identify the timetables and individuals responsible for the planned tasks. All in all, the action plan is an electronic document where the implementation of strategic plans and development steps of quality assurance meet. The effectiveness of strategic planning and quality assurance is crucial in how the strategic initiatives and development steps based on the evaluations and feedback can be integrated into the core institutional processes and functions. It is evident that these two approaches of management are most efficient when they are transformed into action close to teaching and learning. These approaches should be implemented at the different organizational levels of the institutions including the departments, degree programmes, teachers and students. Strategic planning and quality assurance must be implemented in the action plan, curriculum, course implementation plans, teacher workload plans and personal study plans of students.

Future trends An obvious future trend is that electronic tools will be widely used in supporting the management process. The strategic plan is updated every fourth year at the TUAS, but the implementation of the strategy and detailed planning of activities are annually performed following the management process. The measures describing the strategic objectives are updated annually using the MIS portal and agreed in the internal target discussions. These group negotiations are led by the Rector and have strong steering elements, because the tasks are directly derived from the strategic objectives and written into the action plans. The target values of the measures are updated and agreed in these target discussions. The second obvious trend is the harmonization of the MISs in the different HEIs. There are plans to collect a database of the process descriptions among Finnish universities. The concepts related to institutional management have also been defined and collected. A vision has been presented in the working group of the Ministry of Education that a national data warehouse should be planned to collect the information on students, degrees and ECTS credits in a common database to facilitate student mobility. There is also a need to integrate the national statistical databases of the universities and universities of applied sciences, which are separate nowadays and have different structures.

conclusIon The concept of the quality map was introduced in this chapter to describe the integration of strategic management and quality assurance. The quality map is a visual description of how education policy and regional strategies are used to define the strategic objectives of the institution. The strategy map also describes the management process and the main internal processes of the institution. The visual representation of quality assurance helps the management, employees and stakeholders of an organization to understand the main elements and linkages of quality assurance. This chapter shows that the different approaches of management can be integrated using an MIS. An advantage of the electronic management tool is that it supports the management process and the internal activities of the organization. It is a virtual platform for

Q


consistent strategic planning in the different organizational units. It is also a platform for quality assurance based on internal and external evaluations. This study also supports the view that the balanced scorecard is a useful tool for the basis of the MIS and the integration of different management approaches and tools. The open MIS increases strategic awareness among managers and members of the personnel. The integration of management approaches and the alignment of the strategic objectives in the different organizational units help management to create a shared understanding among the personnel about the implementation of the strategic plan and the development steps based on the information produced by the quality assurance system.

http://www.qualityresearchinternational.com/glossary/

reFerences

Kettunen, J. (2004). Bridge building to the future of Finnish polytechnics. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 9(2), 43-57.

Beckford, J. (2002). Quality. London: Routledge. Berlin Communiqué (2003, September 19). Bologna process Berlin 2003, Realising the European higher education area. In Proceedings of the Communiqué of the Conference of Ministers Responsible for Higher Education, Berlin. FINHEEC (2006). Audits of quality assurance systems of Finnish higher education institutions, Audit manual for 2005-2007. Publications of The Finnish Higher Education Evaluation Council 2006: 4. Retrieved September 15, 2006, from http://www.kka.fi/projektit/etusivu.lasso?id=893. Galliers, R. D. & Sutherland, A.R. (1991). Information systems management and strategy formulation: “The stages of growth” model revisited. Journal of Information Systems, 1(2), 89-114. Galliers, R. D., Swatman, P. M. C., & Swatman, P. A. (1995). Strategic information systems planning: Deriving comparative advantage from EDI. Journal of Information Technology, 10(3), 149-157. Guan, J., Nunez, W., & Welsh, J. F. (2002). Institutional strategy and information support: The role of data warehousing in higher education. Campus-Wide Information Systems, 9(5), 168-174. Harvey, L. (2007). Analytic quality glossary. Quality Research International. Retrieved March 3, 2008, from

Harvey, L. & Green, D. (1993). Defining quality. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 18(1), 9–34. Inmon, W. H. (1996). Building the data warehouse. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Kaplan, R. & Norton, D. (1996). The balanced scorecard. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Kaplan, R. & Norton, D. (2001). The strategy-focused organisation. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Kaplan, R. & Norton, D. (2004). Strategy maps. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Kettunen, J. (2005). Implementation of strategies in continuing education. The International Journal of Educational Management, 19(3), 207-217. Kettunen, J. & Kantola, I. (2005). Management information system based on the balanced scorecard. CampusWide Information Systems, 22(5), 263-274. Maassen, P. & Stensaker, B. (2003). Interpretations of self-regulation: The changing state-higher education relationship in Europe. In R. Begg (Ed.), The dialogue between higher education research and practice (pp. 85-95). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Woodhouse, D. (1999). Quality and quality assurance. In J. Knight & H. de Wit (Eds.), Quality and internationalisation in higher education (p. 29-44). Paris: OECD. Woodhouse, D. (2003). Quality improvement through quality audit. Quality in Higher Education, 9(2), 133139.

Key terMs Balanced Scorecard: The balanced scorecard approach is a framework for the communication and implementation of the strategy. The balanced scorecard approach translates the strategy of an organization into


tangible objectives and measures and balances them typically into four different perspectives: customers, financial outcomes, internal processes, and learning. Higher Education Institution: Higher education institutions include traditional scientific universities and professional-oriented institutions, which are called universities of applied sciences or polytechnics. Management Information System: A proper management information system presupposes modelling the entire management process and tailoring all the necessary components of the information technology support system to meet the needs of the organization. The management information system should include a description and measures of how the strategic objectives will be achieved. Quality Assurance: Assurance of quality in higher education is the process of establishing stakeholder confidence that provision (input, process and outcomes) fulfills expectations or measures up to threshold minimum requirements. Quality assurance refers to the procedures, processes and systems that safeguard and improve the quality of a HEI, its education and other activities.

Quality Enhancement: Enhancement is a process of improvement. In relation to higher education quality, enhancement may refer to: (1) individual learners when it means improvement of the attributes, knowledge, ability, skills, and potential of learners; (2) the improvement in the quality of an institution or study programme. Quality Management: Quality management emphasises the importance of management’s commitment to quality. Quality must be managed; it does not just happen. Strategic Management: Strategic management is a matter of bridge building between the perceived present situation and the desired future situation. Strategy implies the movement of an organization from its present position, described by the mission, to a desirable but uncertain future position, described by the vision.

View publication stats

Q