By Banjong Ujjin, Senior Programme Officer
20 July 2020

To say that 2020 has been a roller coaster ride is an understatement! Among the many problems that the world must work together to solve, one stands out as being the most disruptive: the COVID-19 pandemic.

Like every other organisation, the AUN-QA has been greatly affected by the pandemic, especially because travel restrictions are hamptering the AUN-QA in its mission to promote international collaboration in creating a culture of quality in the higher education sector. For us at the AUN-QA, we usually plan up to 1 year ahead for all our AUN-QA Assessments. Unfortunately, due to the ongoing pandemic, we have had to postpone all of our activities including the AUN-QA Programme Assessment. Active discussions with the AUN-QA Council, the AUN-QA Technical Team, and the AUN-QA Assessors have allowed a deep exploration of the opportunities and risks of Online/Remote assessments, and thus we have collectively decided to begin conducting the ‘Online/Remote Site Visit in AUN-QA Programme Assessment’, in order to continue serving our AUN-QA member universities as part of adapting to the new normal.

After the discussion and approval from the AUN-QA Council Members and Technical Team, we contacted all universities from the list of universities with planned assessments for 2020 to see if anyone was interested in conducting Online/Remote Site Visits in AUN-QA Programme Assessment. The responses were mostly positive, with many universities willing to participate.

In order to conduct Online/Remote Site Visits in AUN-QA Programme Assessment, universities must meet all the requirements and have the required tools. We offered some flexibility for this Online/Remote Site Visit in AUN-QA Programme Assessment and came up with 3 types of online site visits, which includes:

• Campus-based online site visit
• Home-based online site visit
• Hybrid online site visit (combination of the 2)

So far, the following universities have agreed to do the ‘Online/Remote Site Visit in AUN-QA Programme Assessment’:

• - Universitas Andalas
• - University of Danang
• - Universitas Indonesia
• - Vietnam National University - Hanoi
• - Universiti Brunei Darussalam
• - Far Eastern University
• - Chulalongkorn University
• - Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta
• - Saigon Technology University
• - University of Immaculate Conception
• - University of the Philippines - Los Baños
• - State Islamic University Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta
• - University of Santo Tomas
• - Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember
• - Universiti Utara Malaysia
• - Thai Nguyen University

We will begin our first ever ‘Online/Remote Site Visit in AUN-QA Programme Assessment’ in September 2020.