Just had a thought while cycling into work – if I’m going to talk about quality assurance v quality assessment I’m going to have to define what I mean by quality.  And what brought the thought on was the poor quality of bicycle brake blocks these days. (They used to last for years, now they appear to be made out of a substance with the resistant properties of soft cheese!) The point is that they are deemed to be of an acceptable quality by the manufacturers. If they were of better quality from the consumer’s point of view, they wouldn’t sell as many. On the other hand they have to be good enough to convince the customer not to buy from another manufacturer.

So what does all this have to do with educational development units? I think we have to be careful that we’re not producing what we deem acceptable and not taking the students’ viewpoints into account. But as I’ve often said, students are not a homogeneous body and we need to meet all of their requirements. Something to think about anyway.