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2014 » Papers » Volume 3 » Improving the quality for the e-counselling services for students- a benchmarking exercise 1. IMPROVING THE QUALITY FOR THE E-COUNSELLING SERVICES FOR STUDENTS- A BENCHMARKING EXERCISE Authors: Dumitru Georgiana, Adascalitei Adrian Volume 3 | DOI: 10.12753/2066-026X-14-217 | Pages: 494-499 | Download PDF | Abstract
Improving the quality for the e-counselling services for students- a benchmarking exercise
Georgiana DUMITRU
University of Pite?ti
geo_dumitru81@yahoo.co.uk
Adrian AD?SC?LI?EI
Technical University "Gh. Asachi" Iasi, Romania
adrian.adascalitei@yahoo.com
The philosophy of benchmarking makes reference to the learning process within an organization that studies the practices and methods used by the successful organizations that reach performance. Benchmarking represents an instrument for the total management of quality and a continuous process of monitoring good practices within a similar organization that is successful. Concerning the level of involvement in the benchmarking process, the one-to-one approach as well as the collaborative one is considered valuable for the systematic collecting and comparison of data and in the following steps of the process. The organizational homogeneity and cooperation are necessary conditions for a collaborative benchmarking exercise.
The present paper presents the analytical conceptual frame of a study for the benchmarking for the improvement of the electronic counselling service for students in Pitesti. The benchmarking exercises use the EFQM model in three steps: adoption, adaptation and improvement. Findings and conclusions were formulated following a focus group in which 4 experts in counselling provided to students and 4 e-learning experts. They analysed the advantages and limits of using electronic counselling services for students form 4 major Romanian University centres: Bucharest, Iasi, Cluj and Timisoara. Benchmarking was used as a method to collect and report essential operational data in a way that allows relevant comparisons among the performances of some distance counselling services offered to students in Romania, with the aim to identify good practices, advantages and limitations, as well as to improve the counselling activity for students in Pitesti. The present paper creates the premises for the initiation of a future project to start a psycho-pedagogical e-counselling network in order to connect the participant University centres to the present study and at which others can become part of. | Keywords
e-counselling for students, benchmarking exercise, quality assurance |
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