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© Proceedings of the Ruhuna Quality Assurance Sessions 2021 (RUQAS 2021)
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21 September 2021

System (QAS), formulating SLQF, conducting external reviews, subject benchmarks, review
guidelines are some of the milestones in this process. Internal QA mainly focuses on ensuring quality

through internal mechanisms. External QA mainly focuses on evaluating the quality through reviews

by independent external experts, i.e., subject review, programme review, institutional review, and
library review. Mainly, these external reviews follow an accreditation type evaluation process that

grades the respective institute, department, or study programme according to pre-specified quality
standards. HEIs are highly dedicated to acquire higher grades in these reviews, competitively.

Nevertheless, QA activities have added various extra works to the universities (Imbulgoda, 2019).

Since most of the functions are manually performed and the lack of dedicated staff, QA activities have

become an additional burden for the HEIs (Anderson, 2006; Peiris, Wickramasinghe and Peiris, 2014).
Moreover, Imbulgoda (2019) has highlighted the resistance of academics in the implementation of

QAS resulting from tedious bureaucracy, time-wasting documentation of QA activities, lack of
communication, and low involvement of QA data in decision making. Further, the shortage of special

funding and lack of human and physical resources have constrained the implementation of the QAS

(Imbulgoda, 2019). Nevertheless, the perceptions change rapidly along with the reforms brought into
the system. Therefore, this study aims to assess the perception of academics on QA reviews and the

extent to which information systems support and expected improvements of information systems in
QA activities.

The objectives of the study were to assess the academics' perception of the QA reviews, the academics'

perception of the contribution of information systems to the QA reviews by provisioning required
evidence. The study also aimed at exploring the current applications of information systems for the QA

process and to identify the necessity of the expected improvements and new system developments of

information systems to facilitate the QA process.

External QA reviews are conducted by the Quality Assurance Council (QAC) with the support of a
team of external experts based on pre-specified quality criteria (Bandara, 2018). This assessment

process mainly focuses on examining the past evidence on activities performed by the HEI. Examining

the documentary evidence, physical observation, and stakeholder interviews are the primary sources
for this assessment. While online electronic resources are examined, manual documents are heavily

used as evidence. Even though some of the evidence is documented along with the operational
activities, they are not fully compatible with the requirements of QA. Moreover, in some cases, there

are lapses in the documentation process. Therefore, HEIs have to re-organize documentary evidence
specifically for the QA reviews.

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