Presentation held at EAIR forum 2017 (Porto) on the building plan of a quality assurance system for the joint online publication of Finnish universities of applied sciences.

1. EAIR Forum 2017, Porto
Quality assurance system
for an online journal
Case study: www.uasjournal.fi
Lotta Linko, Mauri Kantola

2. EAIR Forum 2017, Porto
Contents
• UAS Journal
• From action research to quality assurance
• Plan-Do-Check-Act meets year plan

3. EAIR Forum 2017, Porto
UAS Journal in a nutshell
• Online journal on education and research, development and
innovation activities in applied universities
• Published by the UAS Rectors’ Conference
• Financed by the universities of applied sciences (23)
• Open-access, free-of-charge, four issues a year since 2011
• Mission of the journal:
– Provide information (‘general’ public)
– Provide a network (applied universities & world of work)

4. EAIR Forum 2017, Porto

5. EAIR Forum 2017, Porto
Operating the UAS Journal
• Chief editor and board of editors meet twice yearly -> annual
plan with themes
• Theme editors compile each issue utilising their networks ->
current expert articles (<20)
• Editor and chief editor review the contents
• Editor processes, publishes and publicises (March, May,
October, December)
• Issues, feedback and user data reviewed in/between
meetings

6. EAIR Forum 2017, Porto
Board of editors
• Representatives (8) from all fields of study
and Rectors´ conference Arene
• Meetings in Jan/Feb and Sept/Oct
• Virtual workspace w/ plans, memos,
feedback, article versions/reviews
• Editor runs the journal processing and
administration

7. EAIR Forum 2017, Porto
Methods of development
• Framework: action research/self-evaluation
• Interventions and outcomes in production,
marketing, networking and collaboration
processed
• Data: board of editors’ activity, user
statistics, qualitative interviews, user survey,
feedback

8. EAIR Forum 2017, Porto
Quality assurance system
•Targets
–Consistency and comparability of operations
–Transparency and transferability
•Results
–Managed, built-in development
–Quality of the journal

9. EAIR Forum 2017, Porto
Plan-Do-Check-Act
•PDCA cycle widely used at Finnish applied
universities
•Is flexible and easily adoptable
•Supports consistent development of actions
and the system

10. EAIR Forum 2017, Porto
Individual interventions in
recognised processes
Marketing
Networking
Editing

11. EAIR Forum 2017, Porto
Systematic PDCA
Plan
DoCheck
Act

12. EAIR Forum 2017, Porto
Quality assurance at UAS Journal
Plan
• Goals
• Annual plan
• -> Editorial
board activity
Do
• Instructions
• Templates
• Roles and
procedures
• -> Operation of
processes
Check
• Feedback
• User statistics
• User survey
• -> Editorial
board meetings
Act
• Annual report
• Presentations
• Rectors’ Council
• Action groups
Ministry of Education and Culture Rectors’ Council
Worldofwork
Fieldofeducation
(Inter)nationalenvironment
(Inter)nationalenvironment
Unis of Applied Sciences

13. EAIR Forum 2017, Porto
Quality assurance on a year plan

14. EAIR Forum 2017, Porto
Quality assurance (September)
Editing Marketing Networking
Plan Editorial board prepares the
annual plan
Editor updates mailing
lists & channels
Theme editor
gathers up writers
for issue 4
Do Editor publishes issue 3
and instructs writers of
issue 4
Editor markets issue 3 Theme editor,
writers and editorial
board share issue 3
Check Editorial board reviews
previous issues (feedback,
stats)
Editor checks bounces
and responses
Theme editor
gathers feedback on
issue 3
Act Corrective actions and
development for issue 4
Editor fixes mailing lists

15. EAIR Forum 2017, Porto
Example: instructions
•Call for papers
•Call for reviewers
•Guidelines for authors (template)
•Guidelines for reviewers (template)
•Plagiarism process and reports
•Reviewer’s feedback to the author/s
•Acceptance letter

16. EAIR Forum 2017, Porto
Assurance of quality assurance
•Has to be built in in operation
•Development of activities and tools
•Impact on quality?
–Measured by user stats and activity, user
experience, usage, recognition