UT has developed a comprehensive quality assurance system, covering almost all aspects of distance education operations and services administered by Head Office as well as its 37 Regional Offices. The QA areas of UT distance education system includes the following nine aspects: policy and planning, human resource provision and development, management and administration, learners, program design and development, course design and development, learner support, learner evaluation, and media for learning.

UT QA system is based on the principle of continuous improvement: “Write what we do, Do what we write, and Improve it continuously”. The UT QA is clearly-defined systems, procedures, work instructions, and records. This QA system further includes systematic monitoring and evaluation, internal and external audit or assessment. In brief, UT has implemented a total quality assurance system approach. The UT QA process involves the development of Quality Assurance Framework, self-assessment and priority setting, writing job manuals, use of QA procedures in performing daily tasks and activities, and internal as well as external audits and assessment.

UT has implemented the ISO 9001 quality management system in its core business activites, involving periodic monitoring and evaluation, as well as internal and external assessment. UT also refers to Standards of the National Accreditation Board and Guidelines of the Directorate General of Higher Education for Internal QA System for Higher Education. The certified ISO 9001:2008 of UT core business activities include Development of Learning Materials and Examination Materials, Delivery of Learning Materials, Distance Learning Services for Regional Offices, and Academic Administration Services. External audits for ISO certification were conducted on one cycle every semester. As the QA system has been more stable and the QA culture has been more developes, audit will be conducted on one cycle a year.

The external assessment also includes a quality review by Expert Panel of the International Council for Open and Distace Education every five year. The ICDE Quality Review covers most aspects of distance education as the following.

• all aspects of recruitment including marketing and general publicity - including advice offered through staff, printed materials and all electronic means;
• all aspects of admission - including fee payments and the contractual arrangements between the individual and the institution;
• learner support - including requirements on the student where provision is ICT based;
• the integration and maintenance of systems and services - including record keeping and links with other students;
• a commitment to educational values, good customer relationship and business practices; and
• instructional process and student assessment.

The Directorate General of Higher Education (DGHE) of the Ministry of National Education also circulates guidelines for a quality assurance system for the face-to-face higher education institutions, based on the following standards:

• identity
• content
• learning process
• competency of graduate
• lecturer and education staff
• infrastructure and facilities
• management
• costs
• educational assessment
• community services
• students
• welfare
• academic atmosphere
• information system
• cooperation

The challenge for UT is to integrate and ensure effective implementation of its quality assurance system, referring to various QA guidelines, manuals and criteria from the DGHE, BAN-PT, ISO, ICDE quality reviews and the UT internal QA System.

The UT has clear policy on quality, as mandated by its Strategic Plan and Operational Plan, and stated in the UT’s Quality Assurance System. This quality policy is further translated into systems and procedures that are documented in manuals and forms. QA implementation is monitored through internal and external audits, and recommendations for improvement come out from audits. Such systems and procedures have been implemented in various core activities of distance education services, including teaching and learning as well management.

At UT, the opening of any new study program always begins with a needs assessment survey and a feasibility study. In addition to this, the priority of opening a study program must be in accordance with government policy and with targeted market demand. Once there is evidence of the need for and feasibility of a new study program, a task forum is created by the respective faculty who will then develop an academic paper outlining the rationale, the future competencies of the graduate, and the curriculum, including the list of courses and the course blue print. Curriculum and course blue print development is conducted in accordance with the principle of educational technology, i.e., through the process of competence analyses based on the final competence to be mastered by the graduate of the program.

The UT academic program includes a list of courses offered in a study program, a set of teaching materials, or a set of learning experiences to be accomplished by students. The UT curriculum is developed in alignment with developments in the society. Curriculum re-analysis has been carried out for all UT study programs. This activity involves external experts from other universities. In line with this process, the curriculum in each study program has become better organized with the addition of general guidelines for learning and evaluation for each course, as well as course description associated with a competency-based curriculum. As a follow up of the curriculum re-analysis, each study program has been rewritten, reconsidered and reconstituted in line with a competency-based curriculum approach.

Courses have a life-cycle of seven years, and every five years review of existing courses begin. Study programs are evaluated every five years in terms of relevance to the world of work, curriculum, design and delivery, assessment, and so forth. However, course managers in each of the study programs continuosly monitor and evaluate the program annually, so that actions can be taken to improve the programs.

Development and changes in economic strategy has effect on the development in distance education, including the role of higher education to improve human development indicator. The institution has to consider in offerring continuing education programs that directly respond to the needs of world of work.

The changing educational paradigm in Indonesia has focused on addressing important issues related to access, equaility of opportunity, and quality of education as well some aspects connected with globalisation and internationalisation. The institution developes strategic plans that should also be addressing those issues.

The effects of globalisation and internationalisation are also anticipated through enhancing ODL practices that meet international benchmark, as ODL has no geographical nor geopolitical boundaries. Such environment provides challenges for continuous improvement.

The UT is now considering changes that affect the future development of the institution. Over the next decade, there are changing student profiles from teacher students to non-teacher students. There is also a need for UT to explore the potentials of reaching younger age students. The UT has to start developing new marketing strategies to reach out more diverse groups of students.

With the rapid development of new technologies and its prospects as tools for distance learning, the UT also enhances the use of new technologies for distance learning. Future students of UT is expected to be highly technology literate. The UT obviously provides a variety of services to reach diverse groups of students through provision of a variety of student learning support services.

ODL is challenged to ensure that enrolling students into the system can finish the study program in which they are registered. A special effort is being conducted to retain students in ODL system and finish the program timely.

The number of online Magister Manajemen or MM (Master of Management) students in 2010 was 6 (0.001 %).

A total of 552 courses (52.12%) out of 1,059 courses were supported by online tutorials for students to attend on voluntary basis. The number of students participated in online tutorials was 13,609 (2.99%) out of a total 455,657 students.

The UT had 219 courses (20.68%) supported with web-based materials and 23 courses (2.17%) with drylabs, to enhance students learning. Students have open access to web based materials; however this has insignificant affect to assessment of students’ learning at the end of the semester. The UT does not monitor the number of students accessing the web-based materials.