Quality goes online - New challenges for distance education

In an era of competition in a global education market where distance education methods are growing in use via the Internet and quality assurance is taking on greater importance, the means and rationales for ensuring quality in online education in universities is under-theorised. This paper describes current debates within quality assurance and online delivery in Higher Education in Australia and discusses five perspectives of quality and their implications for online distance education. Considering these perspectives as particular discursive formations it is possible to construct new understandings of both quality education and the role of online delivery in the future of teaching and learning. These understandings are then tested by critiquing two recent contributions to the field of quality assurance of online education.