from internal evaluation to quality assurance in higher education: the case of medical education in iran

this article elaborates on the experience of higher medical education evaluation in iran. although institutional evaluation in iran started in about a decade ago, recent policies of the government to increase quality of higher medical education have contributed to a special effort in designing and implementing evaluation mechanisms in university systems in iran. among these a process of internal evaluation (ie) was designed for the medical education in 1996. it was implemented as a pilot project at six departments in three medical sciences universities in 1997. the ie aimed at i) improving teaching and learning processes; ii) contribute to development planning of departments. the results of the pilot project was so promising that it was decided to implement the ie process in more than 30 departments of, internal medicine around the country. through the ie mechanism, quality of the inputs, teaching-learning operations in practice, outputs and outcomes of the internal medicine departments were reviewed and judged against department's stared objectives. the process of the ie is based on: a) strong involvement of faculty members for the clarification of objectives and b) attempt to review the available resources of the department and prepare a departmental plan for improving the quality.