Making transnational teaching evaluation meaningful to students and teachers.

The use of teaching evaluation, in particular student feedback on teaching, has become an integral part of quality assurance in higher education. Frequently instruments and methods that are used to evaluate courses that are offered in the home of an institution are exported to transnational programmes, on the premise that the teaching and learning situations must be the same in a particlar degree programme. With the growth of internationalisation in the higher education sector and the increase in transnational programmes, there is greater awareness that what might work at home might not work just as well when planted in a foreign environment, including the need to adapt or adjust student feedback instruments. Another factor in the quality assurance framework is the need to transform student feedback so that the student learning experience is enhanced, and this forms part of the accountability to students (Harvey Newton, 2004). This paper explores some of challenges in being accountable to students in a transmational programme and enabling academics to respond to student needs, through the appropriate use of student feedback on teaching and courses. An undergraduate commerce program is used as a case study to illustrate how the views and needs of both students and teaching staff were taken into account in making this programme available offshore.