STANDARDS AND INDEXES FOR EVALUATING OPEN UNIVERSITIES Open Access

This article is the second part of the research on the institutional evaluation of the open universities. The title of the first one was ‘Evaluation Standards for Institutional Evaluation of Open Universities,’ which was presented at the 22nd AAOU Annual Conference, Tianjin, China. In the previous study we discussed the definition of university evaluation and some of the controversial points in the existing evaluation. The focal point was that the existing standards and indexes are not appropriate for Korea National Open University (KNOU) as an open university, and that it is necessary to establish a new evaluating system for the university. We believe it is true of the other open universities throughout Asia and the world. In short, the present research provides the practical and effective data on the evaluation standard. It also includes some new qualitative, quantitative and modified evaluation indexes reflecting the distinctive features of the open universities. The main part of this article elaborates on 5 evaluation domains, 23 evaluation sections, 81 evaluation items and 229 evaluation indexes. These evaluation domains, sections, items and indexes result from the practical surveys and AHP and Swing analyses. The result of this research will prove a good and essential element for ranking indicators in ODE universities. At the end of the paper we add some new standards and indexes for evaluating regional campuses of the open universities, which is another important agenda for upgrading the learner support throughout the country.