ABSTRACT
In 2006–2007, as part of a project aimed at improving the Palestinian higher education system, 1 the World Bank funded a review of the Palestinian Al-Quds Open University (QOU). The University of Manitoba (UM) was contracted to undertake this review through Education Management Europe. The international external evaluation team, led by the author, comprised four faculty members from Extended Education at UM who were well-versed in open and distance education, and two Palestinian lecturers in Business Administration and Continuing Education at Birzeit University, Palestine, one of whom had taught part-time at QOU. The comprehensive evaluation was concerned with the overall operation of QOU but with a special focus on the quality of QOU’s open and distance teaching and learning.
