**3. Quality assurance approach**

According to Harvey and Newton [5], quality assurance mechanisms can be classified into four approaches, as shown in **Table 1**, namely accreditation, audit, assessment, and external audit (or external standards). The emphasis given in each approach is varied between systems in various countries. The objects of each approach range from institutions, courses, and programs on one hand, to provision of services and students or learning outputs on the other. The focus of every approach is also varied, and ranges from governance and regulations, through financial feasibility and qualification, to compliance and improvement. The reasons for four approaches have no clarity [5]. In many countries, quality evaluation is called as a tool for improvement process, yet the emphasis is usually on accountability, compliance and control, which constitute parts of political agenda [5, 6]. The reasons for four approaches lie in relativist perspective (fitness for purpose) [7]. For example, the tendency to pursue summative and formative objectives, and use quantitative and qualitative performance indicators at the same time can be found in every external audit. From the four approaches, audit and accreditation are the most popular in the world. When examining the forms of quality assurance mechanisms applied in many countries, it is clear that accreditation is an important approach in Western and Eastern countries. It becomes more universal than other approaches [8], particularly after the 1999 Bologna Declaration. Another main quality assurance mechanism in Western countries is audit; for example, in UK, institutional audit is encounraged by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA).

In Ministerial Regulation of Education and Culture No. 3 Year 2020 concerning National Higher Education Standards and Ministerial Regulation of Education and Culture No. 5 Year 2020 concerning Study Program and University Accreditations, it is also set that in addition to being measured from the fulfillment of each higher education standard, study program or university quality should also be measured from the fulfillment of interaction between higher education standards to achieve the objective of higher education. The national higher education standards aims at:


1. ensuring that the achievement of objectives of higher education which play a strategic role in enlightening the life of the nation, advancing knowledge and

### **Table 1.**

*Four approaches to quality assurance [5].*

technology by applying humanistic values and sustainable culturalization and empowerment of Indonesia as a nation;


Under the Ministerial Regulation of Education and Culture Number 3 Year 2020 concerning National Higher Education Standards, it has been established that:


*Knowledge Management in the Indonesian Higher Education Internal Quality Assurance System… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101874*


Internal quality evaluation need to be performed continuously to ensure continuous quality improvement (CQI) is applied to universities [9]. Improving quality culture serves as an important step that universities must take. This should be implemented in synergy between the study program, faculty, and institution administrators.

The internal quality assurance system belongs to publicly available quality assurance policies and is part of strategic planning [10]. Internal stakeholders must develop and apply this policy using the right structure and process, while involving external stakeholders [10]. Institutions need to have a process to design and approve their programs. Programs need to be designed to fulfill the previously set objectives and desired learning outputs. It is important to ensure that programs are conveyed in a way which encourage students to take an active role in creating a learning process. Universities should consistently apply the regulations they have determined and issued which cover all phases of educational process. In the case of teaching staff, universities need to ensure their lecturer's competence and apply a fair and transparent process in recruiting and developing their staff. They need to have the right amount of fund for teaching and learning activities and ensure that adequate and readily accessible sources of learning and student supports are available. Institutions need to ensure that they collect, analyze, and use relevant information for an effective management of their programs and other activities. Universities need to publish information on their activities, including their programs, which should be clear, accurate, objective, up-to-date and readily accessible. They also need to monitor and periodically check their programs to ensure that they achieve the predetermined objectives and respond to student and community's needs. Every action which is planned or taken as a result should be communicated to all stakeholders. Finally, universities in Indonesia should pass through an external quality assurance (accreditation) procedure, in line with the quality assurance cycle.

## **4. Research procedure**

Knowledge management in the indonesian higher education internal quality assurance system model requires several steps in its process. The procedure is developed by Gall & Borg [11]. Those development stages are simplified into seven steps, namely: (1) Literature study; (2) Need analysis; (3) Preliminary research; (4) Preparing initial model design; (5) Limited and expanded trial; (6) Preparing hypothetical model; (7) Model validation. The seven steps are classified into 3

### **Figure 1.**

*Procedure of knowledge Management in the Indonesian Higher Education Internal Quality Assurance System Model.*

(three) stages, namely: (1) preliminary study and model design stage; (2) model development stage; (3) model validation stage. Preliminary study stage is conducted to achieve the first objective, the model development stage to achieve the second research objective, and the model trial stage to achieve the third research objective (**Figure 1**).

The process of this research implementation and development of knowledge management in the Indonesian higher education internal quality assurance system model forms a cycle which begins with a preliminary study. The preliminary study consists of three steps, namely: (1) literature study on university quality assurance; (2) analysis of university's needs for knowledge management in the Indonesian higher education internal quality assurance system model; and (3) field study. The preliminary study was conducted to find the model design. The preliminary study was conducted in six universities. This preliminary study produces a factual model.

The next stage is model development. In this stage, the factual model design is based on review of literature and previous studies which is then developed by the researcher to be a hypothetical or constructive model.

In the third stage of the development model process, the hypothetical or constructive model is consulted with higher education quality assurance experts and practitioners in a focus group discussion. Upon this expert and practitioner validation, its weaknesses will then be discovered and, thus revisions can be made to this hypothetical model.

The revised hypothetical model was then tried for its validation to be examined and developed into a final or worth-implementing model. The model was validated via a focus group discussion which involved experts from universities and relevant quality assurance institutions and five model user practicioners. To figure out the model validity, a validity test, or research objectivity test was conducted [12]. A study is considered objective when it is agreed upon by many people.

### **5. Data analysis and discussion**

The qualitative data was analyzed continuously since the beginning through the end of the study. The technique to analyze this data refers to the descriptive analysis using Miles and Huberman's interactive technique, which include such stages as: (1) data collection, (2) data reduction; (3) data presentation; and (4) verification/conclusion drawing [13]. The result of qualitative data analysis was used to describe: (1) the planning and implementation of university internal quality assurance system; (2) university and its stakeholders' response to the internal quality assurance

*Knowledge Management in the Indonesian Higher Education Internal Quality Assurance System… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101874*

system development model; and (3) result of internal quality assurance system trial and focus group discussion.

In addition to descriptive data analysis, quantitative data analysis is also used to support the study result. This is done to discover the questionnaire result. From the scoring result, a maximum score was set in the form of percentage at 100% weight and a minimum score at 0%, and the respondent's score was expressed in percent.

This study on knowledge management in the Indonesian higher education internal quality assurance system model was performed in 3 study stages: (1) the first stage was to create a factual model, (2) the second stage was to create a hypothetical model, and (3) the third stage was to test the final model.

### **5.1 Factual model**

In its implementation, an internal quality assurance system consists of 3 aspects, namely IQAS planning, implementation, and evaluation. This study was conducted in six universities. A preliminary study was conducted to build a factual model which was focused on such aspects as IQAS planning, implementation, and evaluation. The technique and tools used to collect data were documentation, observation, interview and questionnaire distribution.

The questionnaire was prepared with 10 questions of planning elements, 10 questions of implementation elements, and 5 questions of evaluation elements, making a total of 25 questions. To test the reliability of the questionnaire used in this study, validity and reliability tests were carried out to 30 respondents from the six universities.

The factual model of this study was developed through experts' criticisms, suggestions, and result of data collection in universities. The factual model in this study was developed based on Tirawat Yemsang [14] where his model was developed through a preliminary study on state of knowledge management. This study was also in line with a model from review of relevant previous studies [15]. Furthermore, he analyzed and synthesized the collected model elements. Also, this study was completed by validating, trying out, testing its efficiency, and then revising the model [16]. The developed factual model was based on the study findings as shown in **Figure 2**.

The planning aspect of private university's internal quality assurance system above shows that it has not had a good quality standard yet, as indicated by the absence of baseline data and partners as well as the lack of stakeholders' commitment to develop a good quality culture. As a result, the process of planning quality assurance at the study program and university was not in sync, leading to less optimum accreditation result.

As for its implementation aspect, since its planning is not too good, the quality assurance document only served for accreditation purpose without having been applied as an implementation of a good quality culture ever. This was worsen by the fact that the accreditation did not measure in detail the quality standard applied in the university, how the quality standard was implemented and how the quality was audited. This led to a less optimum accreditation result.

No quality evaluation had been conducted. If any incidental quality audit was performed, its result had been used as a consideration for improving the quality standard, rendering the implementation of internal quality assurance system unable to result in an improved performance at the study programs and university.

Similar findings between this study and previous studies [17–22] are derived from the following factors.

1.Education standard specification allows all members of internal staff to make adjustment with their special responsibility.

## **Figure 2.**

*Factual model of higher education internal quality assurance system.*


*Knowledge Management in the Indonesian Higher Education Internal Quality Assurance System… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101874*

### **Figure 3.**

*General model of higher education quality assurance.*

8.Promoting sustainable educational quality improvement is a factor needed to develop and assess educational quality assurance system performance.

To follow the whole process of preparing the factual model, the researcher thoroughly reviewed the steps in the designed factual model. Concepts and theories on creating and developing evaluation instruments were studied. The concept of factual model development and evaluation instrument of higher education internal quality assurance system implementation [23] which emphasizes four standard evaluation tools; utility, feasibility, propriety, and accuracy standards as well as the implementation of internal quality assurance system at STKIP Singkawang [24]. The results of this study are in line with Davies' concept of indicators and evaluation criteria [25] and and the development of university internal quality assurance system [26]. The evaluation criteria in this study are classified into scientific, performance, and value criteria. The evaluation model approach is consistent with the six approaches [27].

The characteristics of evaluation instruments must have validity, reliability, discrimination, objectivity, difficulty, being a model, inquiry, fairness, and efficiency [28]. It was found that most of the internal quality assurance systems evaluated were at "medium" level. This is in line with the results of external quality assurance (accreditation results). It can therefore be concluded that this is because most universities did not fully implement the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle. They also lacked a follow-up and audit systems as well as awareness of the importance of internal quality assurance.

### **5.2 Hypothetical model**

Quality assurance can be described as systematic, structured and continuous attention to quality in terms of maintaining and improving it. Developing quality and sustainable universities is about the university's efforts to ensure its quality. One of the tools in quality assurance is its quality assurance development model [26]. Higher educational institutions have developed their own approach to quality assurance (**Figure 3**).

A quality assurance system in universities has three elements: a) internal quality assurance, including monitoring instruments, evaluation instruments and activities aimed at improvement; b) external quality assessment, including benchmark activities, external audit or external quality assessment; and c) the special element in the quality assurance system is accreditation.

### **6. Knowledge management approach**

A broader definition of knowledge is the thorough use of information and data that is aligned with an individual's potential abilities, competences, ideas/

**Figure 4.** *The knowledge management [29].*

thoughts, commitments and motivations. In other words, knowledge is a human understanding of something that has been obtained through the process of their learning and experience. Currently, knowledge is seen as a commodity of intellectual assets that have different nature from other commodities. What make knowledge different from other commodities are Using knowledge will not make the knowledge itself disappear; Communicating the knowledge to others will not make the knowledge giver lose it; Ability to utilize knowledge is still highly limited while the knowledge itself is vast; Most valuable knowledge of an organization ends just as the day ends.

Knowledge is divided into two, namely tacit and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is knowledge from experts, both individuals and communities along with experiences. Tacit knowledge is extremely hard to share with others, thus the phrase "We know better than what we can say". Meanwhile, explicit knowledge is something that can be expressed in words and numbers and can be conveyed scientifically, specifically, manually, and so on. An example of comparison between tacit and explicit knowledge is when a child can find a picture of his father or mother in a photo containing dozens of people. However, if the child has explained the characteristics of his parents, other people might not necessarily find them.

Knowledge management cycle is a phase that describes the capture, creation, codification, sharing, accessing, application, and reuse of knowledge within an organization. The synthesis of the approach that will be described will be built into a framework for turning information into a valuable knowledge asset for the organization. The synthesis of the approach to be described will be built into a framework for turning information into a valuable knowledge asset for the organization.

Knowledge management cycle describes a framework of a knowledge management process, i.e. how an organization generates, maintains, and deploys an appropriate strategy to create value for existing knowledge (**Figure 4**) [29]. Each process in this cycle is explained as follows.


*Knowledge Management in the Indonesian Higher Education Internal Quality Assurance System… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101874*


To gain knowledge, paying attention to the basis of that knowledge is necessary. The basis of knowledge is data that is processed into information and this information is processed further into knowledge. Data is a set of characteristics, facts or events. Information is a message generally in the form of a document or communication that can be seen or heard. Knowledge is a combination of experience, values, and contextual information, the views of experts that provide a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information.

The study findings were then developed in the following stages:


Meanwhile, the elements of IQAS planning in universities are based on the documents that must exist in the development of IQAS in universities, consisting of:


The implementation elements in IQAS development are:


Finally, the evaluation elements of IQAS in universities comprise:


Following Bukowitz and Williams's knowledge management cycle, processes are well defined, documented, and executed, and the results are measured and continuously evaluated for improvement. A better understanding of how the process works, makes it possible to see the corrective actions and improvements needed. Whenever a corrective action is required, its implementation method should be determined. This should include identifying and eliminating the root cause of the problem (such as errors, defects, or lack of adequate process control). The effectiveness of the actions taken need to be reviewed. Applying the corrective actions and verifying their effectiveness should be as planned. When the planned process results are achieved and requirements are met, the organization should focus its efforts on actions to improve the process performance to a higher level, on an ongoing basis.

In this study, qualifications were determined for expert who validated, criticized, and suggested improvements to the developed model. The developed model was refined based on the analysis and synthesis of data collected through documents and interviews during the research process. To measure the model feasibility, the model feasibility frequency test was also carried out. The developed model was improved systematically. This systematic improvement has a positive impact on the model's fitness and completeness.

The data in the hypothetical model development were obtained from theoretical studies and previous research, and the factual model of IQAS in universities. The data reliability and validity were tested using triangulation with experts in a focus group discussion. The data were analyzed using data collection, data reduction and data presentation. The hypothetical model that this study developed was depicted in **Figure 5**.

An implementing-worth model developed out of the knowledge management in the Indonesian higher education internal quality assurance system model should be tested for its feasibility and reliability. The model was tested by: (1) developing the test instrument; (2) testing the instrument validity and reliability, and (3) testing the model validity.

Expert and users' perceived results were used as a meaning- and decisionmaking on the quality of knowledge management in the Indonesian higher education internal quality assurance system model product, using 5-scale achievement conversion rate.

The third stage of this study process is the validation of hypothetical model resulting from the FGD. This validation stage aimed to test whether the resulting model was feasible to implement or not. The model was tested by developing a

*Knowledge Management in the Indonesian Higher Education Internal Quality Assurance System… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101874*

**Figure 5.**

*Knowledge Management in the Indonesian Higher Education Internal Quality Assurance System Model.*

questionnaire distributed to 7 education management experts, quality assurance experts, quality audit experts, as well as quality management and audit practitioners and 25 model users from 5 Indonesian Educational Personnel Education Institute (LPTK) or teacher training institutions/universities. The 7 experts and 25 respondents using the knowledge management in the indonesian higher education internal quality assurance system model perceived that the model was highly feasible/valid or did not need any revision.

This means the knowledge management in the indonesian higher education internal quality assurance system model, in these 7 experts' opinion, was worthimplementing since it fulfilled the (1) propriety standard as measured from the scientific, performance, and value indicators, and (2) accuracy standards as measured from such indicators as standard content quality, and sequence of internal quality assurance system process depicted in the final model. Meanwhile, the users of knowledge management in the indonesian higher education internal quality assurance system model from the 20 universities rated it from such aspects as: (1) utility standard as measured from such indicators as; model design, the ease to operate the model; and (2) model feasibility standard as measured from such indicators as resources, expert involvement, and time.

The following discussion is focused on approach to model development, model formation and system upgrade [30–34]. Universities have more approaches in this case. Series of quality standards or various excellence model are acknowledged as most frequently used possibilities. People can argue that universities cannot be managed as an industrial company or that applying quality standard is not required. Another finding of this study shows that this method is helpful [25–35]. However, it is important to realize the fact that every organization must have some management systems. Furthermore, quality management system meets all principles and regulations of general management, such as leadership, customer orientation, process approach, fact-based decision-making, and so forth.

The previous study confirmed that Quality Management Excellence Model provided a general framework and managerial language in quality management field, which is also easy to understand. It can be used to compare the performance of higher education institutions in all fields of interest, using similar assessment framework. This allows higher education institutions to focus on certain areas for the next improvement and change. This also supports all higher education institutions to assess how good they actually are compared to other universities, and

whether they really are "better or best in their class" in terms of educational quality, research activities, and community services.

Based on the data analysis above, it is found that all IQAS experts rated the model as excellent for all assessments which include propriety, accuracy, utility, and feasibility of knowledge management in the Indonesian higher education internal quality assurance system model product. Therefore, according to these IQAS experts, the knowledge management in the Indonesian higher education internal quality assurance system model is highly feasible/valid or does not need for any revision since its utility aspect is scored 100% and its feasibility is scored 88%, which are classified as excellent.
