The SIAE has been developing fields and indicators in adult education for a full decade. The first systematic collection of quality fields and indicators that educational organisations could use in the self-evaluation processes was published in 2003 as part of the Offering Quality Education to Adults project. Many educational organisations that took part in the OQEA project planned their self-evaluations between 2001 and 2013 following this concept. After more than a decade of use of the model, the need for its reform and upgrade became apparent.   

In accordance with the belief that the quality indicators to be used for external quality assessment must also be reconsidered, the SIAE carried out an extensive theoretical and empirical study in 2007 and 2008 called Creating national standards and quality indicators, and internal and external quality assessment in adult education. We published the results in the monograph Adult education quality development. The study showed we also have to consolidate development work in creating collections of quality indicators that can then be used in external quality assessments.

This is why between 2011 and 2013 we began a task in which we: 

• reformed the quality areas and indicators for the OQEA self-evaluation model and studyed the possibilities for their use in different areas of formal adult education;
• determined which indicators we can sensibly use in the self-evaluation processes and in external quality assessments (accreditation, external evaluation).

Reformed collection of quality indicators in adult education was published in 2013 and presents a result of re-thinking of the first collection of quality indicators, published in 2003, which has been the core of the Offering Quality Education to Adults (OQEA) self-evaluation model.

 We can use the reformed collection of quality indicators in adult education for internal quality assessment and development in the adult education organization (self-evaluation, self-assessment) and for external quality assessment and development in the adult education organization (external monitoring, external evaluation, accreditation).

Reformed collection of quality indicators in adult education is available at: https://arhiv-kakovost.acs.si/doc/N-1077-1.pdf.