Majan University College, General Foundation Program Quality Audit, Mar 2019
 
Dr Ali Hamdan Al Balushi
 
Dr.Ali Hamdan Al-Balushi previously held the position of Assistant Dean forInstitutional Support at the College of Banking and Financial Studies(2005-2020). The areas of his interest and experiences included areas ofinternational relations, public administration, higher education and training,as well as assessing higher education institutions. He obtained a Bachelor`sdegree from the University of South Carolina in the United States of America1989, a master’s degree in public administration from the American Universityof Egypt 2001, and a doctorate in management from the University of SouthamptonUK. 2017. He has a record of administrative and leadership experiences indifferent ministries before joining the college. Dr. Ali is an academiclecturer who teaches various subjects such as Human Resources Department,Public Administration and public Finance. He attended many training courses,seminars and conferences on management, higher education, leadership, humanresource management, budget control and quality management. He is a trainer inleadership and personal skills (negotiation skills, customer relationsmanagement, customer service and behavior skills. Dr. Ali has a researchinterest in the field of leadership and quality for private higher educationinstitutions in Oman to create an enabled environment in these institutions.His book has been indexed entitled "Creating an enabled environment ininstitutions Private Higher Education in Oman "in both the Library ofSultan Qaboos University and also the Library of the National Defense College.He also has experience in local development, management and quality managementprograms. Dr. Ali Al Balushi is a member of Omani Academic AccreditationAuthority and the Quality education in Oman since 2010. He is also a member of TheArab International Foundation for Education Development, based in the HashemiteKingdom of Jordan.
 
Prof. Colleen B Liston
 
Colleen Liston held senior positions, including University Secretary and Director of International Planning and Quality, at Curtin University until August 2006. Dr Liston is a private consultant on tertiary education quality assurance, accreditation and standards. She has been involved in tertiary education since the late seventies (Health Sciences), and in quality management and international education issues since the late eighties. Her PhD researched “The Structure of Educational Accreditation”. She has published widely on health science research and managing quality and standards; presented at workshops on self-review and quality auditing activities; briefed senior university staff and given invited keynote papers on these topics at major international conferences in Australia; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Edinburgh, United Kingdom; Santiago, Chile; Auckland, New Zealand and Beijing, China. Colleen is an ISO Auditor, an Australian Business Excellence Framework Evaluator and a Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) [previously Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA)] Auditor. She was on the panel which undertook the inaugural AUQA audit, was involved in preparing for AUQA’s first audit of Curtin University, chaired the first dual sector AUQA/AQTF audit of RMIT University and has chaired and been on a number of other university and non-self-accrediting institutions’ audit panels in Australia and overseas. She was a member of the Editorial Board for AUQA’s Occasional Publications. Professor Liston was appointed by the Minister of Education in Western Australia to chair higher education accreditation committees (HEACs) and as the inaugural Chair of the HEAC Chairs’ Forum. She serves as a Subject Specialist for the US Distance Education and Training Council Accrediting Commission. Colleen undertook a review of the procedures for accreditation of higher education courses for the New Zealand Vice-Chancellors’ Committee and is on the register of auditors for the Hong Kong, New Zealand, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain Governments’ Quality Management Agencies.  She has conducted independent reviews for a number of Australian universities in relation to internationalisation, academic governance, standards and benchmarking. 
 
Dr. Hala Deeb Obaid
 
Dr. Hala Obaid currently works as a Senior Review Director/ Consultant/Advisor, Academic Affairs at the Directorate of Higher Education Reviews at Education &Training Quality Authority (BQA) in the Kingdom of Bahrain. She has acted as a Review Director for several institutional and programme quality assurance reviews for all Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) operating in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Since 2018, she has been selected by The Oman Academic Accreditation Authority (OAAA) to act as a chair for several General Foundation Programme audit visits in Oman, as well as being an external moderator. She also works with The German Accreditation Agency (AQAS) in auditing College of Arts and Social Science at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman. She has presented several workshops conducted by BQA to HEIs covering areas related to writing effective self-evaluation report, reviewing processes for both HEIs and auditing panel, institution and programme review frameworks and training local reviewers. Her PhD Degree is in Linguistics from University of Essex, UK. Her thesis tackled issues related to effective Business English Writing, employability skills and bridging the gap between industry and academia by focusing on lifelong learning skills and genre analysis from professional and linguistic aspects. Prior to joining the BQA, she was the programme coordinator for all Business English courses offered at UoB. Her interests are around enhancing quality assurance in HEIs, genre analysis, and enhancing students’ writing skills and lifelong learning skills to easily inject them in to the workplace.