On July 27, 2020 11am at (Shanghai Time),the 8th online forum was successfully held through an online meeting platform named Webex Meet. There are 32 representatives from 9 countries and regions around the world attend the 8th Asia-Pacific Quality Network (APQN) Online Forum, discussing the topic of “Influence of COVID-19 on Quality Assurance: The new normal of Higher Education 4.0“.

This forum is hosted by APQN,led by Dr. I-Jung Grace Lu (from HEEACT), and facilitated by All Board Directors of the APQN. The forum focuses on six themes:

          1.Governments as key player for higher education quality assurance under the impact of COVID-19.

          2.The new normal of internationalization of quality assurance.

          3.Quality assurance of outcome-based teaching and learning: the influence of COVID-19.

          4.Digitization of quality assurance: will this be the new normal for quality assurance?

          5.Innovations in HE accreditation in an era of disruptive technologies.

          6.Reflections on new normal and strategies for quality assurance in emerging out of COVID-19 pandemic.

At the beginning of the online forum, a simple opening remark was from Prof. Jianxin Zhang, the 5th and 6th President of APQN. In the presentation, Prof.Jianxin Zhang elaborated on the damage COVID-19 has done to the quality assurance of higher education around the world and summarized the activities of APQN in fighting the pandemic.

After the opening remarks, six APQN board members, Prof. Jianxin Zhang, Prof. Galina Motova, Dr. Jagannath Patil, Dr. I-Jung Grace Lu, Ms. Farida Nurmanbetova, and Prof. Deepthi C. Bandara, respectively gave presentations on the 6 sub-topics of the online forum. The six board members’ presentations sparked heated discussion during the online forum. There were also two open discussions in which attendees expressed their views and insights.

Figure 1 6 APQN board members share their views in the online forum

The pandemic of COVID-19 Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) relentlessly spread all over the world. The COVID-19 pandemic in the globe has had profound impacts on education. In this special period, the online forum provided a timely and inclusive platform for the quality assurance communities to discuss these important topics. And every participant benefited a lot from this forum and showed their appreciation to APQN and all board members for this great forum.

To sum up, the success of the 8th online forum gave APQN great confidence: Although there are many difficulties to address the New Normal of Higher Education4.0, APQN would shoulder its responsibility and take this 8th online forum as an opportunity to further enhance the Quality of Higher Education in Asia-Pacific region!