Quality Management (BUS 4406) at UoPeople

I took Quality Management (BUS 4406) at the UoPeople the last term. As the name suggests, the class is really about the management of quality in the business world. In the course, you learn about various models, processes, quality improvement tools, standards, leadership, excellence, and continuous improvement tools. The class didn’t feel like anything I’ve studied before at the UoPeople.

My class had over 30 students, and not many dropped out. The class was primarily civil. My professor was from India, and she had a Ph.D. in Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior. She had been teaching at the UoPeople since 2021. She was a decent instructor and did what an instructor should at the school. I had no complaints about her.

There are three assigned books for the course. They are very dull and uninteresting ad-filled Bookboon books. You learn most of the concepts through links and sometimes from textbooks. The course is centered around Six Sigma, DMAIC, Fishbone diagrams (aka Cause and Effect Diagrams), Pareto Charts, Check Sheets, Histograms, Run Charts, Control Charts, Five S, FMEA, Taguchi Methods, and ISO 9000 standards.

The Discussion and Written Assignments are worth 10% each (or 20% in total). You write 7 Discussion Posts and 4 Written Assignments in the class. The Discussion Assignments were at times vague. Sometimes you study a case study, discuss quality improvements and standards, and at other times you try to refute or agree with people’s claims. I didn’t enjoy the Discussion Assignments, to be honest. There were probably four Discussion Posts I found interesting. Others were very dry in my opinion.

In contrast, the Written Assignments were more interesting. In the three Written Assignments, you analyze case studies. You need to draw Fishbone diagrams, Pareto diagrams, and Run Charts in the Written Assignments. The class doesn’t provide you with any resources or directions on how you can develop these diagrams in Microsoft Word/PDF environment. In other words, you’re on your own for drawing them in Word/PDF and researching how you can do so. I drew a Fishbone diagram and one of my peers gave me 6/10 by telling me I could have drawn a better one 😶. The Written Assignment 5 takes a full Statistics + Algebra turn by asking you to interpret and solve graphical and tabular data. I must say that I wasn’t prepared for it.

I also got seriously ill in Week 5 and had to deal with a nasty stomach infection for 10 days. The course load of three courses took a massive toll on me during my illness. Sometimes I only got the opportunity to submit my work minutes before the deadline. I answered all my questions for Written Assignment 5, but I wasn't sure whether they were correct. Turns out some of them were wrong. But since UoPeople is driven by peer assessment and students that rarely read our work fully, so most of my students gave me full points 😅.

The Learning Journals are worth 15% of the course. They were less ambiguous than the Written Assignments. Like some of the other courses at the UoPeople, you have to tell your instructor about your weekly activities along with answering the LJ’s questions.

The two Graded Quizzes are worth 20% each or 40% in total. You get 45 mins to answer 25 questions in each quiz. The questions were mostly on the 7 quality tools, Six Sigma, Statistical Model, EFQM Model, and Improvement processes. The Graded Quiz 6 contained a mathematical question on Six Sigma as well. The Graded Quizzes weren’t hard. I did decently on them. The Final Exam is worth 25%. The Final Exam had 30 questions, and you’ve to finish it within 60 minutes. The Final was a bit challenging. I thought I did well on it, but I only got 21/30. The Final didn’t have any mathematical questions, but I still wonder why I got so many questions wrong. I wish we could go back and see the explanation for the wrong answers. The Final was centered around Six Sigma, DMAIC, Fishbone diagrams (aka Cause and Effect Diagrams), Pareto Charts, Check Sheets, Histograms, Run Charts, Control Charts, Five S, FMEA, Taguchi Methods, ISO 9000 standard, Statistical Processes, Improvement Processes, and so on.

I ended up getting up an A-. I'm not sure what I can suggest to you to prepare for the Final. This class was nothing like I had ever studied before. I think for a Final that’s worth 25%, the school should think about at least including 45-50 questions instead of only 30. I also believe that the UoPeople can improve on this class by using a proper book, changing the curriculum, and providing more resources on developing various charts and diagrams for the assignments.