COLLABORATING TO INFUSE Equity INTO ONLINE COURSE QUALITY 

Our project aims to create a series of equity practices that connect online course design standards with inclusive teaching practices. To help faculty and instructional designers implement these practices, we are annotating 54 Cal State inclusive teaching practices. Each annotation supplements quality course design standards with guidance on addressing equity.

Experts Creating Openly-Licensed Equity Practices

We are equity experts, instructional designers, online faculty experts, and staff from 68 institutions and organizations across the United States (as well as Canada and Brazil). We are collaborating to create a set of equity practices associated with the major online course quality rubrics. We are also categorizing the resulting practices, and aligning them with current online course quality rubrics, such as OSCQR, QLT, and QM. The practices will be openly licensed and freely available. Plus, they will be dynamically presented based on the categories and standards of specific online quality rubrics.

Equity Collaborative Contributes to Quality Online Teaching & Learning

Targeting online teaching and learning environments, the equity practices will assist institutions, instructional designers, and faculty to inform, influence, and ensure equitable and inclusive online teaching and learning environments.

• Introduce Yourself: Share your personal and professional background, challenges you've overcome, and pivots you've made in your career. Be vulnerable and use voice, image, and video to convey a fuller sense of yourself.

• Get to Know Your Learners: Ask learners to introduce themselves and/or respond to a questionnaire. Review the items and connect with your students in authentic ways based on what you learn about them.

• Use Videos: Use videos to allow for more face-to-face interaction with learners, creating a more personal connection and fostering a sense of belonging.

• Be Present: Engage with learners, ask them questions, and be open to answering questions and modeling for them how to explore thoughts and feelings safely and appropriately. Let them know when they can expect to hear from you by stating when you will post announcements, provide feedback on assignments (and where to find it), and hold office hours. Make it easy for learners to contact you by including this information in your syllabus, and provide options such as a virtual room link for office hours and a discussion board for questions. Also, state your expected response time to queries so learners know when they can expect a reply.

• Encourage Feedback: Encourage learners to provide feedback on the course content and structure, and be responsive to their suggestions. This can help to create a sense of ownership and investment in the course among learners.

• Respond Promptly: Respond promptly to learner questions and concerns, and show a genuine interest in their progress and success. This can help to build trust and establish a positive relationship with learners.

• Incorporate Collaborative Learning Activities: Incorporate collaborative learning activities that require learners to work together in small groups or pairs. This can help to promote teamwork and create a sense of shared responsibility among learners.

• Provide Meaningful Content: Consider learners' experiences and interests when selecting course content and resources. Use feedback to connect with them personally by expressing interest in their ideas and investment in their successes.

By implementing these strategies, you can establish a positive rapport with your learners and create a supportive and engaging learning environment. Check out Faculty Focus

• Offer specific, actionable practices 

• Address course design and facilitation considerations separately

• Provide examples and/or scenarios of how the techniques help the needs of specific students

• Align OSCQR, QLT, QM, and CVC-OEI rubric standards to the annotations

• Include citations to the theories and research supporting equity practices

• Provide metadata tags for exploring the annotations in ways distinct from online course quality standards

• Be openly licensed and freely available

Project Leads:

Jeff Suarez-Grant

Sally Baldwin 

Alexandra M. Pickett

Ashlie Kauffman Sarsgard

Analyst, Equity Repository & Keyword Strategy: Lin Lin

Where we stand

• We have formed thirteen workgroups composed of experts in equity, online instructional design, online teaching.

• As of April 2025, we have revised/annotated/drafted 85% (46/54) of the equity practices.

• We are categorizing and organizing the practices according to various quality rubrics.

• Plus, we are spreading what we have learned, 

  • WCET Virtual Summit Elements of Quality Digital Learning, April 2022 – Panel on Online Quality Frameworks and Rubrics

  • Peralta Equity Conference, April 2022 – DEI Online Inclusive Teaching Practices Collaboration 

  • OLC Accelerate 2022, November, 2022 – Collaborating to Infuse DEI into Online Course Quality For All

  • 10th Annual SLO Symposium, January, 2023,  DEI in Online Learning

  • OLC Innovate 2023, April, 2023 (virtual conference) – Collaborating to Infuse DEI into Online Course Quality For All

  • Peralta Equity Conference, April 2023. DEI Collaborative: What Have We Learned? 

  • 9th Annual UDL CAST Symposium, July 2023, UDL: The Base of Equitable Online Course Quality

  • Online Learning Consortium (OLC) Accelerate Virtual 2023, October 4, 2023, DEI for All

• 1st Annual Conference SUNY Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice in the Curriculum Conference Building a Community of Practice, November 4, 2023. Inclusive Online Learning Environments: A National Collaboration to Support Online DEI for All

• 2023 QM Connect Conference, November 2023

• Recognized as an exemplar in the Accessible and Inclusive tools and Processes category of the 2023 Horizon Report | Supporting the Holistic Student Experience Edition

• Recognized as an exemplar in the 2024 Horizon Report | Teaching and Learning Edition

Collaborators

Join the Equity Collaborative!