Quality Assurance of Online Programs

Post date: Mar 05, 2019 3:21:46 PM

Credit: Quality matter organization 

Today's online education is all about quality. Although online education is sometimes thought to be a replacement of face to face training, online education is a completely different form of learning specific to individuals who just learn better at their own pace and in their own environment.  To create this environment, it requires tremendous skills to make it a great experience for students and achieve quality assurance.

Five stages of implementation lead to creating a sustainable quality assurance system that can address all aspects of the Online Learning Quality Pie.

• • • Ad hoc

      • • •In this stage, the Coordinator is encouraging faculty and staff to familiarize themselves with the Rubric, learn how the Standards are structured, and take the Applying the Rubric workshop.

        • •The goal is to start empowering people to use tools, resources, and workbooks to informally review the different components of an online course and evaluate its quality. 

    • Quality Assurance 

      • • •Quality And Compliance Are Even More Important In Online Education

        • •Compliance Should Not Be Confused With Quality (For Example, you could have an assessment tool that works well with the compliance, but if the students attempting the assessment are unable to complete the assessment well then you are not only ‘non-compliant’ but you have no ‘quality’ in that assessment tool. )

        • •Student Feedback Is absolutely necessary

        • •Use Data To Track Quality Outcomes

        • •Remember nothing in life is perfect not even a course.

    • Continuous improvement 

•Commitment to peer review and the use of feedback 

•This review process is built into an organization’s course development or yearly evaluation for improving and creating courses and involves a greater number of people including faculty who serve as reviewers. 

• • • Benchmarking 

Be certified by Quality Assurance bodies achieving this mark shows your organization’s commitment to quality assurance and continuous improvement. 

• • • Institutional Change 

•Various departments within your organization may have created committees that are dedicated to evaluating and improving the quality of online courses.

•The organization has developed appropriate policies that extend quality into other key areas of teaching and learning.

This process is designed to help you achieve your quality assurance goals for online learning as they evolve to address all aspects of the Online Learning Quality Pie.

Good Luck.