To whom are you sharing/documenting the quality of your distance education programs or plans for distance education?
Quality is in the eye of the beholder:
Students (especially value accessibility, mobility, faculty responsiveness, clear LMS / expectations, employment based on degree/credential)
Faculty (ready and able support in development),
Administrators (especially value positive student evaluations, student retention during term and into follow-up terms)
Accreditors (especially evidence of comparable or better results to on-campus learning)
Employers (are graduates/completers prepared for the workplace, do they know gen AI, do they have deep knowledge of the field and future, do they possess the soft skills to excel)
Remember your key evaluators! Your success will be determined by their assessments / opinions!
Objectively
The quality of the content (up to date, relevant, includes leads to future resources)
The effectiveness of the pedagogy (responsive to the needs of your intended audiences, relevancy, connections to professionals in the field)
The level of student engagement (engagemement is important for a variety of purposes: to keep learners invested, to enable faculty to assess how connected students are, to provide opportunities for student-to-student enrichment)
The support provided to students (technological, topical, tutoring)
The overall user experience (creating a bright, optimistic attitude among faculty and students, a "can-do" approach, a positive atmosphere that students seek)
The evaluation of employers and graduate schools where the learners may pursue further study.
What evidence is available to support claims of quality?
There are decades of studies that support the premise that quality learning can and does occur at a distance. It is the pedagogy rather than the technology mode that determines quality.
Over the years, after hundreds of studies, the "no significant difference phenomenon" developed.
The No Significant Difference database was first established in 2004 as a companion piece to Thomas L. Russell's book, "The No Significant Difference Phenomenon" (2001, IDECC, fifth edition), a fully indexed, comprehensive research bibliography of 355 research reports, summaries and papers that document no significant differences (NSD) in student outcomes between alternate modes of education delivery. Redesigned in 2010 and provided as a service of WCET, (WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies), a division of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, the database was designed to expand the offerings from the book by providing access to appropriate studies published or discovered after its publication. https://detaresearch.org/research-support/no-significant-difference/
Another large study was led by Barbara Means for the US Dept of Education. In a major meta-study, it too, found that distance learning is equivalent, and in many cases better than face to face.
Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies
Means, Barbara; Toyama, Yukie; Murphy, Robert; Bakia, Marianne; Jones, Karla
US Department of Education
A systematic search of the research literature from 1996 through July 2008 identified more than a thousand empirical studies of online learning. Analysts screened these studies to find those that (a) contrasted an online to a face-to-face condition, (b) measured student learning outcomes, (c) used a rigorous research design, and (d) provided adequate information to calculate an effect size. As a result of this screening, 51 independent effects were identified that could be subjected to meta-analysis. The meta-analysis found that, on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction. The difference between student outcomes for online and face-to-face classes--measured as the difference between treatment and control means, divided by the pooled standard deviation--was larger in those studies contrasting conditions that blended elements of online and face-to-face instruction with conditions taught entirely face-to-face.
https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf
Studies still abound researching a variety of disciplines, circumstances, and conditions. Some sources:
Two of the leading journals that publish such studies:
https://olj.onlinelearningconsortium.org/index.php/olj
There are many other journals, notably discipline area journals that also have carried such articles.
How can institutions collect evidence of quality?
Conducting student satisfaction surveys
Survey students in distant classes and compare to results for on-campus sections
Analyzing student learning outcomes
Compare summative assessments.
Create portfolios of student projects in online and on-campus sections
Conducting focus groups with students and faculty
Develop a Community of Practice for online instructors and learners (consider sub-sections to allow for candid discussions)
Reviewing the feedback from external evaluators
Invite an individual or team to survey, conduct live interviews, etc. with faculty, learners and employers.
What are your current practices for documenting quality in distance education?
How Do We Identify Quality in Distance Education Leadership?
In 2015, UPCEA drafted a well-received report on Excellence in Online Learning Leadership. The tenants of this report remain relevant today:
The 7 Hallmarks of an Online Learning Leader
Advocacy and Leadership within the University: It’s all about building relationships. Those charged with leading an enterprise must build internal alliances and reflect the larger goals, values and strategies of their institutions.
Entrepreneurial Initiatives: Since online education is “inevitably about innovation, experimentation, risk, and imagination, emerging leaders must have the skills and creativity to facilitate responsible change,” notes the report.
Faculty Support: Online learning is an instructional process requiring support and resources, so an online learning leader must empower faculty with the tools they need to create equal to, if not exceeding, that of the traditional classroom. Cook noted that faculty support also includes encouraging faculty development and creativity.
Student Support: Online student must have a learning experience at least comparable to that on-campus, states the report, so an online learning leader must be an ongoing advocate for students earning their degrees remotely from their institutions.
Digital Technology: Leaders must provide an environment that is current, dependable, and rich in the creative use of tools to enhance learning, interaction, and program integrity.
External Advocacy and Leadership Beyond the University: Since online enterprises must represent their institutions to an “often skeptical public, leaders must be an authoritative voice to regulators, accreditors, alumni, members of the business community, and other,” explains the report.
Professionalism: Understanding that emerging entities need policies and practices that demonstrate the integrity of a profession still establishing itself, the report says that online learning leaders spurring online learning’s growth must exemplify the “highest ideals” and contribute to a growing professional community on a national scale.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How can you keep up with the daily developments and trends?
Ray's Metasite on Generative AI https://sites.google.com/view/upcea-gpt/
Ray's Daily Curated Reading Lists and Social Media. Blogs with daily updates on the field of online / continuing learning in higher education
Inside Higher Education - "Online: Trending Now" https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/blogs/online-trending-now
UPCEA Professional, Continuing and Online Education Update http://continuingedupdate.blogspot.com/
Economics and Change in Higher Education by UPCEA http://recessionreality.blogspot.com/
OER Update by UPCEA https://oerupdate.blogspot.com/
Ray's Curation by UPCEA https://rayscuration.blogspot.com/
Alternative Credentials in Higher Ed by UPCEA https://altcred.blogspot.com
Twitter https://twitter.com/rayschroeder
Contact Ray
rschr1@uis.edu ~ rayschroeder@gmail.com - ray@upcea.edu
Senior Fellow, University Professional and Continuing Education Assn.
Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois Springfield