Quality Standards for Distance Learning

Quality Standards Task Force

Updates

Aug 3, 2007. Here's the language recently approved in the US Senate related to distance education course quality and distance student identification. It still has to be considered by the House. For more, search for S.1642 at http://thomas.loc.gov/

SEC. 491. RECOGNITION OF ACCREDITING AGENCY OR ASSOCIATION.

Source: Barry Dahl, Lake Superior College

References & Resources

Please contribute or reference resources for existing Standards or Peer Review systems. Also, click on the "files" tab above for additional standards documents.

George Marquez

Quality Matters
I am involved in the district's Quality Matters program as a reviewer and look forward to sharing my thoughts on this initiative with you.
http://www.qualitymatters.org/

Oregon State University
Background: OSU - Extended Campus quality standards target on quality and also allow for the improvement of existing online courses. The model focuses on 45 points of quality online course instruction.
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/coursedev/models/id/standards.htm

University of Massachusetts
ENSURING QUALITY IN ONLINE HIGHER EDUCATION COURSES
This article has identified 24 benchmarks in online courses. This is an article and pages 11 and 17 seem to hit on the heart of the matter.
http://www.umass.edu/senate/adhoc/online_report_full.pdf

Indiana Higher Education Telecommunications System
The Indiana Partnership for Statewide Education (IPSE) identified in 1999, the need for a principles that they believe defines standards for distance education. It’s interesting to compare those with what we are looking for in 2006.
http://www.ihets.org/progserv/education/distance/guiding_principles/

WEBIT: What Constitutes Quality in Web based Training?
This site is a checklist of value statements can be used to objectively measure quality according to the Author. I think that I like the rationale guide presented here. Also, there are 22 value statements about online courses.
http://www.webbasedtraining.com/primer_quality.aspx

Complied Document

James Andrews

Blog for the 2006 Penn State Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology (April 2006): http://symposium.tlt.psu.edu/?p=87

Note from James (7-12-06): I was to do a comparison of the following documents, or at least try to do such:

1. SACS Best Practices
2. SREB Standards for Online Professional Development
3. SLOAN, Relationships between Interactions and Learning in Online Environments
4. US Dept of Education , Evidence of Quality in Distance Education Programs . . .
5. Quality Matters: Inter-institutional Quality Assurance in Online Learning (QM)
6. Florida Gulf Coast University Principles of Online Design (FGCU)

The attached document, using QM as the template, is a “melding” of the QM and FGCU rubrics as related to course quality. The other 4 documents either had items that are addressed in the attached in one way or another, or they were more institutionally driven and were therefore not considered as they confused what I understood the purpose to be.

I hope that this is of some use to us. I made efforts to NOT include items that may be considered to be content expert-focused. If nothing else, I have at least made myself familiar with some of the items in each of these documents.

Taking the six documents, here's a rubric for discussion:

I. On-line course and Academic Requirements

• Minimum technology requirements. (QM)
• Minimum student skills, and, if applicable, prerequisite knowledge in the discipline, are clearly stated. (QM)
• Prerequisite knowledge in the discipline (QM)
• Any skills needed are addressed. Students are asked about current proficiencies, especially in regards to computer skill level. (FGCU)
• Course goals are clear and appropriate. (FGCU)
• Students are provided information as to where to get technical help.
• Provide opportunities for students to practice and master the technologies needed to interact with one another. (FGCU)
• Students receive orientation to practice posting in discussion forum, submitting to drop box, taking online exam, and using any other type of technology that will be utilized during the course. (FGCU)
• Set up a section of the bulletin board specifically for student interaction to allow students to talk about any areas of interest. (FGCU)

Kevin Lemoine

Here are links to some resources compiled by the Teacher Quality Grant Advisory Committee which is charged with developing an evaluation tool for online professional development modules:

A brief document produced by The Sloan Consortium summarizing some research conducted on interaction in online courses:
http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/books/interactions.pdf

SREB standards for online professional development:
http://www.sreb.org/programs/EdTech/pubs/PDF/StandardsOnlineProfDev.asp

USDOE "Evidence of Quality in Distance Education Programs from Interviews with the Accreditation Community”:
http://www.itcnetwork.org/Accreditation-EvidenceofQualityinDEPrograms.pdf

Quality Matters: "Research Literature and Standards Sets Support for Quality Matters Review Standards:"
http://www.qualitymatters.org/documents.htm#tools (Select the Matrix of Research Standards)

Commission on Colleges, Southern Association of Colleges and Schools: "Best practices for Electronically Offered Degree and Certificate Programs:"
http://www.sacscoc.org/pdf/commadap.pdf

Mickey Slimp

One of the resources I recommend is the research page for the Instructional Technology Council, particularly at: http://www.itcnetwork.org/reports.htm#Quality%20Assessment

A series of assessment tools available on the page may be accessed directly if you scroll down to Ensuring Course Quality with a Peer Review Process Ivy Tech State. The Ivy Tech folks presented their peer review process during an ITC webinar a couple of years ago and it was quite thorough.

Proceedings from a European Union Conference on Quality Standards for Distance Learning can be obtained from: http://lttf.ieee.org/icalt2004/eqo/eqo_post_workshop_proceedings_joensuu.pdf

Rob Robinson

Chico State University has a good resource entitled "ROI: Rubric for Online Instruction". It can be found here:
http://www.csuchico.edu/celt/roi/

MnSCU, the Minnesota system that includes all higher ed (except U. Minn), has put together this meta-list of quality rubrics:
http://www.oit.mnscu.edu/pages/qualitymodels.htm

Meeting Notes

June 17, 2006

Members present: Mickey Slimp, Chair; James Andrews; George Marquez; Rob Robinson.

Discussion: A review of the resources listed on this Wiki led the group to a strategy of identifying common elements in the varying systems to serve as a basis of the future discussion. Prior to the next session on July 12, the participants will share, by e-mail list or wiki, their assessment of the various elements.

Concern was expressed that the group strike a balance between proactively promoting quality while avoiding an intrusive approach and remaining respectful of academic and intellectual freedoms. Following the example of Maryland's Quality Matters project, an outcome was discussed that this project consider options for funding an elective peer review process among some of the state educational collaboratives in Texas.

July 12, 2006

Members present: Mickey Slimp, Chair; James Andrews; George Marquez; Rob Robinson.

Discussion: The meeting opened with a look at a proceedings publication on European Standards that is now on the Wiki. One of the elements included the concept of protecting "diversity" within courses, including a concern that a strict adoption of "Quality Matters" might limit diversity. The group determined that we should restrict ourselves to "baseline" concepts, meaning that we outline minimum standards as opposed to the master courses.

James reviewed his group of publications and standards to look for common factors. Most elements seemed to be institutionally rather than course driven.

Rob proposed that we should be creating a systematic approach for looking at a course but should not be a part of the Institutional Planning process. The group agreed that the only element that may go into the IRDE might be a statement that the Institution has a process for reviewing course quality such as the THECB Recommendations for Quality Instruction (not a real item); Quality Matters; an internal review process, etc. Rob again recommended moving slowly into making it a part of the IRDE.

Following the Rubric provided by James the group agreed to spend the time between this meeting and the next reviewing the proposed areas for standards, considering additional standards, and detailing the baseline for each. Each participant agreed to submit their information in paragraph form by e-mail or upon this wiki in the meantime.

Two additional meeting times were set:

August 23, 2006

Members present: Mickey Slimp, Chair; James Andrews; Rob Robinson.

Discussion: The group reviewed the task and took a look at two items placed on the Wiki within the login section - an update on the Quality Matters initiative and the requirements for distance programs offered to the military.

In preparation for the September 12th meeting in Austin, it was decided that Mickey would develop a statement to be recommended for the IRDE, requiring a Yes or No that the institution has a method for reviewing and approving individual courses with rubrics of quality considered for areas such as interactivity, student workload, or course navigation. This committee would conclude its work with the September meeting but would recommend a new task force to continue reviewing existing rubrics and making their analyses available to Texas institutions.

The final group meeting was confirmed for Wednesday September 6th at 11:00 am to finalize the report for the full DEAC.

September 6, 2006

Members present: Mickey Slimp, Chair; James Andrews; Kevin Lemoine.

Discussion: Immediately prior to the meeting, Mickey distributed the proposed statement for the IRDE as:

The institution has a process for reviewing the quality of and approving individual courses giving consideration to areas such as interactivity, student workload, or course navigation.

Within the discussion, the group modified the statement to read:

The institution has implemented a process for reviewing the quality of and approving individual courses.

The changes were made with the thought that an institution would define their own areas of quality without limitation or restricting it to specific areas of concern.

Related to the final report to the committee, Mickey will:

1. Discuss the process used by the committee, including the collection and review of various rubrics of quality and their usage, both in state and nationally.
2. Share the information on the rubrics identified, including a discussion of resources available on this Wiki.
3. Discuss the proposed addition to the IRDE.
4. Propose a new task force to develop a Website sharing various guidelines and rubrics for colleges to review.

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