Standards in Online Education

Online courses should be expected to be held to the same high quality standards as traditional in-person courses. This means that time and resources should be allocated to create the best possible course experience for learners. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Well-planned and organized course design
• Completing all pre-planned course content and activities before the first day of class. You may want to design in some flexibility for certain parts of your course – just make sure this flexibility is intentional and not due to lack of planning.
• Content that is well-written, fully edited, and professional in tone.
• Focused content that is not excessively time-consuming.
• Use of Open Educational Resources (OER) where possible.
• Professionally created graphics that enhance and add to the content; no distracting extraneous graphics.
• Use of well-written and edited scripts for all video production.
• Professionally recorded and edited videos.
• Captioning and transcripts for all video content.
• Professionally created video graphics, slides, and animations.
• Well-attended social media outlets.
• Consistent and frequent communication from course instructors.
• Timely response to participant concerns.

Online Teaching and Learning Standards: Quality Review

An important step in any creation process is the evaluation of the final product, or quality assurance; and this is true for course design as well. All online courses are generally expected to be held to the same high quality standard of traditional in-person courses, especially at institutions that are accredited by any external accreditation group or board. This means that time and resources should be allocated to create the best possible course experience for learners.

What, or who, determines elements of a quality course? Rather than reinvent the wheel, a popular option is to utilize quality standards that have been developed by nationally recognized organizations, such as the Quality Matters Rubric or the Online Learning Consortium (OLC) Quality Course Teaching and Instructional Practice Scorecard. Once you have decided which standards you would like to follow, it is important to implement them during course design, rather than checking for them at the end of course design.

Implementing quality standards into a course can yield benefits for both the instructor and student. For example, in regards to course design (layout, organization, and navigation), participants rated courses with high findability as a better overall experience. Students reported lower levels of self-efficacy and motivation after interacting with courses rated low in findability (Simunich, Robins, & Kelly, 2015). When it is clear to learners how to navigate the course, where to find materials, and how to submit assignments, learners have to ask fewer procedural questions and the course is easier to manage for the instructor. The instructor could even have more time to provide quality feedback to learners (of which learners crave) versus spending time answering procedural questions.

Some questions you will see addressed in popular quality standards are listed below. This list is a very high-level summary – there are many more details to consider within these topics. For example, the Quality Matters rubric has 43 standards and the OLC Scorecard has 97 standards.

Course Design

• Is navigation clear and logical?
• Are course materials organized well, with no clutter or distracting elements?
• Is the design of the course consistent from week-to-week?
• Is it easy for learners to find what they need?

Course Objectives

• Are all course objectives measurable?
• Is the course content and assignments aligned to the course objectives?

Clarity

As a note, clarity is an important component of online course design which will be covered more in Chapter 5. In contrast with in-person courses, online learners cannot seek immediate clarification for instructions that are not understood. A delay in clarity can cost online learners valuable time. Therefore, you will see many standards that reference being “clear” or “clearly stated”.

• Are course and institution policies clearly stated?
• Are learners given all course information at the beginning of the course?
• Is how to use the content clearly explained?
• Are assignment instructions and expectations clear?
• Is the overall course grading policy and grading for individual assignments clear?

Engagement

• Are opportunities for engagement with other learners, the teacher, and the content built in to the course?

Student Support

• Is information provided about the technology required in the course, as well as how learners can get help should technical problems arise?

Accessibility

• Has course content been formatted for accessibility?

Policies and Requirements

All online courses offered through any institution or company will be required to adhere to all applicable institutional or corporate course policies and requirements. There may also be a specific group in charge of regulating online course quality at your institution or corporation. But even if there is not one specific group in charge of regulating course quality for you, you are highly encourage to follow all suggestions in this manual and to seek out feedback from trained instructional designers. Additionally, you will be expected to know and adhere to all policies and requirements of any service that you utilize in your course (Blackboard, edX, Google, Facebook, WordPress, etc.). Please be sure to familiarize yourself with any service you wish to use before using them.

Your Course Design Team

Creating an online course can be a major undertaking that will require a large team of people. Unless your institution currently has anyone working on course design full time, your team will consist of people who are working on your course in addition to other duties. If your institution or company does not provide team members for you, you should consider recruiting from people whose normal job duties cover various aspects of online course creation (as their workloads allow). This team will include, but is not limited to:

1. Core Design Team:
   1. All Course Instructor(s) and Subject Matter Expert(s) (if not the same people).
   2. Instructional Designer(s) trained in learning theory to assist in designing content.
   3. Graphic Designer(s) to create necessary graphics (most courses require at least a few).
   4. Faculty and Administrative Personnel that may have a role in supporting, reviewing, and approving courses.
   5. Library Support Personnel to help locate pre-existing resources for your course.
2. Media Creation Team (please see the video chapter section on the time requirements for video creation to ensure that you have recruited enough people with enough available time to create the amount of video desired):
   1. Video Script Copy Editor(s) to assist in preparing scripts and transcripts.
   2. Videographer(s) to professionally record videos.
   3. Video Editor(s) to create final videos from raw recordings.
   4. Video Graphic Creator(s) for any animations, graphics, slides, etc, you wish to have added.
   5. UX Specialists and other Technical Positions for creation of any media elements that are not just text based (games, websites, etc).
3. Content and Design Assessment Team (see the “Design Assessment & Review” chapter for more details):
   1. Content Reviewer(s) to provide feedback on content.
   2. Design Reviewer(s) to provide feedback on the overall course design.
   3. Quality Analysts such as course quality analysts, copyright reviewers, editors, and content specialists from the library.
4. Optional Team Members:
   1. At least one Social Media Manager to run social media outlets behind the scenes (see the “Utilizing Social Learning in Online Courses” chapter for more details).
   2. As least one Accessibility Specialist should review your course tools and materials for accessibility standards.
   3. Guest Experts for videos or online sessions, if desired.

Possible Hosting Platforms

Your institution or company may already have a platform (sometimes called “LMS” for “learning management system” or “CMS” for “course/content management system”) for hosting courses that you are required to use. For a traditional online course, these could be something like Canvas, Blackboard, or Moodle. Additionally, there are other options out there, including using open source platforms such as WordPress to host content. If you do not have one of these services as an option, there are a few possibilities to host content:

• WordPress: WordPress offers free services to anyone that wishes to set up a website at wordpress.com. Click here for more information on how to use WordPress as a classroom. 
• Moodle: MoodleCloud is an affordable option for hosting a course in Moodle.
• Reclaim Hosting: If you want a flexible option to use WordPress, Moodle, Drupal, or any number of other open source programs, Reclaim Hosting is a good service made by educators for educators.
• Blackboard: Blackboard offers a free online course hosting service.
• Google Classroom: Google also offers a place to put classes online at Google Classroom.

*Much of this chapter was adapted from https://uta.pressbooks.pub/onlinelearning/

Chapter Questions

1. Why is it crucial for online courses to be held to the same high-quality standards as traditional in-person courses? What are the benefits and challenges of adhering to standards for both instructors and learners?
2. How can the use of nationally recognized quality standards like the Quality Matters Rubric or the OLC Quality Course Teaching and Instructional Practice Scorecard enhance the online course design process? Why is it important to implement these standards during the course design phase rather than as an afterthought?
3. Explain the significance of clear and organized navigation in an online course. How does it impact learners’ experience and overall engagement? Provide one example of how an organized course design can lead to better outcomes for both instructors and students.
4. Why should instructors take extra care to ensure clarity in their online course materials and instructions?
5. Describe the role of engagement in online courses. How can instructors incorporate opportunities for engagement with peers, instructors, and content? How might such engagement contribute to a more enriching learning experience for online learners?