There and Back Again: Reshaping Online Course Quality Assurance on a College Campus

Concurrent Session 6

Session Materials

Brief Abstract

In 2007, our institution adopted Quality Matters and online courses had to meet QM standards. In 2018, our institution dropped all university-wide requirements for online courses. In 2021, our institution mandated that each college implement online and hybrid quality plans. We will share the solutions that several colleges have instituted.

Presenters

Lead Presenter: Deborah Mixson-Brookshire, Kennesaw State University

Deborah Mixson-Brookshire has been a full-time faculty member at KSU for more than 18 years. During that time, she served KSU students and the campus community not only as a faculty member but also as an Assistant Dean and Director of Distance Learning in University College. Additionally, she has earned several certificates, including one in instructional design. To create an engaging classroom experience for her students, Deborah incorporates innovative experiential education tools, including distance learning, to ensure students achieve course outcomes. Her publications include myriad articles focused on her research interests: experiential learning, student success, and distance learning. Her national reputation has garnered her invitations to facilitate national and regional workshops at which she has shared her research and pedagogical methods in experiential and distance learning with colleagues throughout the country. Deborah is also a frequent presenter at international and national conferences, giving presentations that share her passion for teaching, student success, and distance learning.

Co-presenter: Tamara Powell, Kennesaw State University

Dr. Tamara Powell is the Director of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences Office of Distance Education. She is an alumni of the OLC Institute for Emerging Leaders in Online Learning and a mentor for the OLC Online Teaching Certificate Program. She enjoys working with faculty as they translate their face-to-face teaching genius into an electronic experience.

Co-presenter: Natasha Habers, Kennesaw State University

Natasha Lovelace Habers is the Assistant Chair of the Department of First-Year and Transition Studies at Kennesaw State University. She is an Associate Professor of Art with twelve years’ experience teaching within first-year programs and seventeen years’ experience teaching studio art. Her research interests focus on a variety of topics related to the enhancement of first-year student engagement and learning. Her current research explores the way technology, specifically the online learning environment, might be used to foster and/or enhance student creativity.

Additional Authors

Extended Abstract

There and Back Again:
Reshaping Online Course Quality Assurance on a College Campus

 

Our university is one of the 50 largest public institutions in the southeast United States, offers more than 70 online degrees, certifications, and endorsement programs and more than 500 online courses.  Additionally, the university has more than 35,000 undergraduate and graduate students representing 142 countries.

 

This Session:

 

The purpose of this presentation is to share our challenges and strategies as we navigate the “new” normal to ensure continued quality within our online/hybrid courses.

 

At the end of our session, participants will be able to

 

1. Describe online and hybrid course quality assurance systems in general.

2. Name two nationally known online course quality assurance systems.

3. Explain the challenges one institution had in moving back to a course quality assurance system.

4. Describe the strategies faculty and institutions can use to transition (or transition back) to an online course quality assurance system.

 

In 2007, our institution mandated all online courses be QM approved before they could be scheduled—and all faculty teaching online had to be QM certified. In 2018, our institution dropped all requirements for online teaching. Some colleges kept QM. Some colleges moved to other systems such as the OSCQR Course Design Review Scorecard. Some colleges dropped quality assurance entirely. In 2021, our institution announced that each college would develop a quality assurance plan for online and hybrid courses (hybrid had never been addressed before) that would ensure faculty were trained to teach in these modalities and courses met federal guidelines for accessibility and engagement.  This presentation will share the different approaches taken by several of the 12 colleges at our institution. Additionally, we will share the approaches used to support faculty in this ever-changing environment course modalities.  

 

Not only has our environment changed as a society, but our student demand for online learning has also increased, whether it is out of necessity or a desire to have more flexibility.  At our institution, we had an estimated 60% f2f course and 40% online/hybrid course offerings each semester to accommodate student needs, but since this 2-year pandemic, the needs and desires of our students have changed. After an informal survey of a small group of students, the balance seems to shift to 50% f2f and 50% online (with 10% of that being hybrid). At our institution, during registration, our online courses will fill first with an active waitlist, and there will be seats available f2f.  So, we must learn how to meet the “new” needs of our students.  Furthermore, we have learned during this time, many faculty are not comfortable with teaching in the online/hybrid environment and prefer f2f.  So, how do we achieve a balance to meet the needs of the students and faculty?

 

Challenges and Strategies

 

We will share the challenges and strategies we used as a step forward to ensure quality online/hybrid courses for our students.  Furthermore, we will provide various approaches and insights that we engaged in during the past 2-3 years to focus on the “new” normal.

 

Session Outline:

We plan to introduce ourselves, welcome the audience, and then get to know the audience better with some questions delivered via Slido:

  1. Does your university have a standard tool(s) to review online and/or hybrid courses?
  2. Is/are your standard tool(s) centralized or decentralized?

Faculty perspective:

In this presentation, a faculty member will share their experience weathering these institutional shifts and changes from a department that has continued to use QM.

Challenges include the loss of incentives to create and update online courses and to keep the courses compliant with the changing QM rubric. Strategies include creating template (formerly known as master) courses and continually collecting data to ensure that the new strategies are supporting the “new normal” of students needs and demands.

Administrative perspective:

In this presentation, an administrator will share their experience weathering these institutional shifts from a college that created a homegrown course quality assurance system. Challenges include supporting faculty in this transition to a new course quality control system. Strategies include use of Microsoft 365 to manage the course review process and use of student assistants to evaluate courses for accessibility.                   

Breakout Groups:

  1. Share the tool(s) you utilize to review online and/or hybrid courses.  What are the shared standards within your group?
  2. Share how your college/university ensures quality for online and/or hybrid courses?
  3. What are strategies and challenges in supporting faculty teaching in and online and/or hybrid course?
  4. What type of support for distance learning can be transitioned to future professional development opportunities?

We will collect the answers from the breakout groups and share the best ideas and answers via Twitter.