Quality assurance in online learning is essential in the development process of creating an online course. Although several quality assurance processes have been developed, one of the most research supported, tested, and widely implemented is that produced by Quality Matters (Diaz and Strickland, 2009). Quality Matters (QM) is an instructor-centered peer review process designed to confirm the quality of online and blended courses and online component (Diaz and Strickland, 2009). The QM rubric emerged from a collaboration among 19 schools to develop and test standards that developed a sustainable quality assurance process that is replicable and scalable for institutions and consortia (Diaz and Strickland, 2009).
There are goals or standards to take into consideration that is beneficial when conducting quality assurance. Some of these goals or standards are the foundation of any process should be the common goal to promote student success and learning in a blended environment, the established quality assurance process should have a significant amount of instructor leadership, involvement and support, the institution, college or department implementing a blended learning quality assurance process should be overtly committed to an ongoing quality improvement process of which course peer view is a portion, the established quality assurance process should be established as a collaborative process among instructor peers designed to support one another and save time in developing and improving blended courses, and the selected quality assurance process should be based in the research literature and proven instructional design principles related to student learning blended or online learning environments (Diaz and Strickland, 2009).
In checking and online course for good quality, all players concerned (project managers, subject matter experts, instructional designers, and instructional or medial developers) should check for the content to see if it meets the goals and objectives of the course, the goals and objectives should be assessed and the course should be checked for accuracy, the learner engagement to see if there are any activities and to check if all instructions are clear and concise, to check if the instructional design of the course gives examples and scenarios in Real World situations, see if demonstrations of concepts are implemented, make sure that the use of media, any media applies and proper recourses and materials are available, accessibility to the course is user friendly, and web navigation and course management functional or works well (RMCAD, n.d.)
References:
Diaz, V. and Strickland, J., (2009). Educlause learning initiative: Unit 6: Quality assurance.
Retrieved from http://www.net.educlause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI80076.pdf
Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design (RMCAD), (n.d.). Advanced e-learning strategies:
Week 7 – presentation: Quality assurance in online learning. Retrieved from http://student.online.rmcad.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=lms.activitiesAssignment&activityId=91925&deliveryId=125489
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