Ensuring quality in online education is important to all stakeholders at any educational institution. Establishing and maintaining consistent quality control within online programs is not an easy task, nor one to be taken lightly. At the outset of such an initiative, an administrator must ask: What is quality? How does the institution's view of quality match up with a student's view of quality? How do we ensure quality across courses, programs, or schools? At Bay Path College, our Center for Distributed Learning (CDL) is responsible for developing and enforcing course design quality standards and works in conjunction with Academic Affairs to ensure the quality of course content and the alignment with the prescribed learning outcomes. Online course quality, as we define it, consists of well-trained faculty, clear and consistent syllabus and course format, and continued partnership with faculty during course delivery. We ensure that new faculty understand the capabilities of the learning management system as well as the highly interactive and supportive online learning environment at Bay Path College. We stress uniformity in course design and structure to ensure that students will have a consistent experience from one course to the next while still allowing instructors to have academic freedom in determining the content, assignments, and activities within their courses. Finally, we provide on-going, continuous support to our faculty ensuring that the well-developed course is delivered in a high quality manner. One of the first steps that the CDL takes to ensure quality is the facilitation of a required orientation for new faculty. Bay Path College prides itself on skillfully preparing its online instructors to deliver and facilitate engaging, outcome-oriented online courses. To that end, all new faculty members must participate in an 8-week long, facilitated orientation that focuses on online learning pedagogy, sound course design principles, and course development. Faculty members have the opportunity to learn about the learning management system, pedagogical aspects of online learning, and to interact with their peers, exchanging experiences and best practices. CDL staff members facilitate the orientation and provide support to faculty throughout the experience. The strong partnership between the CDL and online faculty begins during the Orientation. During this period, CDL staff works closely with online faculty to make sure they are aware of the prescribed format for their syllabus and course, understand why these requirements are in place, and assist them with setting up the structure of their course. This format is an element of course design and navigation and is intended to improve the overall student experience and not to take away the faculty member's academic freedom. We provide instructors with a syllabus and course template, both shells that faculty members can build from. Our syllabus template ensures that important information, such as institutional policies and how to obtain support, is imparted to students while empowering faculty members to develop their weekly course outlines and grading structure as they see fit. Our course template contains the basic structure of the course (i.e. weekly folders, standard course resources, etc.) Faculty members can then "fill in" the shell with any activities they choose and teach in the manner they wish. Once courses are developed, they are given a comprehensive review by CDL staff. Each time an online class is offered at Bay Path College, whether it be the first or subsequent course run, it is reviewed against a uniform set of criteria, including the utilization of introductory material (including an icebreaker activity) and discussion forums that encourage critical thinking. The CDL utilizes syllabus and course review checklists to maintain consistency in the review process. These checklists help to ensure that each syllabus and course adheres to the standards set for consistency. Our syllabus checklist accounts for items such as pre-requisites, learning outcomes, technology support information, methods for determining the student's final grade, tutoring information, weekly course schedule, and grading rubrics. Our course checklist accounts for items such as the presence of discussion forums, consistent course structure (weekly overviews, etc.) assignment details and a functioning grade book. We also use these checklists as a vehicle for our feedback to our faculty. We frame our reviews and suggestions around helping faculty and students have a successful online course experience. If a course under review happens to be a new offering, the CDL partners with subject matter experts in Academic Affairs to review the new course for satisfactory content and to ensure the institutional learning outcomes for the course are met. Academic Affairs will forward their suggestions for the course along to the developing instructor and the CDL works with the instructor to incorporate these suggestions, if needed. Once both Academic Affairs and the CDL have approved the course, it is considered "student-ready", but the process does not end there. Quality assurance and support continues beyond the orientation and development process. While the course is being taught, the CDL staff continues the supportive partnership by checking in with the course at key points and assisting wherever issues or obstacles may arise. CDL staff are also available to assist online faculty with issues and concerns surrounding the technical aspects of course delivery (i.e. grade book, assessments, etc.) as well as with the implementation of tools such as Elluminate and Turnitin into their classrooms. Faculty are also encouraged to refer student support issues to the CDL so they can maintain their focus on delivering the course content. Conference attendees should expect to learn about the advantages of maintaining a multi-faceted quality initiative that emphasizes consistency and support beginning at orientation, continuing with course design, lasting through course delivery, and beyond. Additionally, conference attendees will be encouraged to share their own best practices with the group and explore other ways that online course quality may be encouraged at their institutions as well as the barriers that might exist to the implementation of such quality initiatives.
