Elements of Quality: The Sloan-C™ Framework, Pillar Reference Manual is the collected wisdom of practitioners who improve the quality of learning in online programs. This Pillar Reference Manual shows how schools have applied the five pillars of quality-learning effectiveness, cost effectiveness, access, faculty satisfaction, and student satisfaction in a flexible quality framework that can be used in the full range of academic contexts.

Educators have long sought to define quality in learning. Today, the powerful reach of online learning calls for proof of quality in all we do, as the emerging internet-driven economy makes educational purpose more accessible and more visible than it has ever been.

For a decade, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has guided and funded the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) of colleges with online programs. These college programs feature faculty-led, cohort-based, asynchronous interaction, and produce at least the same quality of learning that the originating institutions produce in their face-to-face programs. Sloan-C hosts channels for online educators to share knowledge about improving performance in what have come to be known as the five pillars of quality: learning effectiveness, cost effectiveness, access, faculty satisfaction, and student satisfaction.

The Elements of Quality: The Sloan-C Framework is a reference manual that draws from these channels. It illustrates the effectiveness of the pillar model with research from the Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, the Sloan-C catalog, listserv, books, workshops and conferences, and an online exchange of effective practices. The framework uses the principles of continuous quality improvement as tools for measuring progress toward the goal of affordable, accessible education for all.

As institutions make decisions about the best ways to improve quality, the framework helps institutions by making comprehensible multiple, simultaneous perspectives about value, priorities, gaps, tradeoffs, capacity management, and more. Quality, as defined by Sloan-C, is the dynamic, relational character each institution creates according to its mission and the people who embody it. The democratizing influence of online communications means the framework itself is a collaborative work in progress. Readers are welcome to contribute to its refinement as pedagogy responds to the new possibilities of information technology.

Table of Contents

I. Introduction: Being Proactive

II. The Pillars

1. Learning Effectiveness: Begin with the End in Mind
   1. Good Practice: Interaction, Timeliness, Support
   2. Personalizing Instruction
   3. People Networks, Learning Community
   4. Designing Legacies
2. Cost Effectiveness: Put First Things First
   1. Benefits: Teaching, Learning, Discovery, Growth
   2. New Costs: Infrastructure, Training, Rewards
   3. Methods and Resources: Re-thinking and Shifting
3. Access: Think Win/Win
   1. Scaffolding: Infrastructure and Course Management
   2. Learning Support Services
   3. The Future of Access: Mind to Mind
4. Faculty Satisfaction: Seek First to Understand
   1. Faculty Benefits: Diversity, Reach, Interdisciplinarity
   2. Faculty Resistance: Time, Authority, Recognition
   3. Challenges: Wise Design
5. Student Satisfaction: Synergize
   1. What Learners Want
   2. Why Do Learners Drop Out?
   3. Immeasurable Benefits

III. The Quality Framework: Sharpen the Saw

Appendix A: Pillar Reference Quick Guide

• Learning Effectiveness
• Cost Effectiveness
• Access
• Faculty Satisfaction
• Student Satisfaction

Appendix B: Effective Practices

Appendix C: References (alphabetized)

Appendix D: References (by section)

Index