Internet Learning Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2014 | Page 36

Internet Learning Voume 3 Issue 1 - Spring 2014
Measuring Online Course Design:
A Comparative Analysis
Jiyu You, Sue Ann Hochberg, Phoebe Ballard, Mingli Xiao, Anthony Walters
This paper investigated the differences between students' and QM peer reviewers’
perspectives of essential QM standards in three online courses. The
results indicated that both peer reviewers and students share the same point
of view in regard to evidencing the standards. However, they differed significantly
regarding three of the essential standards. Factors that might cause the
discrepancy are further discussed.
Keywords: Quality Matters, online course, design
Introduction
Online learning programs have
grown tremendously over the
last ten years. Best practices and
standards for online programs and courses
have been developed and implemented
in higher education. To ensure the quality
of online courses it is critical that online
courses are designed according to a set of
best practices or standards before they are
delivered to students. Quality Matters is a
faculty-driven, peer-review process that
is collaborative, collegial, continuous, and
centered in national standards of best practices
and research findings in online and
blended learning to promote student learning.
It has been widely-adopted by higher
education across the nation as a process
and a rubric to continuously improve online
course quality.
This study attempted to (1) validate
the instrument design based on QM
Standards to measure online course design;
(2) investigate to what degree the selected
courses meet QM standards from a student’s
perspective, and (3) identify gaps
between students’ perspectives and QM
certified reviewers’ perspectives about QM
essential standards.
The results of this study indicated
that most of the items in the instrument
were designed according to the Quality
Matters standards work to measure the design
perspective of online courses. The results
also show there are three tiers (Tier
I: to a great extent, Tier II: to a moderate
extent, and Tier III: to little or some extent)
in regard to meeting the standards in the
three courses.
The results on most of the standards
evaluated in this study provided by both reviewers
and students are the same, indicating
that both peer reviewers and students
take the same point view in regard to evidencing
the standards; however, they differed
significantly with three of the essential
standards regarding course objectives,
unit learning objectives, and grading policy.
One factor that might possible lead to
this discrepancy is that reviewers look for
solid evidencing aligned with measurable
learning outcomes while students look for
clearly articulated objectives.
A
The University of Toledo
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