ERIC Number: EJ723824
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2006-Apr
Pages: 12
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1537-2456
EISSN: N/A
Quality Assurance--Best Practices for Assessing Online Programs
Wang, Qi
International Journal on E-Learning, v5 n2 p265-274 Apr 2006
Educators have long sought to define quality in education. With the proliferation of distance education and online learning powered by the Internet, the tasks required to assess the quality of online programs become even more challenging. To assist educators and institutions in search of quality assurance methods to continuously improve their distance education programs, the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) published Elements of Quality: The Sloan-C Framework (Moore, 2002), outlining five pillars of quality--learning effectiveness, access, student satisfaction, faculty satisfaction, and cost effectiveness for online programs. Based on a relevant literature review, this article explores the reasons behind the push for online program quality assurance, key benchmarks recommended by major accreditation agencies and some best practices currently utilized to ensure online program quality standard. It serves as a starting point for distance education administrators and educators to formulate program goals and assessment policies regarding their online programs.
Descriptors: Program Effectiveness, Cost Effectiveness, Quality Control, Distance Education, Online Courses, Program Evaluation, Educational Quality, Benchmarking
Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education, P.O. Box 1545, Chesapeake, VA 23327-1545. Tel: 757-366-5606.
Publication Type: Information Analyses; Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A