All the resources and knowledge to design and customize every aspect of an effective online education program.

Learning House Delivers New Tool

Since the inception of online learning, educators and administrators have asked the question, “What makes a quality online course?” Numerous studies have focused on answering this question, but much like its face-to-face counterpart, online learning has yet to distinctly identify any one component that would automatically denote a quality online course. Instead, the question is often answered with what can only be described as “a collection of online best practices.”

The growing consensus in online learning is that several factors affect course quality, including content, strategies, technology, assessments, evaluation and support included in the course. Online course rubrics available today typically assess components related to many, if not all, of these factors. The Learning House, Inc. has been using such a rubric since 2003 to assess courses it owns and develops. This year, Learning House is expanding and applying the rubric to courses developed by its partner institutions, so they can assess the intrinsic quality of each course in their online programs.

The new rubric, titled the Quality Review Form, assesses online courses based on 45 quality standards that are grouped into levels ranging from 1 to 5. With each level, the standards become increasingly specific so that even the most intricate of course elements can be assessed. This approach to reviewing quality allows instructors to incrementally improve their courses while receiving appropriate consideration for the course elements they have successfully prepared.

In addition to providing faculty and institutions a useful tool to measure their online course quality, the Quality Review Form can also be used to effectively plan the development of an online course. Learning House partner institutions can set a target quality level for any course in any program or use the default quality level Learning House assigns to the institution.

Each level is based on a unique formula that considers a client’s experience in online learning, the frequency with which a course is taught, and the role of a course in a program (e.g. core, elective or major). Once set, Learning House Publishing Specialists use the target quality level to identify key components the course must include. Those key components are then communicated to the instructor as a part of required course elements and consulted upon throughout the development of a course.

The goal of the Quality Review Form is to help Learning House partner institutions deliver the best possible online programs. When institutions use the review form to set goals for the design of online courses and then review the scores to measure the success of those goals, the Quality Review Form becomes a valuable tool in demonstrating an institution’s continual improvement efforts to accrediting bodies. Such tools can cost institutions hundreds of dollars per course, since the assessment is a complex and resource consuming process. Learning House provides this tool, free of charge, to its partner institutions.

For more information on the Quality Review Form, contact your Relationship Manager.

To become a Learning House partner, please contact our Sales Team.