Suggested Elements for Review of Online Instruction
The Suggested Elements document provides a set of guidelines to consider when reviewing online course instruction and can be viewed in PDF or Word formats.
The concept of this tool is that it would provide useful feedback to the faculty member delivering the course. It is not designed to be rigid or prescriptive, but rather to be informative, helpful, and constructive. A corollary experience would be that of having a manuscript peer-reviewed prior to publication in a professional journal. The procedure followed may vary by academic discipline, but the intention is to provide constructive review for the overall benefit of the profession. These suggested elements for review might be used for self-review of a course, peer review, or formal departmental review.
These "Suggested Elements for Review" are compiled from literature, research, and published best practices from professional organizations including the Sloan Consortium, WCET (Western Cooperative in Educational Technology), and NUTN (National University Telecommunications Network). One primary source has been the Quality Matters (www.qualitymatters.org) project, sponsored in part by the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), U.S. Department of Education, through Maryland Online. Special thanks to doctoral student, Rick Aman, for his help with initial drafts. A literature review is available upon request, describing sources for the best practices standards.
These elements for review of online instruction are divided into seven sections with suggested review standards in each section. We encourage revision and adaptation of these elements to fit the needs of the situation and the academic department. Although these elements have a solid basis, please do not view these as "set in stone," and do feel free to adapt them to increase their usefulness to you.
As a service to the departments who provide online curriculum, Ecampus will gladly participate in review teams, as requested by the department chair, to work toward our common goal of providing quality instruction to OSU students. In this case we would recommend that this review of instruction be completed by a team made up of one or more content experts assigned by the department, an expert in online course design and instruction from Ecampus, and perhaps another successful online instructor in the same content area or in a related area. It is suggested that the team (1) have a preliminary meeting with the instructor to review the syllabus, learning outcomes, and course design, (2) use this instrument to form the basis of a thorough review of the course online, and (3) summarize the outcome in a discussion with the instructor and department chair.
OSU Extended Campus welcomes your suggestions for improving this evaluation tool. We are also interested in knowing how this process has worked for you and if it has proven to be helpful.
