Select Faculty and Instructors to Attend Workshop Aimed at Producing High-Quality Online Courses

Not all online courses are created equally. The University of Arkansas faculty and instructors are working to ensure that U of A online courses are designed to meet nationally recognized quality standards and effective design.

A group of University of Arkansas faculty and instructors will participate in a workshop hosted by the Global Campus April 9 as the first step required to become certified Quality Matters Program peer-reviewers. The Global Campus will pay to fly Mary Wells, Quality Matters facilitator, to Fayetteville for the workshop, which will focus on applying a rubric of quality standards to online course design.

Quality Matters, a non-profit program of Maryland Online Inc., is a leader in quality assurance for online education in the United States. This faculty-centered program is nationally recognized for its continuous contributions to the improvement of online education. Quality Matters develops and disseminates rubrics for the effective design of online and blended courses, based on research findings on effective online learning and best practices advocated by leading distance learning organizations.

Those who complete the face-to-face workshop become eligible to take a Quality Matters online course and become certified as Quality Matters peer reviewers. Peer reviewers evaluate online courses submitted to Quality Matters for course certification, a nationally recognized stamp of quality.

Those who are competent to review peer courses also have the knowledge to apply quality standards to their own courses. Faculty who complete the training can serve as ambassadors for the Quality Matters rubric and foster the adoption of these standards across campus, for all online courses.

“I want to be able to use the QM standards as a benchmark and to serve as a resource to other faculty as we implement our new Doctor of Nursing Practice online program,” said Kathleen Barta, associate professor of nursing. “We are looking for valid ways to provide peer feedback to one another to improve our teaching efforts. Quality Matters provides an approach to design for quality.”

The Quality Matters rubric guides instructors to align the activities and assessments with the learning objectives and promote student-student, student-content, and student-faculty interactions.  It also helps faculty organize the course to enable students to spend more time learning the material and less time trying to find the material. Designing quality courses ensures that online students will receive learning opportunities and interactions that can engage students as effectively as face-to-face classes on campus.

Miran Kang, director of the instructional design and support services unit, and five instructional designers – Ken Muessig, Sean Orme, Liz Stover, Elaine Terrell and Shelly Walters – completed the Quality Matters Program peer reviewer course and are certified to review online courses nationwide.

The Global Campus invited experienced online faculty and instructors to fill the 25-seat workshop. The Global Campus subscribes to the Quality Matters Program and serves as the university’s connection to benefits offered through that program, including rubrics, best practice guidelines, research and workshops. Instructional designers are incorporating Quality Matters standards in all of the courses developed through the Global Campus, and revisions to existing courses are underway.

Faculty can contact Miran Kang for more information about applying Quality Matters standards to their online courses at kang@uark.edu or 479-575-6733.

The Global Campus supports the academic colleges and schools across campus that develop and deliver online degree programs and courses. It provides instructional design services, access to national distance education organizations, and assistance with strategic academic program development.