Week 5 - Quality Matters

This week was an interesting week looking at the rubrics for assessing a online course and determining what essential components a Quality online course should have. Specifically we looked at this rubric critically and commented on some elements that were present in the rubric but not in our online syllabus. We were then asked to comment on why we thought that this missing element was important. Later in the week we looked at our online syllabus we had designed few weeks ago and using the rubric, improve our syllabus. This was then presented on the discussion forum whilst colleagues gave constructive criticism on how the given syllabus could be improved.

Key Points

• Chicos Rubric for Online Instruction (ROI) is a framework that addresses the fundamental question - What should a quality online course look like?. This ROI can be used by online instructors to self assess their course. ROI can also act as a road map for creating a new online course.

• The other key point is the specific areas that an online instructor should look at while trying to improve their online syllabus. The 6 specific areas are: 

1.) Learner Support and Resources
2.) Online Organisation and Design
3.) Instructional Design and Delivery
4.) Assessment and Evaluation of Student Learning
5.) Innovative Teaching with Technology
6.) Faculty Use of Students Feedback.

 Resources

 http://www.csuchico.edu/roi/the_rubric.shtml
 This is the website that has the ROI. Very useful to self evaluate your online course against this.

http://www.ion.uillinois.edu/initiatives/qoci/webrubric/webexample.asp#top
This rubric is very user friendly which divides the rubrics in 6 modules: - Instructional design, Communication, Interaction and Collaboration, Student Evaluation and Assessment, Learner Support and Resources, Web Design and Course Evaluation. This is very similar to Chico's ROI but has more subheadings and explanations. The Illinois Online Network also offers online instructors with courses to develop online instructors skills and knowledge to teach effectively online.

https://www.qualitymatters.org/
The Quality matters is also a rubric like others which outlines 8 general standards and 41 specific standards used to evaluate an online course. The rubric appears as a PDF document which can be downloaded if you sign up on the webpage. Its an interesting rubric as it gives points for each of the 41 specific standards which then help you 'self evaluate' and determine the quality score of your syllabus.
 

Reflection

Evaluating ones online course syllabus using the ROI was an interesting activity as it made me realize some of the essential elements that were missing in my course outline. The one deficit I picked out was that my syllabus did not have a section on netiquette which I felt was important to include..mainly to set the ground rules for communication. Also I felt that I may not be giving my online learners enough feedback so they can know where they are going wrong and can improve accordingly.
Interesting lot of my other colleagues also felt that they could improve in this aspect.
Spurred by one of the discussions on the forum I looked at how I could engage my online students and get them to participate. Its true that the culture of the Pacific is one of 'silence' especially as a sign of respect to their teachers. This becomes counterproductive in an online environment because open communication is the key to the success of an online course.
I have tried a variety of ways but then there will be always some students who will not participate....this poses a great challenge for the online instructors.
I feel that the goal for us is to create a course that keeps our students' attention and encourages them to be interactive. This will only happen when the interactive course has relevant subject matter. If the instructor fills his/her course with irrelevant information, students can quickly lose interest. In this context, its essential that the course information is valuable and can be applied outside of the virtual classroom. 

 Now, time for a light moment:)