Quality Assurance in Online Education

Quality Assurance in Online and Blended LearningPatrick Kiely, Office of the Vice-President for Teaching and Learning

UCC and Online Learning

• Organic development initially

• Now a strategic priority

• Pilot Programme – 24 Master’s Degree Programmes in 3 phases over 4 years

Pilot Programme 2012-2017

• Academic Council e-Learning Subcommittee

• Income Generation Group

• Develop standards and guidelines for online and blended learning

• Identify issues and take steps to resolve these

Programme Approval Process

• Outline Programme Approval

• Full Programme Approval

• Major Changes to Existing Programmes

• Minor Changes to Existing Programmes

• Office of Academic Programmes and Regulations

• http://www.ucc.ie/en/apar/

Quality Assurance – Suitability for Online Delivery

Income Generation Group (IGG) Selection Group•Programme Quality and Design•Innovative Online/Blended Programme characteristics •Feasibility•Market Research •Sustainability•Contribution to College and University strategy

http://www.ucc.ie/en/teachlearn/vp/tel/onlinecourses/

Programme Development Work Packages

• Pre-Development• Stakeholder Engagement• Programme Selection• Programme Content and

Delivery Design • Prgramme Content

Development• Programme Deployment • Programme Delivery • Programme Review and

Evaluation

Quality Assurance Standards

• Following the Path of the Student - Student Centred

• Pedagogical Focus• Universal Design for

Learning• Accessibility

(international good practice)

• Modern web standards • Mobile friendly

QA: Recognition of Iterative Development

• All standards may not be achieved in Year 1

• Roadmap to standards compliance for following years

• Iterative development of content and pedagogy

Assessment of Learning Outcomes

More continuous (formative) assessment

Less end of year exams and written

More active learning

Mitigates issues of student identity verification

Review and Evaluation

Module evaluation a more frequent and less onerous imposition

Fortnightly 4 question surveys

For additional information

Patrick Kiely Project Manager, Technology-Enabled-Learning Coordinator,Office of the Vice-President for Teaching and Learning,University College Cork Patrick.Kiely@ucc.ie

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