Quality Resources: North America
On this page, you will find a collection of quality resources with a focus on North America.
Introduction
Ensuring quality in online courses and programs is a high priority at many institutions in North America that seek to improve student success and retention and to distinguish themselves within a highly competitive marketplace for online students. Quality rubrics, scorecards, and checklists allow institutions to benchmark quality and develop improvement plans that lead to better student outcomes. Some institutions choose to develop or adapt quality rubrics internally, while many use proprietary scorecards or one of the freely available scorecards listed below.
OSCQR Course Design Review Scorecard
The OSCQR Course Design Review scorecard is a course-level rubric for reviewing and improving the instructional design and accessibility of online courses based on online best practices. Offered in partnership with the State University of New York, OSCQR can be used to identify and target aspects of online courses for improvement. The rubric includes the following categories: Course Overview and Information, Course Technology and Tools, Design and Layout, Content and Activities, Interaction, Assessment and Feedback.
Published by: Online Learning Consortium
Date: August 2021
Language: English
OLC Quality Course Teaching and Instructional Practice (QCTIP) Scorecard
The Quality Course Teaching and Instructional Practice (QCTIP) scorecard is a comprehensive rubric that can be used for an in-depth review to validate instructional practices as compared to quality standards identified by our panel of experts. Designed to evaluate the overall classroom experience, this tool can be used to evaluate teaching effectiveness in several areas, including: Course Fundamentals, Learning Foundations, Faculty Engagement and Student Engagement.
Published by: Online Learning Consortium
Date: March 2020
Language: English
OLC Administration of Online Programs Scorecard
The OLC Quality Scorecard for the Administration of Online Programs provides benchmarks and standards to help you evaluate your online learning programs.
By using the OLC Scorecard, an administrator—regardless of size or type of institution—can determine strengths and weaknesses of their program and initiate planning efforts towards areas of improvement. The scorecard can also be used to demonstrate elements of quality to higher education accrediting bodies. Institutions can pursue a third-party, independent program review services through OLC Program Review services.
Published by: Online Learning Consortium
Date: January 2019
Language: English
OLC Administration of Blended Programs Scorecard
The OLC Quality Scorecard for the Administration of Blended Programs provides benchmarks and standards to help you evaluate your hybrid/blended learning programs.
By using the OLC Scorecard, an administrator—regardless of size or type of institution—can determine strengths and weaknesses of their program and initiate planning efforts towards areas of improvement. The scorecard can also be used to demonstrate elements of quality to higher education accrediting bodies. Institutions can pursue a third-party, independent program review services through OLC Program Review services.
Published by: Online Learning Consortium
Date: June 2023
Language: English
OLC Online Student Support Scorecard
The OLC Quality Scorecard for Online Student Support provides guidelines and best practices for institutions seeking to improve the services they provide to online learners. It is designed to assist individuals and organizations interested in providing a high-quality online student experience by evaluating student services across the institution. The scorecard assists in the identification of gaps in services and provides a pathway to improve support services for online students. Institutions can pursue a third-party, independent program review through the OLC Program Review services.
Published by: Online Learning Consortium
Date: January 2020
Language: English
Las Tarjetas de Puntuación de OLC
El concepto de “la calidad” en los programas educativos en línea puede ser ambiguo y complejo a la vez. Aun así, los educadores continúan buscando entornos de aprendizaje ideales a la vez que comparten prácticas eficaces para potenciar la calidad. Mediante un esfuerzo colaborativo de educadores expertos en aprendizaje en línea, la Tarjeta de Puntuación de OLC sigue desarrollando el campo de educación en línea al tiempo que ha simplificado los pasos necesarios para identificar, medir y cuantificar los elementos de calidad en un programa educativo en línea. Los colegiados de OLC aprenderán cómo aplicar las métricas de la Tarjeta de Puntuación, descubrirán y evaluarán los indicadores en las categorías clave, y tomarán en cuenta recomendaciones pertinentes para la implementación.
Published by: Online Learning Consortium
Date: October 2023
Language: Spanish
OLC’s Considerations for Quality Online Course Design: A Guide to Using Open Access Rubrics
This guide offers ten considerations that are consistent across online course quality evaluation instruments, including rubrics and scorecards. Exemplary criteria from five open-access course review rubrics will demonstrate these considerations throughout this guide. Use this guide to inform your decisions about your own course review practices or the course review process at your institution. You may find a rubric that works for your context as-is, or you may decide to adapt or remix with your own standards. This guide is suitable for any educator, course designer/developer, or administrator who is developing quality assurance practices for online and blended courses.
Published by: Online Learning Consortium
Date: January 2024
Language: English
Peralta Online Equity Rubric
The Peralta Online Equity Rubric is focused primarily on evaluating whether online courses are inclusive and equitable. It consists of eight different standards, with three levels of mastery (i.e, Incomplete, Aligned, Additional Exemplary Elements).
Published by: Peralta Community College District’s Distance Education
Date: October 2020
Language: English
CSU Quality Learning & Teaching Rubric
The CSU Quality Learning and Teaching (QLT) rubric was developed in 2011 and is designed to help support and identify exemplary practices for the design and delivery of online and hybrid courses. The 3rd Edition of the rubric was informed using a 23 person committee involving 11 CSU campuses. The updated rubric consists of 52 objectives organized across 9 sections. A subset of 24 QLT objectives are identified as “CORE” elements that should be present in a quality online course with the term “CORE” denoted to the right of the objective number.
Published by: California State University
Date: 2020
Language: English
QM Emergency Remote Instruction (ERI) Checklist
Quality Matters developed this tool soon after the pandemic took place in March of 2020, and it was a great quick checklist for the global community, particularly for those communities who were new to online education and digital learning, and/or did not have support or resources but had to switch overnight.
Published by: Quality Matters
Date: March 2020
Language: English
Bridge to Quality: A QM Online Course Design Guide, Basic Edition
The Bridge to Quality Guide, provides a phased approach to help HE organizations engage with course design as a thoughtful, student-focused process.
Published by: Quality Matters
Date: November 2020
Language: English
QM Research Library
A library that curate recent research literature in the pedagogy of online education, eLearning and digital learning.
Published by: Quality Matters
Language: English