Piloting a QM-Inspired Quality Assurance Process for All Online Course Offerings at a Midsized University

This session shares the far-reaching impact a QM Consortium relationship can have on a large university campus. With more than 300 online courses offered in any given semester, finding a way to manage quality assurance is a daunting task. Faculty collective bargaining agreements can restrict what access an institution has to review faculty courses, so the university worked collaboratively with the faculty union to reach an agreement of minimally invasive online course review. Leveraging the expertise of faculty who had participated in the APPQMR and the access to QM support that a statewide consortium provides, a pilot initiative was developed to review the online courses using a check sheet, based on online teaching best practices and QM key themes. Certainly, this initiative requires a good deal of time and effort, but the process is yielding data supporting the quality of online courses and stimulating broader interest in QM resources.