Committee Members (2011-2012)

Angela MacDonald

Tom Macdonald

Jean-Pierre Mulumba

Jean-Bernard Nicolas

Matt Heller

Nasreen Latif

Recommendation #1: Faculty Adoption of Quality Matters

In an effort to establish standards of excellence for online course delivery (fully online, hybrid, or web-companion) at Roxbury Community College, the DEC devoted its Spring, 2011, monthly meetings to a close study of the Quality Matters Rubric Standards (2008-2010 edition).

Quality Matters is a national organization focused on ensuring that excellence of online education can be evaluated and measured through the implementation of a commonly accepted set of standards for online course design and delivery. After a thorough review of the education literature concerning best online practices, Quality Matters was identified and adopted for its excellence by MCO (Mass Colleges Online, of which RCC is an active member) in 2008, and MCO became a subscribing member of the QM organization. Two RCC faculty members traveled to Michigan in summer, 2010, to attend a workshop on local implementation of the Quality Matters Rubric Standards.

Among the Quality Matters strengths in its recommended standards for online course evaluation is its emphasis on peer review. The DEC believes that the QM Rubric acts as a teaching document with which RCC faculty can continually improve the design and delivery of their online courses in MOODLE through ongoing communication and collaboration.

Quality Matters suggests 8 broad standards for peer evaluation of course excellence in content and delivery: Course Overview and Introduction, Learning Objectives, Assessment and Measurement, Resources and Materials, Learner Engagement, Course Technology, Learner Support, and Accessibility. Members of the DEC studied these standards over several meetings and applied the QM Rubric Standards to several RCC online courses for evaluation purposes.

The resulting scores indicated that to meet a national set of standards for online courses, RCC must improve the design and delivery of its current online courses in MOODLE (RCC's designated VLE - Virtual Learning Environment); further, RCC must educate new online course developers in best practices for design and delivery using MOODLE. Our intent in making this recommendation is to give current and new RCC online faculty professional development opportunity by educating and assisting them in the application of a nationally accepted set of standards for online education as endgoals in MOODLE course development.

It is the recommendation of the DEC that the standards developed by Quality Matters be introduced to and approved by RCC faculty and staff. The opinion of the DEC is that by adopting the Quality Matters Rubric Standards, RCC will support growing and continuing excellence in its online education offerings and will serve its students and faculty by ensuring a nationally accepted quality of online course design and delivery.

Signed,

Members of DEC, Spring, 2011