Commerce and management courses delivered online for distance education students at Southern Cross University are 'way ahead of the pack' when it comes to doing distance education, according to auditing lecturer Steve Rowe.
Mr Rowe said the School of Commerce and Management was the first university department in Australia to have voluntarily put itself through the rigorous quality assurance assessment process offered by the Quality Matters™ Program (QM) – an international leader in quality assurance for online education.
Head of the review process, Fulbright specialist in distance education Dr Kelvin Bentley, director of Online Learning at Northampton Community College, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and an accredited QM online course reviewer and trainer, was hosted by the School of Commerce and Management last month as part of its course review process.
"The QM process is designed to certify the quality of online courses and online components," Mr Rowe said.
"Universities and colleges use the tools in developing, maintaining and reviewing their online courses and in training their faculty staff members."
Adopted by more than 400 higher education institutions across the United States and Canada, QM supports academic institutions in developing a quality assurance process through research-supported standards of best practice in online course design.
Dr Bentley said QM had created a web-based, fully interactive procedure using a set of 40 specific elements distributed across eight broad standards, by which to evaluate the design of online and hybrid courses. The eight broad standards include areas such as course overview and introduction; learning objectives; assessment and measurement; resources and materials; learner engagement; course technology; learner support and accessibility.
His work involved conducting informal reviews of six online and blended units or courses and giving faculty feedback about how well these units aligned with QM standards. He also gave presentations about the QM process and hosted a SCU Elluminate users group, for staff using the Elluminate platform to deliver online content.
A 2008 Elluminate Centre of Excellence recipient, Dr Bentley offered plenty of experience to share with staff, including some great suggestions on how to include off-campus students during the Orientation process, by inviting them to participate in real-time events and meet with their new lecturers online.
"Although this review has highlighted that we already do distance education extremely well – and our students often tell us that – there is always room for improvement," Mr Rowe said.
He said it was affirming to receive a student comment such as this one sent to him by student Sharlina Mead: "I am so grateful for distance education and the great way it is delivered at SCU – otherwise people like me who do not have time to physically attend a university would never have the opportunity to obtain a degree or would be largely disadvantaged by not having continuous contact with teachers and other students. So thank you again for always being on hand to answer our questions and for delivering the content in such a way as we do not feel intimidated by any of the lessons."
Updated: 08 April 2010
