Establishing a Quality Review for Online Courses

Since the inception of online learning in the 1990s, innovative technology and pedagogy have broadened access to higher education. Many colleges and universities remain concerned about the issue of quality for online educational programs, however, especially compared to face-to-face delivery. Quality issues often manifest as discussions on teaching effectiveness, faculty-to-student ratios, attrition rates, student satisfaction, and institutional resources invested in online delivery. Distance or online education programs must develop and maintain quality educational options to successfully compete with conventional academic offerings — institutions cannot maintain a competitive edge solely from innovation of the online delivery format. The quality of online programs lies at the heart of the effort to attract more learners to online learning and to provide them with comparable — if not better — education quality than they can get by attending classes on campus.