• Evaluation and Continuous Improvement

    Even after an online course is completed and has been offered, it is important to regularly evaluate and continuously improve the course to ensure that it is up-to-date, relevant, and following current best practices for high-quality online education.

    In emergent situations requiring a rapid shift to online education from face-to-face and/or blended environments, the immediate focus is necessarily on just being able to move forward. Once the initial work of providing a course online is completed, it is important to consider evaluation and improvement.

    It may be possible, but is not necessarily the most effective or efficient path forward to further iterate on a course that was rapidly converted for emergency remote teaching in order to create a sustainable, high-quality learning experience following the crisis situation. It may be a better choice to familiarize yourself with quality standards, select the elements of your online remote-teaching course that were particularly effective or meet standards, and redesign your course intentionally for an online format.

    Quality assurance is critical in creating and maintaining best practices in online course design, teaching, and learning. There are various widely recognized sets of standards developed by different organizations like Quality Matters (QM), Quality Learning and Teaching (QLT) and others.