Assuring Quality in Distributed Education

[Spangehl]

Higher education has to figure out, quickly, what distinguishes a college or university that can assure overall quality in the programs and courses it offers (on campus, at branch campuses or other sites, via distance education, and overseas). Some institutions do this well, while others begin a variety of programs that vary dramatically in quality. The difference between compentent and incompetent institutional management of distributed education has dire implications.

I'd like those willing to join me in this discussion to suggest the actions, procedures, processes, policies, and activities that they think characterize a higher education institution that actively controls and assures the quality of its distributed education -- in contrast to those institutions that merely wish, hope, or trust that the things done under their name are respectable.

Ultimately, if we can generate a good discussion here, I'd like to invite those who make the greatest contribution to join me in publishing our obseervations and conclusions. Being able to spell out what distinguishes effective from ineffective distributed higher education organizations will go a long way toward helping improve the quality of higher education, informing both "best practice" and public policy.

[Chris_Davis]

I have been teaching online for six years, taking online courses for a year, and my wife has taken online classes at three different institutions. (All of these are HLC schools, three of them in AQIP.)

I find that technology magnifies teaching. Good teaching becomes more clearly evident as does bad teaching. From an institutional perspective, there need to be effective processes in place to ensure good teaching. This means faculty development as well as quality controls. It also means the institution and faculty need to have a solid model of how learning occurs and how to support it.

For both individual faculty members and institutions, online instruction can be a path to a quick buck. For example, my wife is taking a class right now where the instructor literally does nothing other than post weekly quizzes for the students to take. Learning occurs by the student reading the book and taking and retaking the quiz until they can receive an acceptable grade. While students can ask each other questions, the instructor refuses to do so. That's not a lot of effort on the part of the instructor!

If we enacted this model of learning in a traditional classroom, I would think there would be a revolt! Online teaching has to be guided by an effective learning model, just as classroom teaching. When I am teaching, I am in my virtual classroom every day. Faculty have to realize that the hours spent in class and office hours in a traditional delivery are spread out across the week in an online environment.

In a similar fashion, instructors that are used to traditional lecturing may have a hard time in moving to an online environment. Lecture is a questionable pedagogical technique in of itself, and it does not transfer well to alternative forms of delivery.

This is similar to another institution that my wife did not attend. They required a face-to-face orientation for every online class and required proctored tests in most classes. As a stay-at-home mom with 4 children under 6 at home, this is not a model that fits her needs. Just as the institution needs a clear learning model, they also need a clear vision of what they are trying to achieve with distance education and what the needs of their stakeholders are to achieve this vision.

[morr6520]

I am writing this in response to Stephen Spanghel's request for discussion on the topic of quality in higher education at the AQIP discussion board site. There seems to be no good place to start a discussion of this nature because of the elusive nature of the concept of quality, so I just jumped in. Maybe I will get some good feedback on the issues that will enlighten myself as well as others.
The dynamics of the operating context/environment of Higher Education today seems to have created an emerging paradigm of quality in education. I choose the word paradigm in the sense that Kuhn used it in his postscript to the third edition of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions that is "a time-tested and group-licensed way of seeing? (p.189) or exemplars as a shortened definitions. I chose the word emerging because there appears to be no formulaic method for an assimilating a generally accepted vision of quality (or group licensed way of seeing) in higher education. Though we can ascertain the presence of certain elements in the structure and process it is then difficult to attach value or rank to those elements for a particular institution except as that institution's critical characteristics are identified and considered. Thus it seems
an institution specific emerging paradigm is an appropriate way for framing a discussion on quality in Higher Education, followed by an appropriate variation in the quality paradigm applied depending upon the context of the quality assessment.
So the AQIP criterion/categories and the PEAQ accreditation criterion become an evaluation of a particular institutional quality paradigm based on the institutions mission, core values, strategic goals and objectives, and its critical characteristics rather than the evaluation and promotion from a perspective of an over arching quality paradigm. And our judgments then become an evaluation if and to what extent the paradigm is appropriate and being applied for that institution's context. Of course this means the elements of mission etc. must be present and articulated, and the processes and data gathering must be ongoing in a search for excellence in carrying out the mission and strategy.

[morr6520]

It seems to me that when we look or talk about distributed education we should look and talk about self-directed learning or self-regulated learning, it seems to me to be part and parcel of one another and to separate them is to do violence to the complex system we are attempting to create continuous improvement in. Parallel to that thought it seems we should also treat formal and informal learning as intertwined together. In distributed education or distributed learning these four concepts are inextricabably intertwined and interwoven and in fact perhaps these are sub-systems of the complex systems that are interconnected and must be factored into any discussion of quality. With that in mind the roles and responsiblities of the student are a major part of the emerging paradigm of quality for the insitution involved in distributed education. The students self directed learning or lack therof can offset any quality or lack thereof built into the education system, whether in delivery, interaction, instructional strategy, learning activity, administration or instruction. Motivation and learning strategies would be two of the many elements inculcated in self-directed learning. Bell & Akroyd (2006) conclude that students with the greatest expectancy of success are the most successful in asynchronous online courses, perhaps because their expectancy drives them to do what ever it takes to be successful in the course, their expectancy in effect drives their self-regulation (p. 7). Thus the learner is in greater control of quality than what we might like to admit as administrators or faculty. So conversations about quality in Distributed Education must at least at some level account for the students impact on the quality of the institution whether negatively or positively. It then follows that the student population as a whole has a decided effect on quality and the institution can choose the makeup of their student population though in some cases it is mandated by a higher authority, and thus impacts their emerging paradigm of quality through these choices.

A distance education entity's choice of audience, or the audience it is stuck with as a result of whatever, neccessarily determines their quality paradigm even as the choice differentiates them from other insitutions with a different audience, or to be crass, the market segment they are pursuing. A distance education entity with a chosen or percieved audience of underserved students with limited access to higher education will have a very different quality paradigm emerging than say one with narrow (MBA) high end adult student population. Obviously, accreditation associations should look at the two from very different perspective. which demonstrates AQIP's design flexibility inherent in the AQIP approach, i.e. critical charactersitics driving the evaluation of quality and efforts directed at continuous improvement. That said, it would follow that even within an institution there would/could be several emerging paradigms of quality to match with the various critical characteristics of the insitution as a whole and those of subordinated parts of the insitution. The institution focused on quality would of neccessity be expected to have created their processes, policies, procedures, and activities in line with those critical characteristics, would need their measurements aligned with those characteristics

If we accept the presumption that specific institutions have individual and specific emerging paradigms of quality then it follows that individual departments and functional portions of the organization will also have a specific emerging paradigm of quality (recognized or not) that fits that portion of the organizations mission, values, strategic goals and objectives. Therefore, a distance education entity whether as a stand alone entity or part of another organization will have an emerging paradigm of quality that is specific to itself. With that as a given the evaluation of quality takes on a role of determining what the paradigm is and how it is applied to the specific institution, is that application valid and if so how is it working? Does the emergent quality paradigm accomplish improvement in quality in light of the organization's mission, values, and strategic goals and objectives.