I was asked to do a video conferencing talk to a meeting of three Mexican Universities yesterday. They are attempting to come up with a common set of criteria to define and measure the quality of their online courses.
Perhaps I was not the best person to ask, as I have very mixed feelings about quality control systems dealing with emerging technologies and pedagogies. In particular, I hate it when quality standards impeded innovation and opportunity for experimentation. I hope I got across the complexity- if not a solution! I illustrated the challenges of defining quality by presenting the different quality measures associated with each of the Three Generations of Distance Education pedagogy from a 2011 article by Jon Dron and myself.
I did however end with a plug for one of the most respected non-profit quality consortia Quality Matters, but I fear I didn’t clearly answer my own title question – Quality Online Teaching and Learning – Is it really different than campus-based education? It Depends! – not least of which depends on the pedgaogy employed
Here are the slides I used: