Application of standards to different program types and deliveries

HOQAS/QM was intended to evaluate the design and structure of hybrid and online courses as presented through a course’s online components, i.e., its learning management system shell. As part of the selection process of the Quality Matters rubric, stakeholders from sectors across the College were consulted; this included the faculty of Academic Development as well as the Centre for Continuing and Online Education (CCOL), the faculty which is responsible for Algonquin College’s full time online and distance offerings. Many participants drew a distinction between the types of programs offered by Algonquin College in general and the CCOL specifically, using the adjective daytime (sometimes in conjunction with full-time) to refer to the programs offered by the College in general. Though the courses being reviewed were intended to be online or hybrid, i.e. have some recognized teaching time outside of face-to-face teaching time, some of the courses submitted, included face-to-face courses. For these courses, the online course shells in the learning management system were used for the review.

There was a general consensus from all stakeholder groups that some form of quality assurance was necessary for not only the online component of courses, but the entire course. This was related to the perception that the HOQAS/QM reviews were not accurately or sufficiently capturing overall course quality, or that depending on the delivery of the course (i.e. online, hybrid, or face-to-face), some of the standards would not be applicable. Similarly, some standards were recognized as being outside of the control of some faculty members, as they related to aspects of a course that might need to be set or developed by a course lead or program coordinator (e.g. course learning requirements). Faculty also expressed the desire for the use of standards that took into consideration specific teaching methods and requirements of the different programs offered at the College; institutional leadership similarly recognized that future standards for course review processes, while potentially based off of external quality assurance frameworks, should include faculty and other stakeholders in the development process.

Though the standards were intended for use with online and hybrid courses, some faculty members found value in the application of the standards for the online presence of face-to-face courses as well as the face-to-face component of hybrid courses. In particular, some faculty members reported that developing or revising a course to meet the HOQAS standards for learning outcomes (Section 2) and measurement and assessment (Section 3) caused them to reflect on their course design, structure, and assessments used. For face-to-face courses, some faculty members expressed that while developing an online presence for their course that was standards compliant was time consuming, they saw value in it as they felt it allowed their students more flexibility for learning; designing based on the HOQAS standards meant that more course content was contained in the learning management system than they otherwise would have thought to include.