2015 Annual Conference

Keynote Panel: Becoming Competent in Competency-Based Education: What Is It and What Is Driving This Growing Movement?

Experts will address competency-based education (CBE), including the universal design principles quality programs share. The panel will discuss key features of various institutional models and approaches to program design, instructional technology and delivery, pedagogy, and faculty roles. A policy expert will update participants on competency-based education-related federal regulation and policy including the HEA Reauthorization, Experimental Sites, and financial aid.

Targeting Program Design Certification: Leveraging Quality Matters Standards for Program Continuous Improvement

With an institutional goal of demonstrating academic excellence through program-level accreditation/certification, but without an accrediting body for the MS in Educational Psychology - Experimental Psycholgy Program, we are looking to QM to help us ensure the quality of this online degree. We are implementing multiple program-level revisions and building evidence to support an application for QM Program Design Certification. This QM-driven initiative extends QM Standards "upward" to program-level continuous improvement processes.

Dual Credit: Do You Dare?

Are you daring to provide dual-credit courses?  Designing a dual-credit course doesn't have to be daunting.  Learn the design elements that are shared between both higher education and K-12 courses, and explore what needs to be included to facilitate student success at both levels.  Learn what QM recommends for course reviews, both formal and informal, and take a look at what some school districts are doing to make it happen.  Think your course is ready?  Bring it if you dare!

Creating the Perfect Module

Key class content is placed in modules. Is this information organized in a stimulating manner, just randomly offered, or, as some say, "thrown against the wall"? This session looks at a course that incorporates key elements of the Quality Matters Rubric by using a variety of strategies to create an organized module that is informative, engaging, interactive, and something students will want to visit.

Keynote Panel: Becoming Competent in Competency Based Education: What is it and What Is Driving this Growing Movement?

Experts will address competency-based education (CBE), including the universal design principles quality programs share. The panel will discuss key features of various institutional models and approaches to program design, instructional technology and delivery, pedagogy, and faculty roles. A policy expert will update participants on competency-based education-related federal regulation and policy including the HEA Reauthorization, Experimental Sites, and financial aid.

Competency-Based Education: Craze or Way Forward for Online Learning?

Competency-based education (CBE) is getting a lot of attention. Defined by personalized learning and "authentic" assessment, advocates position CBE as a powerful toolkit to address some of higher education's biggest challenges- namely, high tuition, low completion and vague/uneven student outcomes. It could be argued that these challenges are relevant for "traditional" online learning, too. Amid the hype, what is truly distinctive about the new generation of CBE programs, and is CBE really a mainstream solution or a more specialized one?

A Quality Assurance Taxonomy for Online Education: A New Criticality Measure PowerPoint Boucaud

The session presents a new Quality Assurance Taxonomy devised via a Delphi study with a panel comprising shareholders in online higher education at the student, faculty, and administrative levels.  The taxonomy can be used to facilitate both internal and external evaluations and inform quality standards, documents, practices, processes, and measurements.  It introduces a concept no t previously found in literature--the increased criticality of QA dimensions (such as student support and faculty support) that results from the online modality.