Online Course Quality Rubric: A Tool Box
Recommended citation: Xu, D., Li, Q., & Zhou, X. (2020). Online Course Quality Rubric: A Tool Box. Online Learning Research Center, University of California, Irvine.
Students often find online learning more challenging than face-to-face courses due to the need for stronger self-directed learning skills and greater difficulties in enabling effective interpersonal interactions. How can online courses be designed and implemented in a way to better address these challenges? The online course quality rubric developed by the Online Learning Research Center aims to provide a systematic and descriptive benchmark for researchers and practitioners who are striving to develop a culture of high-quality college-level online courses.
This rubric differentiates itself from others as it identifies the unique challenges associated with learning in a virtual environment and provides details and examples of how to optimize the design features and instructional practices to ease the challenges in a more deeply-reflective fashion than is required by a yes/no checklist.
The full version of the rubric provides an overall description of the quality expectations and concrete examples. The abridged version only includes quality expectations to make it easier for the course instructor or evaluators to go through all the elements quickly.
This rubric differentiates itself from others as it identifies the unique challenges associated with learning in a virtual environment and provides details and examples of how to optimize the design features and instructional practices to ease the challenges in a more deeply-reflective fashion than is required by a yes/no checklist.
The full version of the rubric provides an overall description of the quality expectations and concrete examples. The abridged version only includes quality expectations to make it easier for the course instructor or evaluators to go through all the elements quickly.
Q: What does the rubric measure?
A: This rubric explicitly links key course components with online learning theory. Specifically, the rubric identifies three concepts that theories and emerging empirical evidence suggest are critical to addressing the unique challenges of online learning, namely scaffolding the online learning process, promoting student agency, and improving instructor and student presence & interactivity. The rubric further consists of six key course components that are typically included in an online course, allowing for a three by six matrix. As a result, each rubric element is defined as an intersection between a concept and a course component, thus explicitly describing how a specific course component could be designed to optimize learning guided by a concept.
Q: What is the foundation of the rubric?
A: This rubric draws from online teaching and learning theories that have converged on two unique challenges of online instruction: the need for students to have stronger self-directed learning skills and difficulty enabling effective interpersonal interactions. These challenges call for the importance of scaffolding the self-directed learning skills necessary for online success and providing clear guidance on navigating the learning process, promoting student agency to engage students actively throughout their learning, and improving presence & interactivity authentically and visibly. Recognizing the critical role of these three concepts in addressing the unique challenges of online learning, this rubric intends to illustrate how a particular course component (e.g., learning objectives) can be designed to better support these concepts.
Q: What is self-directed learning and why are self-directed learning skills particularly important in online learning?
A: While the flexibility of online education enables learners to study anytime and anywhere, it also requires students to assume greater responsibilities during this self-paced learning, such as learning course materials independently, setting up learning goals, and managing time wisely. These skills — generally falling under the category of “self-directed learning” — are critical to success in online education. However, not all online students have been equipped with strong self-directed learning skills upon college entry. Men, younger students, ethnic minority students, and academically underprepared students have been found to have lower self-directed learning skills on average. As a result, clear and well-designed course structure and navigation, as well as explicit guidance on developing self-directed learning skills is crucial to online learning success.
Q: What is student agency and why is it important in online courses?
A: Student agency refers to capacity to take purposeful initiative during the learning process. Student agency is supported when students are provided with choices of learning materials and activities, and opportunities to reflect on their own learning and various aspects of the course. This concept is rooted in psychological theories that motivation and interests are fostered when individuals are offered voices and choices during the learning process. The physical separation between the instructor and students in a virtual environment imposes greater challenges for instructors to facilitate students’ decision making process and adjust the course instruction based on students’ voices. These challenges highlight the importance for online instructors to encourage and facilitate student self-reflection, to provide clear explanation and guidance about various options of instructional materials and activities to help students make informed decisions about their learning paths, and to intentionally collect ongoing feedback from students and incorporate it into the course.
Q: Why is interpersonal interaction particularly challenging in online learning and why is instructor/peer presence important?
A: Computer-mediated communications are often criticized as more challenging for interpersonal interaction.Spontaneous smiles, nods, eye contact or a physical pat on the back are not present in online environments. Warm intonation and casual conversation are also rare. As a result, there is often a lack of interpersonal interaction among students and instructors in online learning environments. Studies consistently show that many online students find interpersonal interactions in online courses insufficient and ineffective, which often lead to feelings of isolation, low levels of engagement, and sometimes course withdrawal. However, this challenge can be mitigated by focusing on increasing opportunities for instructor/student and peer interactions, such as instructors holding virtual office hours and student collaborative learning activities, that facilitate interpersonal interaction as well as foster the social presence of the instructor and peers.
Q: How do I use the rubric?
A: Elements in this rubric are the products of intersections between online learning concepts and course components through a three by six matrix. Specific essential elements in each cell in the matrix are defined by the intersection of the course component in a specific column and the concept in a specific row. For instance, the element in the first cell (i.e., course material organization and presentation) is defined by the intersection between the course component of “Website organization and presentation” and the concept of “Scaffolding self-directed
learning skills and guiding the learning process”. For each essential element, scoring guidance is provided using a 3-point scale ranging from 1 (beginning) to 3 (proficient). Detailed explanations and concrete examples for each level can be found in each section below the table. Therefore, instructors could use the rubric to reflect on the overall course design, to focus on a specific concept (such as Presence & interactivity) which they would like to improve, or to look for specific activities to use in their instruction.
Q: What is not measured in this rubric?
A: This rubric is developed to provide guidance to researchers and practitioners on understanding, reflecting on, and optimizing the design features and instructional practices of college online courses as a response to the unique challenges associated with learning in a virtual environment. It is important to note that the general teaching and learning literature has identified a much broader set of instructional practices that could better support students during the learning process. Our rubric only focuses on practices that are important in addressing the unique challenges of online learning.
A: This rubric explicitly links key course components with online learning theory. Specifically, the rubric identifies three concepts that theories and emerging empirical evidence suggest are critical to addressing the unique challenges of online learning, namely scaffolding the online learning process, promoting student agency, and improving instructor and student presence & interactivity. The rubric further consists of six key course components that are typically included in an online course, allowing for a three by six matrix. As a result, each rubric element is defined as an intersection between a concept and a course component, thus explicitly describing how a specific course component could be designed to optimize learning guided by a concept.
Q: What is the foundation of the rubric?
A: This rubric draws from online teaching and learning theories that have converged on two unique challenges of online instruction: the need for students to have stronger self-directed learning skills and difficulty enabling effective interpersonal interactions. These challenges call for the importance of scaffolding the self-directed learning skills necessary for online success and providing clear guidance on navigating the learning process, promoting student agency to engage students actively throughout their learning, and improving presence & interactivity authentically and visibly. Recognizing the critical role of these three concepts in addressing the unique challenges of online learning, this rubric intends to illustrate how a particular course component (e.g., learning objectives) can be designed to better support these concepts.
Q: What is self-directed learning and why are self-directed learning skills particularly important in online learning?
A: While the flexibility of online education enables learners to study anytime and anywhere, it also requires students to assume greater responsibilities during this self-paced learning, such as learning course materials independently, setting up learning goals, and managing time wisely. These skills — generally falling under the category of “self-directed learning” — are critical to success in online education. However, not all online students have been equipped with strong self-directed learning skills upon college entry. Men, younger students, ethnic minority students, and academically underprepared students have been found to have lower self-directed learning skills on average. As a result, clear and well-designed course structure and navigation, as well as explicit guidance on developing self-directed learning skills is crucial to online learning success.
Q: What is student agency and why is it important in online courses?
A: Student agency refers to capacity to take purposeful initiative during the learning process. Student agency is supported when students are provided with choices of learning materials and activities, and opportunities to reflect on their own learning and various aspects of the course. This concept is rooted in psychological theories that motivation and interests are fostered when individuals are offered voices and choices during the learning process. The physical separation between the instructor and students in a virtual environment imposes greater challenges for instructors to facilitate students’ decision making process and adjust the course instruction based on students’ voices. These challenges highlight the importance for online instructors to encourage and facilitate student self-reflection, to provide clear explanation and guidance about various options of instructional materials and activities to help students make informed decisions about their learning paths, and to intentionally collect ongoing feedback from students and incorporate it into the course.
Q: Why is interpersonal interaction particularly challenging in online learning and why is instructor/peer presence important?
A: Computer-mediated communications are often criticized as more challenging for interpersonal interaction.Spontaneous smiles, nods, eye contact or a physical pat on the back are not present in online environments. Warm intonation and casual conversation are also rare. As a result, there is often a lack of interpersonal interaction among students and instructors in online learning environments. Studies consistently show that many online students find interpersonal interactions in online courses insufficient and ineffective, which often lead to feelings of isolation, low levels of engagement, and sometimes course withdrawal. However, this challenge can be mitigated by focusing on increasing opportunities for instructor/student and peer interactions, such as instructors holding virtual office hours and student collaborative learning activities, that facilitate interpersonal interaction as well as foster the social presence of the instructor and peers.
Q: How do I use the rubric?
A: Elements in this rubric are the products of intersections between online learning concepts and course components through a three by six matrix. Specific essential elements in each cell in the matrix are defined by the intersection of the course component in a specific column and the concept in a specific row. For instance, the element in the first cell (i.e., course material organization and presentation) is defined by the intersection between the course component of “Website organization and presentation” and the concept of “Scaffolding self-directed
learning skills and guiding the learning process”. For each essential element, scoring guidance is provided using a 3-point scale ranging from 1 (beginning) to 3 (proficient). Detailed explanations and concrete examples for each level can be found in each section below the table. Therefore, instructors could use the rubric to reflect on the overall course design, to focus on a specific concept (such as Presence & interactivity) which they would like to improve, or to look for specific activities to use in their instruction.
Q: What is not measured in this rubric?
A: This rubric is developed to provide guidance to researchers and practitioners on understanding, reflecting on, and optimizing the design features and instructional practices of college online courses as a response to the unique challenges associated with learning in a virtual environment. It is important to note that the general teaching and learning literature has identified a much broader set of instructional practices that could better support students during the learning process. Our rubric only focuses on practices that are important in addressing the unique challenges of online learning.