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Rethinking Course Development: Competing on Quality
Larry Gould
American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), Academic Affairs Winter
Meeting, February 9, 2008, Tempe, Arizona
About Fort Hays State University
• Founding member of the Higher Learning Commission’s (HLC/NCA) alternative accreditation track known as the Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP)
• Academic Programming 52 undergraduate degree programs 19 graduate degree programs 25 programs completely accessible off-campus
• General Structure Three divisions: academic, student affairs, admin-finance Four academic colleges, graduate school, distance education
delivery unit called the Virtual College
About Fort Hays State University
• Branding Tagline: Affordable Success
• Enrollment: The Way We Were (Fall, 1998) On-campus: 4718 Off-campus: 839 Grand total: 5557
• Enrollment: The Way We Are (Fall, 2007) On-campus: 4449 Off-campus: 5375 (2300 in China) Grand total: 9824
Distance Education Course Development at Fort Hays State University
• Historical Context
• The First Wave: Courses
• The Second Wave: Programs
• The Third Wave: Quality Assurance
Why Facilitate a “Third Wave” of Distance Education Course Development?
• A Changing Competitive Landscape: Delivery Mode Is No Longer a Niche Growth Opportunity
• A Changing Competitive Landscape: Diversity of Schools, Programs and Approaches
• A Changing Value Proposition: Beyond Convenience, Flexibility and the Adult Learner
• Enhancing the Value Proposition: Positioning and Differentiation Strategies
Refining the FHSU Message to the Consumer: Perceptions of Quality
• Positioning: price, geography, faculty, product, performance, etc.
• Differentiation: affordable, traditional campus, responsive, 26 programs, high student satisfaction, etc.
• Using Quality: Creating Performance Indicators and Transitioning to the “Age of Brands”
Facilitating Quality Through Policy and Process
• How do we achieve “differentiation” and “brand recognition” through “performance indicators?”
• How do we respond to learner feedback to effect perceptions of quality?
• The Answer: Rethinking and Recasting the Distance Education Course Development Process
The Process of Rethinking the Process
• Results Management: Student Evaluations, NSSE, Noel-Levitz, etc.
• Virtual College Advisory Committee
• Center for Teaching Excellence and Learning Technologies (CTELT)
• Office of Quality Management
• Provost’s Council
Elements and Implications
• Three pathways to course development
• Incorporates national standards of “best practices” (Quality Matters) to ensure creative instructional design through rubric based process and modeling
• Authorizing of process driven by department, college and institutional needs
• Increases efficient use of scarce resources (people and time)
Elements and Implications
• Linked to academic quality improvement work completed during Year of the Department
• Faculty-driven, collegial peer review, and team-based
• Designed to improve both on- and off-campus courses
• Process includes phases and steps that promote faculty enhancement and learning
Elements and Implications
• Recognition that teaching on-line can be overwhelming at first and different from F2F
• Intended to bring a diversity of knowledge about course development to the institution and promote dissemination and archiving of best practices and new thinking
• The new process strives to improve FHSU’s competitive positioning and differentiation through enhanced performance indicators (perception of quality, retention and student satisfaction)
Elements and Implications
• Second horizon goals
– Build a cadre and community of on-line quality champions
– Develop a culture of collective responsibility for high-quality course development
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