University drills down on online courses to ensure quality

By fall 2017, Southeast Missouri State University wants to have all its online courses peer reviewed to ensure continued quality.

Associate dean of Online Learning Allen Gathman said he expects students to do better in courses that have gone through the review process using Quality Matters standards. Instructional development staff use Quality Matters to help faculty facilitate student success online.

"It really does make it clear what the student is expected to do and it ensures that the course is designed in such a way that all the course materials are contributing to the student's ability to achieve the outcomes that are set for the course," Gathman said.

Faculty are being trained to do the peer reviews with instructional designers from Gathman's office. They meet once a week for five weeks to review an aspect of the QM standards, discuss what's expected, what they need to do and what reviewers are looking for.

One of the faculty members who has gone through QM training reviews the class, offers feedback on aspects that would need to be changed and makes suggestions on how they can do that to meet the standards. Gathman said about 20 peer reviewers are on campus with more set to be trained.

The internal reviews don't give the classes official Quality Matters certification, but Gathman said an online oral presentations course was sent to Quality Matters and it was passed without revision.

External reviews cost $1,500 each, so select classes, like those everyone has to take, may be submitted for approval.

Gathman said pass rates for online courses are comparable to the face-to-face version.

"Typically, online courses at Southeast have a slightly higher GPA. The average grade in an online course is slightly higher than the average grade in a face-to-face course -- not a whole lot. But ... the drop rate is somewhat higher in online courses than face-to-face courses," he said.

Gathman speculated one reason the drop rate is high is students may feel lost at first and aren't sure exactly what to do or what's expected of them.

"If I'm right, if that is a contributing factor to a higher drop rate, I would expect that to improve with QM reviewed courses," Gathman said.

Ron Illert of Leslie, Missouri, who is pursuing a bachelor of science in business administration, works full time and is a father of three. He said he's had a couple of courses that were confusing, but generally, all of them were clearly outlined.

"If it wasn't for the online program, I wouldn't be able to do it," Illert said. "I think the only thing that you lose with the online program is the tangibleness with the school and being part of student organizations."

Chris Macke of Cape Girardeau is married, has two children, is a letter carrier in Jackson and has a consulting business on the side.

"The only thing that I would say is to expand what's available online," Macke said. "There are certain classes I would like to take that I can't."

rcampbell@semissourian.com

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