9.1: Introduction
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Learning outcomes
- Apply contemporary approaches to quality assurance and quality standards.
- Tailor quality assurance standards to the organization’s needs.
- Identify quality by design, and apply best practices in an online setting.
E-learning is characterized by the evolution of educational tools in a transitional period, that is, the use of computers for learning. The turn of the 21 st century also suggests a turn from the Industrial Age to the Information and Collaboration Age, evident in the changes of people’s life and work. E-learning has yet to be proved as an important form of learning, but this is a problem of e-learning quality.
To deal with this problem, organizations produce checklists and guidelines to ensure quality from the early stages of design. By applying predefined quality factors to educational systems engineering, quality can be ensured. This is what we mean by quality assurance by design: ensuring that mechanisms allow human capabilities to further expand. The mechanisms of e-learning engineering are:
- focus on pedagogical values such as individualistic or collaborative learning;
- identification, control, and elimination of inherent problems; and
- dynamic real-time evaluation.
Thus, the organization can protect the learner as a customer able to acquire the maximum benefit of e-learning. This chapter is intended to raise awareness of the importance of ensuring quality in the early stages of design and planning by:
- identifying the stakeholders’ common goals;
- providing best practices and frameworks to every e-learner;
- identifying the effectiveness of quality improvement activities; and
- proposing frameworks to ensure quality by design.
Organizations in many countries now support open and distance education, starting with higher educational institutions and descending to secondary and primary education. E-learning has become increasingly importance because the Internet has facilitated the gradual elimination of time, space, and cultural boundaries. However, despite investments in technology and e-infrastructure, the high levels of interest among educators, and administrators, and policy makers worldwide, e-learning remains an unproven experiment (Cuban, 2003; Zaharias, 2004; Oliver, 2005).
In a survey on quality in e-learning, Cedefop, the European agency for vocational training, found that 61 percent of the 433 respondents rated the overall e-learning quality negatively as fair or poor. One percent rated it excellent, and five percent rated it very good (Massy, 2002). They gave several reasons for questioning e-learning quality. One of the common problems identified was the absence of performance signposts and measurements. Thus, learners are unmotivated and frustrated (O’Regan, 2003, Piccoli et al., 2003). Another problem was increasing plagiarism and a corresponding lack of original ideas (Culwin & Naylor, 1995; Lancaster & Culwin, 2004; Culwin, 2006). These results may be related to the absence of collaboration among stakeholders on a pedagogical level, and the operational level of systems engineering, both resulting in technocentric design.
In addition, the e-learning interface frustrates learners because of poor usability (Diaz, 2002; Notess, 2001). Since the focus so far has been more on the technological than on the pedagogical aspects of e-learning, there is need for useful and usable educational design in the e-learning environment (CHI SIG, 2001). One reason for this technocentric bias is that technology evolves much faster than its associated pedagogical approaches. In 2003, Laurillard identified a need for pedagogical perspectives, such as the focus on user interface, learning activities design, performance assessment, and an evaluation of whether the learning objectives have been met (Neal, 2003). Measurements for pre-, post-, and trans comparison of best practices are therefore essential.
Researchers are working on a design that can solve such quality problems (Muir et al., 2002; Zaharias, 2005). Nancy Parker (2003), acting executive director for external relations at Athabasca University, refers to a lack of broad acceptance of online education in higher education as the new paradigm shift, as well as the lack of understanding of its particularities relative to the real classroom. E-learning, she claims, continues to foster the long-standing conflict in values between business and public services resulting from the absence of quality assurance (QA) policies.
Nowadays, quality control creates challenges to contemporary research, owing to its intangible dimensions. There are discrepancies between the traditional quality measures associated with accreditation or state-administered quality assurance frameworks and the new, emerging educational paradigm.