Archive Site: Online Course Criticism Model

 This site is primarily an archive, serving as the online home of the "Online Course Criticism" qualitative evaluation model for online courses created through the dissertation research of Dr. Kelvin Thompson. Please peruse the links in the site's sidebar to access information on the key aspects of the model or the full dissertation.

2008 Sloan ALN Poster Session

George Bradford and I presented a poster session at the 2008 Sloan ALN Conference entitled Social Bookmarking Lessons Learned: Harnessing the Power of Networked Bibliographic Resources for Web 2.0 Learning.

Included below are supporting resources for this session.

Audio summary of session [mp3 file; time=11 minutes]

Handouts [zip file; size=147 kb]

Contents of Handouts Packet:
Comparison Chart of Two Social Bookmarking Sites
Creating Social Bookmarking Assignments
Sample Student Instructions for Using Diigo
Sample Bibliography Assignment Rubric

BrevardCC Hybrid Course Workshops

I presented a workshop at Brevard Community College (CFCC) on 9/27-28/2007 to "kick-off" BCC's faculty development course on hybrid course design.
Included below in a zip file are the materials for this session. Hybrid Course Materials [zip file; size=147 kb]

Contents of Packet:
PowerPoint presentation
Hybrid course environment/course experience guidelines
Generational cohorts sheet
Long-Dziuban Reactive Behavior Types instrument
Small group discussion guide

CFCC Workshop: Designing Effective Online Course Environments

I presented a workshop at Central Florida Community College (CFCC) on 1/8/2007 titled, "Designing Effective Online Course Environments."

Included below in a zip file are the materials for this session. Since we discussed concept maps during the workshop, below the link to the zip file is a link to some materials I've created on concept mapping.

Online Course Environment Materials [zip file; size=47 kb]

Concept Mapping

Contents of Packet:

• Session Agenda
• PowerPoint presentation (including linked files)
• Online Course Environment handout
• Best practices handout
• Peer review worksheet

FDLC Webinar: Pedagogy of Teaching Online Courses

I'm presenting some of the ideas from the Online Course Quality Review and the Online Course Criticism Model at a webinar sponsored by the Florida Distance Learning Consortium on October 12, 2006.

PowerPoint Presentation [pdf file; size=1.7MB]

P-ADL Seminar: Online Course Quality

I presented some of the ideas from the Online Course Quality Review and the Online Course Criticism Model at the P-ADL seminar How Do You Know It When You See It? Wrestling with Quality in Online Courses on March 23, 2006.

I'm including a PowerPoint from the session here.

PowerPoint Presentation [ppt file; size=56kb]

CFCC Presentation: "Does My Course Get an 'A'?"

• I'm preparing to make a presentation at Central Florida Community College (CFCC) tomorrow titled, Does My Course Get An A? (Recognizing Quality in Online Courses).
  
  Included below in a zip file are the materials for this session plus some extras that I didn't copy for the session (some are lengthy).
  
  Online Quality Session Materials [zip file; size=421 kb]
  
  Contents of Packet:
  
• Session agenda
• PowerPoint presentation (including linked files)
• List of selected standards (10 sets, 400+ standards)
• Online Course Quality Review form
• Details on foundational constructs underlying OCQR (lengthy)
• Draft article: "What Is Online Course Quality?"

Online Course Quality Review

As the first step toward a "draft" pattern language for online courses, I recently compiled over 400 "standards" from ten different documents, using the interpretive perspectives from the Online Course Criticism Model as filters. To this I've been adding my own thoughts and the themes from the first online course criticism. More about that later.

One of the outgrowths of this exercise has been an intermediate point between the robustness of online course criticism and the sparseness of most standards "checklist" tools. It is called the Online Course Quality Review (OCQR). You can think of it as a "narrative report card" if that means anything to you (with typical course reviews being analogous to traditional report cards). It is connoisseur-based (like the online course criticisms), but it contains a finite number of prescriptive categories (like the checklists).

I've been using the OCQR recently in reviewing several online courses for a client. The course instructors seem appreciative of the level of detail provided in the OCQR. You can take a look at version 1.0 of the tool below.

Feel free to let me know if you decide to use it or if you'd like to have someone complete a review for you.

Online Course Quality Review version 1.0 [pdf; size=91.8kb]