Measuring E-learning Quality // Silkweb Consulting & Development

May 4, 2009 - PRLog -- Now that e-learning is mainstream, quality and how to measure it has increasingly become an area of research and debate. Questions in this area focus on various areas such as instructor practice, custom course development vs. off-the-shelf learning solutions, classroom tools, content, and learning assessments.

Dr. Michael Shaw, president of SilkWeb Consulting & Development, has conducted years of practice and research in this area. His findings have culminated in the development of an instrument that can be used to investigate classroom and instructor quality as it relates to instructor led e-learning initiatives. This instrument considers the importance of four central quality measures labeled community-centered, assessment-centered, learner-centered, and knowledge-centered.

This quality model is designed to be a living assessment tool. Additional measurement areas can be added to each of the four focal points; however, no focal point should exceed 25% of the total weight of the final score since each area holds equal importance. As the population mean changes, so to will the Z score. As Z scores change, cut-off scores for each faculty group can be modified.

Since each focal point represents a significant area of the online classroom, problem areas will be easy to identify and in most cases correct through training and further assessment.

SilkWeb Consulting & Development, a premier custom e-learning course developer, uses this assessment tool to develop custom e-learning solutions to meet the needs of a variety of different audiences. Instructor led online courses includes discussion questions and team activities to meet community needs; quizzes and rubrics to meet assessment needs; a balance of interactive, audio, graphical, and text elements to meet different learning needs; and expert guided content to meet knowledge needs.

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SilkWeb Consulting & Development offers web-based training and custom course development, business and education consulting, editing and writing services, career coaching including resume writing, instructional design, and much more.