The Win-Win of Peer Reviews for Online and Hybrid Courses

by Erica Venton and Dave Goodrich

Online education continues to have a complicated reputation. Though it has been around awhile now, it is important to remember that it is still in its adolescence. Most controversies since the 1990s have revolved around quality. Here, the primary question at play is if online education measures up to a face-to-face learning experience. It is a more challenging question to answer than it may seem at first glance. The debate shows few signs of slowing down and will likely carry on for years to come.

Still, I wonder if the question is really the right one to be asking.

Hear me out on this. We know by now that online and face-to-face learning environments inherently have their own unique advantages and disadvantages. So, instead of comparing them, I wonder if it would be more useful to compare the notion of “quality” within the context of their own modalities.

This is where course quality standard efforts have served to be useful specifically for online and blended course design. No, quality standards are not the end-all-be-all, and the standards movement that began in the 1980s for education is not without its rightful critics still today, but they still can be a useful instrument for helping educators verify that the foundations of a course design are sound.

SpartanQM

Course quality standards provide a benchmark for a course, program, or institution to think about quality in their online or hybrid courses. When adopted they help to develop a shared vision for what is a level of course quality that all members of the community strive for and agree is, at the very least, a base level of quality. Some institutions subscribe to course quality standards at the institution level and evaluate all courses based on the standard. At MSU, we are provided access to several course quality rubrics as guides, but programs and departments decide what is best for the unit in terms of quality measures.

Of course, this last year brought a pandemic that quickly shifted the way everything was done. This change prompted a need for educator development opportunities to help reconfigure traditional in-person courses to the remote learning environment. Typically online courses undergo rigorous planning during normal circumstances. A timeframe of that length was not available in early 2020. Across Michigan State University (MSU) learning designers, instructional designers, technologists, accessibility professionals, library staff, and many more banded together to help educators prepare for this quick transition. Synchronous and asynchronous courses were offered to help educators learn to create their classes into the remote learning format.

The Provost’s Office offered an incentive for faculty to complete the full program, including the workshop and course review process. The Associate Provosts worked with Assistant Deans in each college to prioritize and enroll instructors in training cohorts and review cohorts. With so much change at a quick speed, it was also essential to provide the opportunity for educators to have courses reviewed. MSU selected the Quality Matters (QM) framework to help establish a rubric and process for educators. QM is a compilation of best practices for online and hybrid course design. The focus is on the usability and accessibility of online courses and doesn’t focus on the teaching itself.

SpartanQM, as the program was called, offered a two-week voluntary program that included facilitators, a peer-review process, and a rubric of best practice standards. SpartanQM is based on the widely researched rubric maintained by the Quality Matters (QM) organization, of which MSU is a subscribing member, as well as previous simplification efforts of quality measurements at MSU in collaboration with MSU IT and the MSU College of Arts and Letters. This initiative drew from previously developed MSU rubrics and formative review processes in the colleges, as well as literature associated with online course quality.

424 Faculty signed up for the course reviews while 328 completed them during the summer of 2020. Participants reviewed two other courses within their teams. They then were asked to create a course revision plan for their own course based on the feedback they received.

Benefits

There were some planned and other unexpected benefits to this review model. Not only did it provide the opportunity for educators to have courses reviewed by a colleague with another set of skills and perspectives. It also allowed them to see how other educators had built courses, gain ideas, additional tools, and new ways of thinking about course design. The course review process heightened awareness of accessibility guidelines. Educators developed a sense of collegiality within the program that was built to remove the feeling of being graded and make it more about guidance and support. Another unexpected outcome is that educators enjoyed the opportunity to talk about teaching and learning with colleagues outside of their own departments. Some departments took the SpartanQM program together which gave them focused time to discuss teaching and learning through a new viewpoint, though this was not the focus of the SpartanQM program.

“The process aided instructors in giving them a sense of community, new perspectives on designing for active learning, sharing of resources, and space to reflect on their own courses and ask questions of their peers. Some teams reported having important discussions during the meetings on topics that are not always reflected in department meetings and training. It was a safe environment to ask questions about why and how one goes about teaching and there aren’t always many places for these types of conversations,” said Dave Goodrich, Learning Experience Designer from MSU Hub for Innovation in Learning and Technology (HUB).

Opportunities

The process was improved upon based on feedback gathered from the summer of 2020. Since then we have been having new cohorts of faculty participating in peer reviews. MSU educators interested in SpartanQM workshops and peer reviews in August should indicate so on this form.

Educators at other institutions can find additional information on the Quality Matters site.