Abstract
The quality assurance of online Higher Education online programmes is one of the great challenges faced by Spanish universities. Regular assessment of these programmes is essential in order to take actions to improve their quality. The said assessment should be complex and include all of the components of the programme, as well as its planning and implementation stages and its effects. The purpose of this paper is to present a model designed to assess the quality of online Higher Education online programmes that includes the assessment of the quality of the programme itself, as well as its continuous assessment. In order to design the model, the author conducted a bibliographical analysis of different standards, models, and guides developed in Spain and other countries to assess online education. The model was validated by 23 international online education experts. The results of the validation were triangulated with specialized literature, thus allowing the author to make decisions regarding whether to change the model by keeping, reformulating, or removing a dimension or indicator. As a result, two variables, fourteen dimensions, and 81 indicators were obtained. In order to verify the utility of the model it was applied in the assessment of four online programmes. The model guides the persons in charge of the implementation of online programmes and allows to conduct a more comprehensive assessment of the programme in order to discover its strengths and weaknesses, and opportunities for its improvement. The model can be also applied by online programme designers as a guideline for creating other, high quality programmes.
Highlights
According to figures provided by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports (2016) more than 15% of Spanish students study online
There is a discussion among Spanish academic groups regarding the appropriate method for assessing the quality of online education programmes with the purpose of answering the question of whether this quality should be assessed based on the same criteria as those applied to traditional programmes
We consider this variable to be crucial, as it enables the assessment of the quality of all of the components of an online education programme
Summary
According to figures provided by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports (2016) more than 15% of Spanish students study online. Given this high percentage, guaranteeing a high quality of online education is one of the main objectives of Spanish universities that offer online education programmes. This way, these universities seek to put an end to the assumption that the quality of online education cannot be as high as that of traditional education. Spanish accreditation organizations assess and certify online programmes by applying the same models as the ones applied to traditional education programmes (Chmielewski, 2013)
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