The eLearning Department at Niagara County Community College has reevaluated their Quality Review Project over the past two years. Through this presentation we will share our updates, improvements, and new rubrics and tools for ensuring compliance with ADA requirements and enhancing quality in our online and blended courses at NCCC.
The eLearning Department at Niagara County Community College has reevaluated their Quality Review Project over the past two years. Through this presentation we will share our updates, improvements, and new rubrics and tools for ensuring compliance with ADA requirements and enhancing quality in our online and blended courses at NCCC.
As one of the 64 SUNY (State University of New York) campuses, we had been guided through efforts of what was once called the SUNY Learning Network. In 2014, The SUNY Learning Network transformed into Open SUNY, which resulted in the creation of the Center for Online Teaching Excellence (COTE). Through this new center, the Open SUNY team along with input from many SUNY campuses launched a new course design rubric called Open SUNY COTE Quality Review Rubric (OSCQR). OSCQR includes an additional rubric that specifically addresses ADA compliance. In the spring of 2015, we received a small SUNY Instructional Technology grant to begin a compliance project. Through this project, the NCCC eLearning department was able to review online courses for compliance with Middle States, HEOA, and ADA. We would like to share our rubrics, compliance checklist, results, and new course refresh process created as a result of this grant opportunity. In addition, through this process, we found that faculty needed help with more than just compliance and course design, as they lacked certain online teaching behaviors. In response we created a course observation guide for online courses that makes use of the “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Higher Education.” We’ve also modified our course development and refresh processes as recommended through the new Open SUNY Center for Online Teaching Excellence. We look forward to sharing all of these great OER with OLC participants.