Collaborating to Infuse DEI into Online Course Quality for All

Audience Level: 
All
Session Time Slot(s): 
Institutional Level: 
Higher Ed
Streamed: 
Streamed
Special Session: 
Diversity & Inclusion
Abstract: 

This session will present an update on the cross-institutional collaboration to simultaneously address DEI and online course quality. SUNY, Cal State LA CETL, and now 66 other institutions are developing an online, openly-licensed, and freely available resource of annotations for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in online course design that can be used with any of the main online course quality rubrics, i.e., CVC-OEIOSCQRQOLT, or QM

Extended Abstract: 

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and online education experts from SUNY, and expert staff and faculty from Cal State Los Angeles, Center for Effective Teaching and Learning (Cal State LA CETL) and the California Community Colleges are collaborating with 60+ institutions to develop a flexible framework that infuses DEI practices into any online course quality rubric. The aim of this project is to help institutions, faculty, and instructional designers ensure equitable, diverse, and inclusive online teaching and learning environments without disrupting existing quality assurance processes. 

 

With cross-institutional teams of experts in DEI, online teaching, and online instructional design, this collaborative workgroup has reviewed existing inclusive teaching practices, and adapted them to the online teaching and course design environments. The team has collaborated to cite, research and document, write, and tag a set of online, openly-licensed, and freely available DEI annotations, examples, and practices that can be mapped to Online Course Quality standards, and incorporated into the main existing online quality tools such as CVC-OEIOSCQRQOLT, and QM.  This flexible framework infuses DEI practices into any online course quality rubric, or initiative to address DEI in online course design and instruction. 

 

In addition to the collaboration with our California colleagues, the SUNY team is working in parallel to review current OLC OSCQR Scorecard standards with the online DEI lens, identify any DEI-related gaps in standards, make recommendations on the need to add DEI standards, and determine if any DEI revisions are needed to the rubric and online support materials. Results of this project will be incorporated into the next version of OSCQR.

 

Targeting online teaching and learning environments, the DEI annotations that result from this collaborative project will assist institutions, online instructional designers, and online faculty to inform, influence, and ensure equitable, diverse, and inclusive online teaching and learning environments, and contribute to a national conversation to build further DEI awareness on effective online practices, tools, and resources for DEI-informed online education in general.

 

This session will provide participants with: 

  1. An overview of the project.
  2. A prototype demonstration of the annotations and platform.
  3. An opportunity for participants to discuss and provide input and feedback to the annotations and participate in the project.
     

Resources/Materials:

Conference Track: 
Teaching and Learning Practice
Session Type: 
Education Session
Intended Audience: 
Administrators
Design Thinkers
Faculty
Instructional Support
Students
Training Professionals
Technologists
All Attendees
Researchers