Distance Ed

Schreiner U Pilots Online Course Redesign Dashboard

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 09/01/16

A company that helps colleges and universities build and refine online courses has introduced a higher ed redesign service that includes a "continuous improvement" dashboard. iDesign has tested its new offering with Schreiner University, a private liberal arts school in Kerrville, TX.

The dashboard was created to monitor students' progress through various parts of the course to help instructors and instructional designers understand where their courses need improvement. Standard metrics include a course quality score based on the "Quality Matters" rubric and data from the company's proprietary student "time-on-task estimator." The estimator includes estimates of student time on task for the full course and each module. Quality Matters is a peer-review process for certifying the quality of online courses and online components.

Schreiner U first began working with iDesign as part of developing a new online nursing program, as profiled in an Inside Higher Education article. That program runs on the university's Jenzabar elearning platform.

The tools developed for the institution during that process are now what's on tap as a bundled offering.

 

"The iDesign dashboard gave us a window into student time-on-task, something we had never been able to uncover before," said President Charlie McCormick in a news release. "Armed with that analysis, our faculty are able to make changes to their courses that make a huge difference in student engagement and success."

"Universities are hungry for ways to keep up with the latest in learning technology and pedagogy," added iDesign CEO Paxton Riter. "Our most successful partners start with the end in mind by designing courses that incorporate analytics and continuous feedback from the very beginning — the dashboard and redesign process is designed to support and enable that best practice."

iDesign's services include instructional design, marketing and recruiting, faculty and student support and creation of online courses, all under a fee-for-service model in which the institution retains intellectual property.