Redefining the Quality of Online Courses: From A Smiley Test To A Seven-Star Rating

The past two decades have witnessed an exponential increase of both
blended and fully online courses in higher education. Nevertheless, despite
the invested efforts in defining and examining quality issues concerning
online courses, there seems to be an equal growth in the challenges as well
as the boundaries for defining the quality of online courses. According to a
large body of literature, it appears that the most common instruments for
gauging quality are course evaluations and surveys from the perspectives
of instructors, learners, and administrators based on their perceptions, and
experiences. In light of the rapidly changing needs of the new generation of
“digital” learners, this study aims to redefine the quality of online courses
from a comprehensive perspective that would expand the quality standards
beyond pedagogical issues to include the hidden aspects of quality such as
the instructional design, web design, facilitation and coaching, course
presentation, learning experience, as well as service experiences. The study
employs a mixed-method research design including, a descriptive-analytic
methodology of both quantitative and qualitative approaches, where a
triangulated set of data were collected from a diverse sample of
Instructional designers, SMEs, and students enrolled in a fully online
course at Sultan Qaboos University. The outcomes of this study could be
used as a blueprint for designing online courses that respond to learners’
diverse needs.