OLC @ EIU
The FDIC @ EIU is proud to be an institutional member of the Online Learning Consortium (OLC), a leading organization dedicated to advancing quality digital teaching and learning experiences. This membership provides our instructors and administrators with resources to ensure optimal delivery of online education, hybrid courses and programs, as well as face-to-face courses that use instructional technologies.
Membership:
With an institutional membership all tenured and non-tenure track faculty and staff have access to the professional OLC membership. The OLC has a weath of free and fee-based development opportunities including webinars, training, and certifications. As an institutional member, faculty and staff can access these opportunities once they establish their individual professional membership.
The OLC has published this overview document which features links to resources on their website such as workshop descriptions, credential programs, and more.
To access our EIU Institutional Membership and its benefits, you need to create an account using your @eiu.edu email address. After creating your account, you will automatically be upgraded to the OLC Professional Membership.
OLC @ EIU
The FDIC is redesigning our suite of Excellence in Online Instruction to reflect OLC standards. Previously, EIU has been a Quality Matters (QM) member but this shift allows for review standards that are accessible, adaptable to include institution-specific standards, guide excellence in online teaching and learning, and provide pathways for course and program improvement based on proven practices.
For a comparison of OLC and QM, please see this companion site that outlines this comparison. For information on QM, please refer to the FDIC Quality Matters site.
Introducing the OLC Quality Scorecards
As the leader in quality digital learning, OLC offers a robust suite of Quality Scorecards to provide institutions with the necessary criteria and benchmarking tools to ensure online learning excellence which can be used to demonstrate quality to higher education accrediting bodies, including the HLC, CAEP, IBHE and others.
OLC offers three Quality Scorecards for program-level review including:
OLC also offers Quality Scorecards for course-level review including:
- Quality Course Teaching and Instructional Practice: a comprehensive rubric which can be used for an in-depth review to validate instructional practices as compared to quality standards identified by our panel of experts.
- OSCQR Course Design Review: a course-level rubric for reviewing and improving the instructional design and accessibility of online courses based on online best practices (a tailored, EIU-specific scorecard is in development).
- Digital Courseware Instructional Practice: focus on teaching using digital courseware which can be useful for blended, online, and even face-to-face instruction.
Each of the OLC Quality Scorecards are available as downloadable PDFs. However, as OLC Institutional Members, EIU faculty and staff can access digital scorecards.You can download their handbook and self-evaluate your course and programs based on the scores.
Here is how instructors can harness its potential:
- Self-Evaluation: The OLC Quality Scorecard is a user-friendly tool to determine course and program strengths and weaknesses, invaluable for continuous improvement.
- Course Review: FDIC will offer course and program reviews using a modified EIU-specific scorecard.
- Official Reviews: After self-scoring, receive an official review by OLC experts. Programs that achieve a certain score can earn the OLC Exemplary Program logo.
- Benchmarking: Compare and measure your online courses and programs against similar ones, setting a standard for quality and aspirations for improvement.
- Demonstration: Use the scorecard to evidence the quality of online courses to accrediting bodies.
To use the evaluation services of the FDIC using a OLC Quality Scorecard provided by the OLC through our membership, follow the steps below:
- Familiarize Yourself: Learn the six core components evaluated, including course information, technology, design, content, interaction, and assessment techniques.
- Self-Assessment: Self-evaluate your online course(s) using the 50-standard rubric for potential improvement areas in online course design.
- Consult: Work with FDIC instructional design and support specialists to receive feedback and suggested improvements to your courses and program.
- Implement Recommendations: Make advised improvements to your online courses based on received feedback.
- OLC @ EIU Review: Request a review of your updated course and/or program by FDIC instructional design and support specialists (forthcoming, Spring 2025).
- Achieve Recognition: Earn the OLC @ EIU badge for high-scoring courses and programs to display on EIU materials and website (forthcoming, Spring 2025).
- Stay Updated: Use the OSCQR-EIU Course Design Review not only as an evaluation tool but also for ongoing course enhancement and optimization (forthcoming, Spring 2025).
The written information and resources are developed or curated by the
Faculty Development and Innovation Center
phone 217-581-7051 :: email fdic@eiu.edu :: web eiu.edu/fdic
Contact the FDIC for instructional design related questions or to schedule a consultation appointment. The FDIC staff can recommend instructional design strategies for your online, hybrid, and face-to-face courses.
Last updated: June 27, 2024
