I had built and taught many online classes for the last 18 years for The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, the Rhode Island School of Design and Ohio University, and while many they ran on full attendance, they lacked the rigor of research-supported and published best practices that a fully implemented QM program brings. Having arrived at the University of Connecticut during the Fall of 2020, I answered UConn’s call from Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) to develop an online class, taught over the Summer 2021. The chosen course was Introduction to Solidworks, a popular parametric computer modeling program class, which was traditionally taught in a computer lab in my home department of Mechanical Engineering.

The successful writing and implementation of such course involved meeting weekly for a full semester with a QM specialist, who monitored the set of 42 standards and verified the progress on learning outcomes, including the verification of student participation with Respondus LockDown Browser. Some core questions we want to hit when preparing an online course worth 100 QM points, revolve around these important questions: Does the course have different delivery modes? Are the exercises and learning modules rich and engaging? What kind of learner interaction is it providing? What steps are we taking to make the course more accessible and usable?  Besides offering quizzes, reading material and discussions, the course involved recording, editing, chaptering and closed captioning of 36 unique video tutorials, as well as the preparation of a strong Course Orientation and post-completion survey