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Quality Commitment

FIU Online is dedicated to remaining a leader in distance education by ensuring the highest quality experiences and services in online learning. Our Commitment to Quality includes world-class instructional design support, comprehensive curriculum consulting, state-of-the-art learning technology administration, and online education support for colleges and departments.

Panther Quality Course Design

Background

The SUS 2025 Strategic Plan for Online Education outlines goals and strategies that will result in improved instruction and increased educational opportunities for Florida residents. The SUS has implemented a process for adhering to quality standards for course design. The SUS 2025 Strategic Plan determines two course quality destinations: “High Quality” and “Quality Matters”. These designations are awarded to courses based on their successful alignment to the SUS Quality Rubric.

Panther Quality Course Design Initiative

In compliance with this state initiative and recognizing that course design is a critical component of teaching excellence, FIU Online is launching Achieving Panther Quality Course Design. This initiative is an institutional effort to satisfy the SUS online course quality mandate and advances our FIU vision of learning-centered, evidence-based, and culturally responsive teaching. The goal is that by 2025, online courses are designed to meet the Quality Matters course design framework.

New Online Course Design

A new online course is defined as the unique combination of an instructor with a course that has not been taught online in the past 5 years. All new instructor/course pairings are assigned to an instructional designer who will consult and guide the instructor through the online course design process. All new courses are designed and developed to meet the Panther Quality (Quality Matters) standards

Online Course Enhancements

Instructors wishing to enhance an existing fully online course to meet the Panther Quality (Quality Matters) standards or significantly update their course design, can opt into a one-to-one instructional design consultation.

Faculty Incentives

This initiative will be an ambitious undertaking for both faculty and FIU Online instructional designers and can only be accomplished through our shared commitment. As such, we are incentivizing faculty for the successful development and enhancement of courses in alignment with QM design standards.

Faculty incentives for existing courses developed in compliance with these quality standards will be awarded for each course as follows:

  • High-Quality (HQ) Course Design: Faculty whose course meets the quality standards requirements and who engage in an FIU-internal review of their course will be awarded a financial incentive of $500.

  • Quality Matters (QM) Certified Course: Faculty whose course meets the quality standards requirements and who engage in an external review of their course through the formal Quality Matters process will be awarded a financial incentive of $1,500. ( You can also choose to complete an HQ review first for $500 and subsequently complete the QM review for an additional $1,000, for a total of $1,500).

Instructors selected to teach new online courses should be assigned with the explicit expectation that the course must meet the quality online course design standards as per this BOG mandate. New courses will not be eligible for the quality incentive available to faculty who enhance their existing courses to meet quality online course design standards.

For more information regarding monetary incentives, please contact your departmental liaisons.

Support

Should you need assistance in evaluating the material or would like to schedule a one-on-one consultation meeting, please feel free to contact the FIU Online Quality Assurance team at fiuqm@fiu.edu

Your Instructional Designer is also available to assist you with the process, evaluating content and offering recommendations for improvement.

Panther Quality Course Design Initiative

The SUS 2025 Strategic Plan determines two course quality destinations: “High Quality” and “Quality Matters”. The SUS Quality Rubric uses Quality Matters to establish standards for “High Quality” designated courses. Quality Matters is a quality assurance program dedicated to the continual improvement of online courses. Moving forward, all new courses will be designed––and already existing courses enhanced––to meet the QM design framework. Courses will be identified as High Quality and Quality Matters Certified in the FloridaShines online course course catalog.

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Online Course Enhancements Opt-In

Instructors wishing to enhance an existing course to meet the Panther Quality (Quality Matters) standards or significantly update their course design can opt in to a one-to-one instructional design consultation.

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Faculty Choice Awards

The Faculty Choice Awards are part of FIU Online's commitment to quality. Faculty are able to self-nominate one of their fully online courses for a Faculty Choice Award in one of 5 categories.

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Affordability Counts

FIU Online began Affordability Counts to recognize faculty who were actively making changes to the courses they teach to reduce the cost of course materials to students.

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