Rubric

The Virtual School Society (VSS) promotes, fosters and facilitates a culture of collaboration and sharing within the K-12 online content development and delivery communities. The intention of this culture is to build and maintain a management system for online content that is inclusive, collaborative and, most importantly, responsive to the real needs of learners and teachers.

The VSS is also establishing a Provincial Management System for online content to facilitate province-wide access to high quality content suitable for delivery in a range of distributed learning environments. When implemented it will:

• Regularly identify and prioritize teacher and learner needs for online learning content.
• Identify and inventory existing online content.
• Regularly evaluate existing content to ensure its suitability for use in BC.
• Include a coordinated system for developing or acquiring new online content and to review and revise, as needed, existing online content.

Reviews of K-12 content for distributed learning is conducted objectively using two rubrics: an Online Course Content Review Rubric; and a Learning Object Review Rubric.

The rubrics are based on the learning philosophy advocated in the BC Provincial Curriculum Guide and the IRP documents for grades K-12. It highlights the fundamental assessment metrics that will be used to ensure basic standards for all online courses in the province of BC. The rubrics are based on the British Columbia Ministry of Education 2006 and May 2007 (draft) “Standards for K-12 Distributed Learning in BC” Document. They are also informed by current effective practice research (Barker, 2004; Marshall, 2004; Meyer, 2003; Milne & Suddaby, 2005), the Open e-Quality Learning Standards (2004), the expertise of several college and University learning development centres (Grant McEwan College, 2005; Royal Roads, 2005; University of Calgary, 2005) and the growing literature on e-quality (Barker, 2004; eLearning Age, 2002; Rossett, 2002; Wright, 2005).

These assessment rubrics are implemented in a two phase approach.

Phase 1 - Initial examination of the online courseware

All online courseware is initially evaluated at a macro level according to the essential criteria outlined below. Any of the IRP learning outcomes that are not met, or any of the resources used that are not currently provincially approved, are clearly identified in the comments section.

Essential Criteria	Criteria Met
Courseware meets the most recent IRP objectives of the British Columbia K-12 curriculum for the subject area and the resources used are provincially approved.	√

 

 

Phase 2 - Assessment continues with a detailed examination of the online courseware

All online courseware will then be assessed in detail across four key categories. To be approved, all courses will be expected to meet or exceed the standards outlined in each of the four categories of the assessment rubrics:

• Technical Standards
• Course Layout (Visual Design)
• Instructional Design and Pedagogy
• Learner Assessment.

To view the Online Course Content Review Rubric click here.

To view the Learning Object Review Rubric click here.