Process-oriented quality in e-learning: a proposal for a global model

Abstract

Nowadays, all the universities that offer courses in the e-learning modality seek to improve and differentiate more and more from their competitors. One possible way forward is without doubt to implement standards and good practices. These allow us to guarantee the quality in the implementation or maintenance of the entire e-learning system. The problem is the diversity of existing standards and good practices because they can generate confusion in the selection of the most appropriate. The ideal would be to have a global quality model so that it would be easy to identify what is really needed to implement, maintain, ensure or adequately compare quality across all universities, regardless of their geographical location. In this work, an initial proposal of such a model is presented. In this sense, a set of 15 standards and good practices from all the continents were studied, using a quantitative and qualitative methodology. As a result, this proposal had a total of 15 dimensions and 93 criteria, and it was verified that no standard or good practice encompasses all the criteria. This initial model was validated by the opinion of experts through an on-line questionnaire. Taking into account the results of this validation, the proposed model was divided into three basic groups according to the importance of the dimensions, and in turn divided into other three groups according to the importance of the criteria, structured as a pyramid of levels, where the top or core model consists of 5 dimensions and 9 criteria. This proposal for a global model helps all who are interested in quality in e-learning to make decisions to improve or adjust the entire educational process in a university or teaching institution.