Quality assurance

Spelling mistakes, missing links, wordy or confusing language … they can hinder an online learner and leave egg on the face of the course developer. The Quality Assurance (QA) process helps minimise errors and omissions and is mandatory for all public courses. The QA process is performed by The Learning Place and may incur a cost.

When developing a public course for the wider student or professional community, you will have to read the following section carefully. Public courses must go through a quality assurance process to ensure they adhere to the relevant standards.

If you are developing a private course you may want to read the following section for further insights into developing courses. It will also be useful if you intend to make your private course public in the future.

To minimise the time and costs in performing a QA it is recommended you review your course against each of these mandatory areas:

• Proofreading
• Web writers' checklist
• Copyright and release checks

It is recommended you read these checklists before you begin developing your course. The 'Technical checklist for Education Queensland online courses' was written with non-technical developers in mind. If you need the checklist further explained read 'Technical standards explained'.

• Technical checklist for Education Queensland online courses new window 136k
• Technical standards explained new window 69k

Here are other issues to consider when developing a course.

For example:

• Education Queensland standards and guidelines
  http://education.qld.gov.au/publication/
• QLD Government Information Standard 26
  http://www.governmentict.qld.gov.au/02_infostand/standards.htm
• World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Recommendations and Specifications
  http://www.w3.org/
• Examples of standards: WAI Web Content Accessibility Curriculum
  http://www.w3.org/WAI/wcag-curric/oversam.htm

Need help developing your course

If you have got the content for an online course but lack confidence with the technology, the Learning Place can help by providing support to course developers in obtaining assistance in the following areas:

• Online editing
• Instructional design
• Course technical development
• Accessibility reviews for adaptive technologies such as screen readers
• Animation and multimedia design
• Writing and editing online inservice

If you would like any further information on these QA processes and services, please contact The Learning Place.