An online course developed by public administration Professor Montgomery Van Wart in the Jack H. Brown College of Business and Public Administration, has become the first online course at Cal State San Bernardino to receive Quality Matters certification, the national standard of quality in online and blended courses.
Van Wart’s course, Public Administration 662 – Human Resource Management in the Public Sector, received the Quality Matters certification on its first review. The Quality Matters standard was developed with the help of a grant from the federal Department of Education Fund for Improvement of Post-Secondary Education. It relies on a faculty-created set of eight general standards and 43 specific review standards that are used to evaluate the soundness of course design.
CSUSB Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Shari McMahan praised Van Wart and the Information Technologies Services department for their hard work and dedication.
“The Quality Matters certification is a significant achievement for Monty and our ITS department on their excellent work in developing challenging online classes that truly benefit our students,” McMahan said. “Development of exceptional online courses is another and growing facet of our ongoing commitment in providing outstanding learning opportunities to our students.”
Sam Sudhakar, the university’s vice president of Information Technologies Services, said the certification showed the level of quality work in online courses being developed by Cal State San Bernardino faculty and staff, specifically Van Wart.
“This is a great day for CSUSB! Congratulations to Professor Monty Van Wart on this significant accomplishment,” Sudhakar said. “The ITS team is proud to foster and support quality and innovation led by our faculty!”
The certification is a testament to both the high quality of the course and the successful partnership between Van Wart and the team of instructional designers with Academic Technologies and Innovation (ATI) under the leadership of Professor Mihaela Popescu, the faculty associate with ATI, said Professor Jonathan Anderson, chair of the Department of Public Administration.
“As an innovator in the classroom, Dr. Van Wart is continually on the cutting edge of pedagogy,” Anderson said. “In the classroom, Dr. Van Wart uses the same focus and professionalism as he does in his scholarship. He is constantly mentioned as one of the several professors who truly changed students’ perspectives on public service.”
Van Wart, who has been teaching fully online classes for 12 years at CSUSB, said he was deeply honored that his online course had been given such a high score on the first review.
“While online teaching has some challenges, it can frequently lead to a better learning environment than a purely face-to-face environment with a higher level of customized teaching,” Van Wart said. ”A particular point of pride for me are the high-quality lectures that I have put together for each of my online classes. Good 25 minute lectures take about 35 hours to complete. However, they can be used over and over again before needing to be updated. Another point of pride is the series of electronic speakers that I coordinate for each topic.”
A course candidate for Quality Matters certification undergoes a systematic and exhaustive peer-review process conducted by a team of three certified QM peer reviewers who evaluate the alignment of the course’s learning objectives to the module-level objectives, the course’s assessment process, and the quality and technological sophistication of the learning activities in the course.
Factors such as how learners are introduced to the course, the articulation between learning objectives and the process of learner assessment, the quality of support provided for learners, the meaningfulness of learners’ interactions throughout the course, as well as the accessibility and usability of the course weigh heavily in the final review score. To pass the review, a course has to meet more than 85 percent of the standards.
Popescu, who is the faculty associate for the university’s Academic Technologies and Innovation, said that when done well, good online teaching is a transformative experience for both the instructor and the students.
“Good online teaching is not the online equivalent of a face-to-face class,” Popescu said. “An online course is an entirely different course, one that takes time, resources and commitment to produce. Dr. Van Wart’s course is no exception; his outstanding work and the assistance he received from the instructional designers ultimately carried the day. We have fantastic online courses taught here, and I would love to see them all recognized.”
Visit the Quality Matters website for more information on its certification process, and the
CSUSB Public Administration Department website for more information on its programs. The department is housed in the Jack H. Brown College of Business and Public Administration.
For more information on Cal State San Bernardino, contact the university’s Office of Strategic Communication at (909) 537-5007 and visit news.csusb.edu.