Developing a Quality Assurance Approach for an Online Professional Military Education Institution

Abstract

With the increasing demand for online learning, higher education institutions are heightening their focus on assuring online course quality (Allen and Seaman, 2015). However, they lack consensus on what constitutes assuring quality in online courses (Vlachopoulos, 2016), which is challenging for institutions seeking to develop quality assurance approaches. This paper describes how a specific institution, the US Air Force’s eSchool of Graduate Professional Military Education (eSchool), developed and implemented an evaluative instrument to assure course design quality within its unique context. This example provides a valuable perspective for those developing quality assurance processes and resources for their online programs.