Public recognition for exemplary online instruction

Using Chico's rubric or other similar rubric to evaluate and recognize exemplary online instruction would be beneficial in improving online courses at an institution. Faculty often do not find the time to take workshops offered by an institution. What they frequently do is to learn from each other. By providing quality models for faculty you enable them to use the models to improve their own courses. They can use some parts of the model without much modification, such as the parts pointing students to tutorials, readiness assessments, and other resources available to students. Faculty can then refer to the rubric and model and use them to update their own courses or build a new online course. Recognition is also important to faculty and universities would be wise to move forward with using rubrics like this in evaluating courses. We have, or should have, moved past the concept of “publish or perish.” Accrediting bodies want to see tools such as rubrics used in the evaluation of learning.