quality control in online courses -...

eConcordia.com Quality Control White Paper Page 1

QUALITY CONTROL IN ONLINE COURSES An eConcordia.com White Paper

Patrick Devey, PhD. – Chief Learning Officer, eConcordia.com

n order to remain competitive in a global knowledge‐based society, it is imperative that

individuals are provided with ample lifelong learning opportunities. The prosperity of the

Canadian economy, the health of its civil society, as well as the success of its populace rely

increasingly on the intellectual and knowledge resources provided by educational institutions.

Consequently, it is up to these institutions to create, acquire, adapt and disseminate information in

an efficient and effective manner to its clients. The rapid evolution of computer and network

technology has given rise to an instructional medium that employs digital networks to meet

society’s learning needs at any time, to any place, at any pace.

However, the reputation of online courses has been usurped by companies who prey on individuals

seeking alternative pathways to advance their skills and careers by offering them opportunities via

distance education. These “diploma mills” will sell clients the degree of their choice based on their

“life experiences”. These diplomas often come from non‐existent universities, or from non‐

accredited academic institutions (Mayfield, 2000; Noble, 2002; Mabrey, 2004). Although the

proliferation of such businesses is not surprising as they existed in some capacity before online

courses, Maddux, Ewing‐Taylor and Johnson (2002) have pointed out that “what is startling and

disappointing is that many traditional and prestigious institutions have begun to offer low‐quality,

online programs of their own.”

As Daniel (1996) has pointed out, public sector institutions used a variety of terms such as home

study, external study, and independent study, likely because of the “dubious ethics and poor

quality” of commercial distance education schools associated with the term correspondence study.

Suspect instructional design, false advertising, and poor delivery methods have led to client

dissatisfaction, unmatched expectations, unattained goals, and an elevated dropout rate.

Consequently, the perceptions and attitudes that have been cultivated through substandard

experiences with correspondence courses, which relied mostly on a book‐based curriculum, have

oftentimes been applied to web‐based courses despite their obvious differences.


Based in part on these misrepresentations and abuse of online learning, cynics are quick to target

online learning as being inferior to the more traditional methods. This white paper explores the

measures taken by eConcordia.com to counter this issue by ensuring that the educational

experience that it offers to its clients is of superior quality. eConcordia is a not‐for‐profit

educational institution based in Montréal, Canada, that was founded by the Concordia University

Foundation in 2001. Its mandate is to offer high‐quality lifelong learning opportunities through e‐

learning. Courses offered by eConcordia vary from those that lead to an undergraduate degree with

its higher education partners, to professional development courses, to short seminar sessions that

are geared for the general public.

QUALITY IN THE DESIGN

Regardless of the target audience, all of the courses offered by eConcordia follow strict procedural

guidelines, from the course design and development all the way to its day‐to‐day operations. The

design of each course follows instructional design principles that are grounded in theory and

effective practice. In particular, eConcordia makes use of the ADDIE model and Gagne’s (1985) nine

events of instruction in the creation of all of its courses. That is, the content of the course and the

needs of the learners will first be assessed, followed by the design and development of a prototype.

Once a lesson (or the entire course) is ready, it is implemented and evaluated. Adjustments are

made to the course design and content based on the results of the evaluations.

In the majority of the cases it is a faculty member’s first foray in the design and delivery of an online

course. Understandably, this presents a situation when the content provider will rely heavily on the

experience and skills of the eConcordia staff to help guide, counsel, and train them to design and

manage their online course. During the design process, the faculty member is paired with a

qualified instructional designer who will work with them to create new content, repurpose existing

content, and serve as the project lead on the design of the course. The sequencing of the lessons, the

complexity and quality of the content, the use of external resources (textbooks, articles, etc.), the

design of the assessments, and all other content‐related matters are the sole responsibility of the

faculty member. The instructional designer’s job is to assist the faculty member in organizing and

delivering this content, and to find the best way to present it in an asynchronous online course with

the resources they have.


Once the content analysis phase of the ADDIE model has been completed, a preliminary design is

put together by the instructional designer with the help of a graphic and/or multimedia designer, as

well as the content matter expert. This process includes several different versions of graphics,

layouts, and colour schemes, all of which are presented to the faculty member for feedback and

eventually, their approval.

The design of each course has a few common elements in order to appeal to returning students,

enhance the usability of the website, and offer a familiar navigation environment. For example,

students will always find a link to the MyeConcordia portal as well as the Contacts button in the

upper‐right quadrant of the page, and a link to the main eConcordia website on the left‐hand side.

Each online course consists of measurable learning objectives, as per the guidelines established by

Mager (1984) and Bloom (1956), as well as direct links to the glossary, the resource centre, and to

the discussion board. The basic navigation through the study notes, the placement of the

accessibility buttons, the use of navigation breadcrumbs, pop‐ups, and the location of the help

menu remain the same from course to course. These common design elements that are found in all

eConcordia courses are the result of the application of instructional design principles for

asynchronous web‐based environments coupled with valuable feedback from students. In the event

that a new design element is employed, it is typically tested in one course, evaluated, and applied to

all new course designs if successful.

That being said, the look and feel of each course is unique. The design is inspired by the subject of

the course, the content matter expert, the readings, as well as the latest trends in website design

(Figure 1). In order to ensure that the visual aspect of the course remains up‐to‐date with the

technology, it will typically be redesigned at least every 3 years. In order to accomplish this unique

course branding, eConcordia uses its own learning management system (LMS) and learning content

management system (LCMS). The in‐house system allows for the customization of the visual

aesthetics of the content and is not limited to the more linear style of presentation that is prevalent

with off‐the‐shelf systems such as Moodle. Based on the desired operation of the course, as

determined by the faculty member, the LCMS allows for the lessons to be tailored to be accessible

on particular dates or open throughout the semester. For instance, a course that relies more on

class discussions will likely be set to open its lessons on particular dates in order to pace students

throughout the semester and ensure that all participants are at a common point. On the other hand,


a course that presents content that must be applied and practiced may allow students to access all

assignments and lessons at the onset of the semester.

The preliminary design is then submitted to the chief learning officer (CLO) for editing and

revisions and eventually, for approval. Once the course design has been approved, it is sent to the

director of systems engineering who supervises a team of web programmers developing the course

shell. Upon handing off the course design to this group, a meeting is held with the instructional

designer in order to go over all of the design specifications, which could lead to possible revisions

and modifications of the original design. In the meantime, the content matter expert develops and

refines the course content, which could include shooting lecture videos, preparing course notes,

finding electronic readings, developing assessments, and designing other multimedia resources.

Any outstanding design issues that arise are handled by the instructional designer, often with the

guidance of the CLO.

Once the content has been received from the content matter expert, the instructional designer, with

the aid of content integrators, refine and manipulate the content and integrate it into the course

shell provided by the web programmers. Each lesson that is integrated is revised by the content

manager, who may edit, re‐write, and identify any inconsistencies in the course content. The first

lesson that is developed for the course is beta‐tested and subsequently serves as a model for the

supplementary lessons. Once the content has been edited, it is sent to the content matter expert to

approve it before it is released to the learners who are registered in the course. No content is

released for consumption unless it has successfully passed through the various stages of approval.

As an added control measure, the first release of any course is made to a limited audience. For

example, when a credit course is added to a university schedule, it is typically capped at 100

students. In addition, students enrolled in the first offering are “warned” ahead of time that they are

part of the first cohort of students. It has been found, through experiences with previous

eConcordia courses, that this proactive approach alleviates any early operational or design issues

that are not uncommon with new online courses and new online instructors. Students seem more

patient, respond well to the course evaluation, and are more inclined to offer constructive criticism

and suggestions regarding future offerings of the course. Learners can also be quite active in finding

and sharing additional resources with the course instructor, who may opt to integrate them into the

course at a later time. Once the course evaluations have been analyzed and any necessary updates


and modifications to the course content, website design and operations of the course are made, the

cap is released and the course is offered to a larger audience in its future offerings.

Figure 1. Examples of eConcordia course designs

QUALITY IN ASSESSMENTS AND IN ENSURING ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

One of the major complaints about the quality of online courses, especially those that are completed

asynchronously (there is no “live” component), is the fact that there is no assurance that the

individual completing the course work is the same person who is enrolled in the course. Although

one could argue that this is akin to any take‐home assessment given in a traditional, face‐to‐face

classroom, it does not solve the obvious problem. Barring the use of digital surveillance and

authentication due to the exorbitant costs involved on both ends, eConcordia has adopted a policy

whereby any course that leads to the earning of credits must have a supervised final exam. This

means that a student who is able to come to eConcordia to write their final exam during the

scheduled time frame must do so, whereas those who cannot, must make similar arrangements (at

their own cost) with an eConcordia‐approved educational institution. Furthermore, the final exam


must be worth at least 40% of the final grade for the course. In some courses, instructors have even

insisted that students pass the final exam in order to pass the course.

For the assessments that are issued throughout the semester, eConcordia has devised additional

guidelines to minimize academic fraud. For instance, the first lesson of every course is devoted in

part to educating and/or reminding the learners about actions that are considered to be plagiarism

(i.e., improper referencing). Based on previous experience in dealing with these issues, it was found

that in many cases, students simply did not pay attention or understand how to make use of

external sources in their writing. All teaching assistants employed by eConcordia are trained by the

manager of operations to identify academic misconduct. All common assignments are maintained

from previous semesters for comparative purposes, and the LMS allows staff to track the activities

of students on the eConcordia servers and can identify points of common entry (e.g. students

sharing an Internet connection during an online assessment).

For courses that made use of online quizzes as part of their assessment, eConcordia developed a

testing system that allows for the randomization of the order of the questions, the order to the

possible choices, and can carried out in a timed environment. In addition, the system allows for the

random questions to be clustered so that students can be asked a certain number of questions from

each category from a larger database of questions. This means that if there are enough questions in

the database and enough cluster categories, the permutations could allow for each student to have a

unique, yet equivalent exam.

Other methods used to curtail academic dishonesty include the use of open‐ended questions,

especially if students must relate to their own personal experiences in their answers. Another

method that has proven to be effective has been to scatter the assessments throughout the

semester as opposed to relying on two or three larger assessments. These smaller assessments

could take the form of reflections or opinions, hence making it more difficult to copy from an

external source. Instructors will sometimes ask for an outline or rough draft of a term paper, which

has also been a method of deterring cheating.

An additional method used to curtail plagiarism is to change the topic of the term paper, simulation,

and/or project every semester. Although some courses opt for rotating cases that span several

semesters, others will opt to randomly assign one of several available topics to the students as part

of their assessment project.


Lastly, eConcordia encourages its instructors to opt for a mixed approach to its assessments so that

one’s final grade does not rely solely on the results of tests. For instance, the majority of the courses

offer marks for participation on the class discussion board, others have included a simulation or a

debate as part of the assessment criteria. For example, one marketing course has students construct

their personal marketing plan throughout the semester, a sociology course has students assess

their hometown demographics, a statistics course has students critique a recent report from

Statistics Canada, and a political science course assigns students the role of ambassador of a

particular country in order to participate in a crisis simulation at the United Nations. In the end,

regardless of the method used, the instructor should be able to measure if the students have

successfully completed each lesson’s learning objectives.

QUALITY IN THE EVALUATION

In order to ensure course quality, each course undergoes a continual evaluation throughout the

semester (formative evaluation), as well as at its conclusion (summative evaluation). During the

semester the teaching assistants, the instructor, and other members of the operations team monitor

the e‐mails, posts on the discussion board, as well as the performance on the various assessments

to identify and rectify any issues with the course. The majority of the issues that arise during the

formative evaluation stem from the day‐to‐day operations of the course (i.e. technical problems,

lack of feedback, mismatched expectations, etc.), as opposed to structural problems with the course

website. These problems are fixed immediately whenever possible. For example, if the problem was

a misunderstanding with a given concept, a mass e‐mail could be sent to the class with additional

explanations, an addition could be made directly to the course content, or the instructor could

record an audio and/or video commentary to be added in their course blog. As part of the formative

evaluation procedure, students are asked to complete a short evaluation at the end of each lesson

(Figure 2). The results of these surveys are immediately available to the course instructor,

operations manager, and instructional design team throughout the semester. However, it has been

found that although the participation rate is relatively high at the beginning of the semester,

participation tends to drop after a few weeks. The use of added incentives (e.g. prizes) or scattering

the evaluations at different points throughout the semester is currently being explored in order to

boost the number of submissions received.


Figure 2. Rate this lesson evaluation

The summative evaluation serves as a method to make structural changes to the design of the

course and/or to the assessments. Information of this nature is collected several ways. Firstly,

students are asked to complete a course evaluation at the conclusion of the semester. In addition,

the teaching assistants are asked to put together a report of the issues they encountered

throughout the semester (including their “Top 10 Questions from Students”) and are encouraged to

suggest ways in which the course could be improved. They then meet with the operations manager

and the course instructor to conduct a post‐mortem. The information from this meeting is

presented to the instructional designer for the course by the operations manager. Any minor

changes are made immediately, and any more serious issues are brought to the attention of the

chief learning officer who works with the instructional designer to resolve them. The results of the

course evaluations are made available to the instructor at the end of the semester via the

eConcordia portal. The evaluations are also sent to the department chairs at the end of the semester

upon request.

One major problem with the course evaluations is the fact that only the students who completed the

course will fill them out. Students who dropped out of the course during the semester are sent the

“Exit Survey” to find out what went wrong and how these issues could have been better handled or

resolved (if the issue was with eConcordia). Although the response rate for these surveys has

typically been low (Exit Surveys), the information gathered from them has been an invaluable

addition for the improvement of the operations of the courses, as well as for increasing the overall


retention rate. Data collected from the Exit Survey is analyzed using quantitative (for the Likert‐

scale questions) and qualitative (for the open‐ended questions) analysis techniques. Follow‐up

interviews are sometimes conducted with the students who dropped out, either in person or on the

phone, in order to ask follow‐up questions about their particular reasons for departure.

On certain occasions, at the request of a course instructor, additional research initiatives are

conducted. Although these projects typically involve students enrolled in one particular course,

they can also span over several subjects and can collect a variety of data. For example, every fall and

winter semester since 2006, a survey (the “Web‐based Learning Questionnaire”) has been sent out

to all enrolled students after the DNE date (the deadline for withdrawal with refund; the “trial

period”), but prior to the DISC date (the deadline for academic withdrawal), to query students

about the reasons why they enrolled in the online course, their attitudes toward web‐based

courses, and their experiences thus far. This information is tallied over several semesters to

measure for trends, identify changes in the responses, as well as to identify “at‐risk” learners. In

another study, students in three distinctly different courses were followed on a weekly basis and

asked to respond to questions about their motivation levels, satisfaction with the course, and

expected performance (Figure 3). The data collected from these surveys eventually helped adjust

the operation of one of the courses under investigation, and in doing so, improved the retention

rate.

Figure 3. Weekly evaluation for motivation and satisfaction


QUALITY IN THE OPERATIONS

Despite the quality of the course design, the learning experience will be a failure if the student does

not have adequate support throughout the semester. Although some students will be able to

manage better than others, there are times during the semester when e‐mail and discussion board

traffic are heightened and this necessitates the proper support to answer their questions and clarify

expectations.

Figure 4 depicts the e‐mail traffic of a typical 13‐week semester in an eConcordia course. As can be

seen, the traffic is accentuated at the beginning of the semester as students have questions

pertaining to the assessments, accessing the course website, and technical questions. Upon

investigating the nature of these questions, it was found that the majority are addressed in the

course outline. Therefore, the students were not reading the course outline, not understanding the

course outline, or had follow‐up questions.

In a typical face‐to‐face setting the first thing that is done in the class is to meticulously go over the

course outline together with the instructor who will elaborate on the outline and answer any

questions. This opportunity is lost in an asynchronous online environment, so a new strategy was

imposed by eConcordia whereby the first lesson of every course was devoted to reviewing the

content of the course outline. In addition, the information was presented in the same manner as the

subsequent lessons, including perhaps a self‐assessment and video lecture, so that students can

familiarize themselves with the navigation of the course website.

Referring to Figure 4 (below), it can be noted that the e‐mail frequency diminishes gradually until it

spikes at about week 6, which usually corresponds to the mid‐term assessment. The graph then

peaks at the end of the semester as students approach the final exam. It was found that these

questions pertained directly to the assessments (e.g. “What does the final exam cover?”). Therefore,

in order to curtail these questions, a section was created in each course website that dealt only with

the assessments. This section could include sample exam questions, a video of the instructor

explaining what to expect on the exam, as well as suggestions for studying for the exam.

Communication, in particular the speed of feedback, is one of the biggest challenges presented in

the day‐to‐day operations of an online course. At eConcordia, students are promised a response to

their query within 24 business hours. This way, the expectations for communication are better

managed. To do so, additional staffing is used at peak periods of the semester (beginning, midterm,


and final exam), and teaching assistants for individual courses are put on “high alert” when an

assessment due date is approaching. Also, mass e‐mails are sent to the learners a week before an

important due date with additional information that they may find useful (and timely). That way, a

proactive approach is taken to communicating with the learners as opposed to a reactive one. To

cut down on e‐mail queries about the reception of an assessment, an auto‐reply feature was

included for submissions made online which include a confirmation number and timestamp.

Another way in which feedback is improved is in the use of the discussion board by all

stakeholders. Students are encouraged to post their questions on the board as opposed to sending

them by e‐mail. This has two consequences: the first is that it increases the chances that a fellow

student responds to their query in a timely manner rather than someone from the instructional

team, and the second is that it encourages the students to read the responses on the board before

posing their question. In large classes it is quite likely that someone else had a similar issue and that

it has already been resolved.

In order to ensure a level of consistency and quality in the day‐to‐day operation of a course, the

instructor and the teaching assistants meet prior to the start of every semester. During this meeting

they share best practices in the way that they respond to student queries, tips for managing the

technology, and they address any grading issues, including dealing with open‐ended questions (e.g.

establishing a correction rubric) and inter‐grader reliability (e.g. grading a certain question,

exchanging corrected exams, etc.). Although they meet again at the end of the semester to conduct a

summary and review of the semester, they are free to meet, at the discretion of the course

instructor, throughout the semester, as needed. All teaching assistants are in constant contact with

each other, the course instructor, as well as with the manager of operations during the semester.

Upon completing the first offering of an online course, and after meeting with their teaching

assistants, the faculty member meets with the instructional designer and manager of operations to

recount the experience of the past semester and solve any outstanding issues in time for the next

offering.

In the case of larger classes, additional teaching assistant support is provided so that a ratio of

about 50‐70 students per TA is maintained (depending on the complexity of the course) for each

course (current average across all courses is 1 to 73.2). For classes of over 200 students, a more

experienced teaching assistant serves as the “head” TA. This team of teaching assistants serves as a

primary source of information for the students and they are the first ones to sift through the e‐mail


queries. If they are unable to respond, the query goes to the head teaching assistant. Should the

head teaching assistant not be able to answer the question, it goes to the course instructor or to the

operations manager. All technical questions are immediately sent to the eConcordia Help Desk to

respond to so that the instructional team need only worry about content‐related questions. It has

been found that the majority of the questions received from students via e‐mail are of the latter

variety.

Figure 4. E‐mail frequency during the semester

QUALITY IN THE RETENTION

Detractors of online learning are quick to point out the gap in the retention rate between online

courses and those based in the traditional classroom as proof of the inferiority of digital networks

as a medium of instruction (Frankola, 2001; Diaz, 2002; Levy, 2007). Although there are no

arguments that online learning typically has higher attrition rates than in the classroom,

generalizing from those findings is very limited. In fact, in a study conducted by Bernard et al.

(2004), it was concluded that students enrolled in online courses performed no worse than those in

a traditional, face‐to‐face format on applied knowledge assessments (i.e. exams, quizzes).

On average, the retention rate1 of online students at eConcordia is 91.5%, which is well above the

rates described in the literature (Devey, 2009). However, it must be noted that the retention rate

varies per course, as well with the various student demographics. For example, a student who is

1 The retention rate of a course is calculated using the following formula:

EDISCEDNE

X 100

Where EDISC refers to the # of students enrolled in the course at the DISC deadline (removing those who voluntarily dropped out – DISC) and EDNE refers to the # of students enrolled in the course at the DNE deadline (and responsible for paying tuition for the course).

E‐Mail Frequency

Weeks


studying part‐time (less than four courses a semester) is more likely to drop out of an online course

than one who is a full‐time student. Also, if a student has a history of dropping out of a course

(online or in a classroom), they are much more likely to do so again. Students who admitted that

they had enrolled in the online course because of external commitments (e.g. responsibilities at

home or at work) were more likely to drop out of the online course for the same reasons (Devey,

2009).

By analyzing the retention patterns of the students throughout an entire semester, it was also found

that learners were at a higher risk of dropping out of their online course whenever an investment of

their time/energy was required. For example, the probability of discontinuing their online course

experience increased whenever an assessment was due (figure 5). As a consequence, more teaching

assistant support was made available in the week leading up to an assessment being due. In certain

courses additional materials (tips, links to sample questions, etc.) were sent a week prior to the due

date via a mass e‐mail or posted on the class announcement board.

Figure 5. Hazard rate compared to assignment due date

Another finding that stemmed from analyzing the retention patterns of the students enrolled in

eConcordia courses was the fact that students who had completed any sort of assessment or who

had taken a “first step” in the course were more likely to be retained throughout the semester. Of

the students who did not submit one (or all) of their first three assessments, almost half of them

dropped out of the course (figure 6). Conversely, over 96% of the students who submitted

assignment 1 or 2 persisted in the course, and all of the students who submitted in the third

assessment were retained (Devey, 2009).

Weeks


For the day‐to‐day operations, this meant that the instructional team could use the first

assessments as an early warning system for potential dropouts. Based on this information,

instructors have been encouraged to require students to participate as early as possible with an

assignment, a survey/questionnaire, or an introductory posting on the discussion board, and to

reach out to the students who did not participate. Even though all eConcordia courses have some

sort of graded component prior to the DISC deadline, this meant that a minor assessment was

encouraged prior to the DNE deadline in order to identify the “at‐risk” students. The research has

shown that even though students may be considering discontinuing from their course, they are still

reclaimable if they think that they still have a chance at a grade that will not impede their grade‐

point average (Devey, 2009).

Figure 6. Assessment completion and retention

It was also found that an increasing number of students returned to eConcordia to take additional

courses throughout their academic career. For example, since the summer of 2007, over 1500

students have enrolled in five or more online courses with eConcordia for university credit. Based

on the results of the Exit Surveys, the top three reasons cited by students for dropping out of the

online course are as follows (Devey, 2009):

1. Fear of a poor performance – Students were not afraid of failing the course, but rather

of negatively affecting their GPA. In fact, most of the students admitted that had they

stayed in the course, they expected to have passed. Several students admitted that they

dropped out of the course because they could afford to do it (one admitted “I will

sacrifice $300 to save my GPA”).


2. Fell behind in the course – Due to the fact that the course is self-paced, many students

did not manage their time accordingly and therefore could not devote the energies

required to stay up-to-date in the course. Consequently, they did not feel that the energy

that they needed to get caught up would be positively reflected in their performance and

discontinued.

3. Mismatch in expectations – Students dropped out because the online learning

experience was not what they had expected. Some commented that they did not expect

the amount of work required in the course, even going as far as admitting that they

expected the course to be easier because it was offered online. In one particular case, the

student expected the take-home mid-term exam to be much less complex and dropped out

once the questions were made available.

It should be noted that the goal of this type of research at eConcordia is not to achieve perfect

retention, but rather to identify the institutional factors that lead to student dropout since these are

factors that they can manipulate and influence. In fact, one of the goals of the design of eConcordia

courses is to weed out students who have enrolled in an online course for the “wrong reasons” (e.g.

they think it is easier because it is online) and encourage them to change their attitude and

behaviour, or reconsider their continued enrolment in the course.

CONCLUSION

It is by sharing the successful practices in e‐learning with the academic and business communities

that the stigma currently associated by some with online courses can gradually be eliminated.

Courses offered via digital networks can be as rewarding and as well‐designed as those offered in

the classroom environment. If the support structure is in place to assist students on a just‐in‐time

basis, there is no reason why they cannot acquire the currency they need to compete in a global

knowledge‐based economy. Online instruction is a learning experience for faculty as well. In the

majority of cases, it is their first foray in a virtual environment after years of perfecting their craft in

more traditional settings. Their successful practices in the classroom, coupled with the knowledge

of the content and the field, complement the experience and skill set of the production and

operations team to design, develop, offer and evaluate their online course.


Therefore, the quality of the online learning experience rests not solely on the shoulders of the

instructor. Rather, it is a continuous process that involves many stakeholders from the moment the

course is proposed to the day that it is delivered. It is then regularly updated, refined and eventually

redesigned, thanks in part to its continual evaluation and the emergence of new and improved

technologies. And the lessons learned from a particular course design or a given course instructor

are shared within a community of practice composed of motivated individuals who are keen on

continually raising the bar in the field of online education.


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