When scholars from the Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) in Islamabad, Pakistan, visited San José State University (SJSU) during July, they learned how to develop quality online education programs, thanks to a workshop hosted by Debbie Faires, assistant director for distance learning at the SJSU School of Library and Information Science.

Debbie Faires and faculy members from AIOU at the online program workshop, hosted by Faires.

Three professors from AIOU attended the workshop, entitled Building Quality Online Programs. Faires shared how to shape institutional policies to support online programs and explored a variety of topics related to course design and faculty training.

Faires also discussed how to use the Sloan-C Quality Scorecard for the Administration of Online Education Programs, a tool used to measure the quality of online programs in areas such as course structure, student engagement, instructional design, use of technology, and student support. The SJSU information school uses the Sloan-C scorecard to assess its online programs and publishes scorecard results on its website. During the workshop, Faires discussed how to use the scorecard to assess an online program, as well as how to follow up on assessment results to improve the program.

“It’s exciting to see what AIOU has planned as it expands its existing distance learning programs to the online environment,” said Faires. “I was pleased to be able to share our school’s experience delivering fully online graduate programs with the visiting professors, and I look forward to future opportunities to collaborate with them as they implement what they learned during their visit to San Jose.”

AIOU faculty visited the San José, California campus as part of the Pakistan Distance Education Enhancement Program (PDEEP), a partnership between SJSU and AIOU. Funded by the U.S. State Department, the program’s purpose is to enhance the distance education capacity of AIOU.

“Debbie’s contribution was the central point of our five-week visit with the Pakistani faculty,” said Mark Adams, PDEEP project director and an instructional developer at SJSU. “Her experience and knowledge of how to build quality online programs will help thousands of students in Pakistan achieve the goal of a quality education at a distance.”