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=Information on student achievement of learning objectives guides e-learning design and (re)development. =

Evidence
There is a risk that rather than focus on student achievement of learning objectives, institutions may focus on production and delivery milestones. What we really want to know is whether or not students are emerging with educational outcomes that connect with the institution’s mission, vision, or objectives. One of the surest ways that a learning provider has lost its way is a focus on enrolment and revenue numbers. Education must concern itself with learning outcomes. (Smith Nash 2007)

There is an ongoing need to monitor the use of e-learning and ICTs for course delivery because there is as yet no consensus about what constitutes quality e-learning (Usoro & Abid 2008). These authors state that, ‘effective quality strategies, initiatives and tools are very important for convincing lecturers and other stakeholders to adopt e-learning’ (p. 80). Kidney et al. (2007) believe that, ‘a quality online course would be the direct result of a course creation process that included quality assurance strategies’ (p. 18).

To improve e-learning outcomes it is important to learn from past mistakes, according to Ehrmann (2002), who argues that tracking progress is not only necessary to stay on course but also to identify solvable problems that can attract fresh resources (p. 55).

Validation of e-learning processes and resources is a significant stage in the full cycle of organisational learning that describes success in terms of ‘student performance, student satisfaction, staff experience, and cost effectiveness, as judged in relation to the original intentions’ (Salmon, 2000, p. 236). Salmon discusses validating as one of six activities in the iterative process of creating an effective learning organisation infrastructure that enables ‘the system to learn about itself’ (p. 237).

Resources
One advantage of e-learning is that much data on student activity, use of learning resources, and achievement can be gathered through such instruments as Learning Management Systems. For example, Mazza & Botturi (2007) describe a study on the use of the GISMO tool in the Moodle learning environment. By providing graphical representations on social aspects of online use, cognitive aspects such as the results of quizzes and assignments, and other behavioural aspects tools like GISMO can provide insights that can guide course (re)design. It is possible for such questions as ‘are students participating? Have the read the course materials? Did a student access the whole of the course materials? To be answered.

The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools have produced an Assurance of Learning process. This focuses on direct measures of student learning at a program level. This is a mechanism to ensure that graduating students are the sort of graduates that institutions want them to be. Schools should be asking: 5.	What should our students learn in our program? And what are our expectations? 6.	How will they learn it? 7.	How will we know they have/have not learned what is expected? 8.	What will we do if they have not learned what is expected?

The Outcomes Assessment Process should include the following four steps: 5.	Definition of student learning goals that are translated into measurable objectives 6.	Alignment of curricula with the adopted goals 7.	Identification of instruments and measures to assess learning 8.	Collection, analyzing, and dissemination of assessment information. Then using assessment information for continuous improvement.

When assessing course structure, learning design and content it is important to ensure that the answers to the questions, ‘what do we want our students to be?’ (at a program level) aligns with the assessment measures and design of the courses. (see AACSB white paper 2007).

One example of how program objectives might be assessed is for learners to undertake assessments of content (e.g. an essay) which is then assessed by the course instructor for content, and then assessed by the faculty for program attributes, such as writing skills (AACSB white paper 2007). These assessments could then feed back into course design mechanisms.

Kidney et al. (2007) believe that, ‘a quality online course would be the direct result of a course creation process that included quality assurance strategies’ (p. 18). This is exactly what is described by Abdous (2009) in a pilot programme.