ENSURING QUALITY IN AN ONLINE DISTANCE COMPUTING COURSE

This article describes an illustrative case of an online distance education course in introductory computing which aimed to empower learners by facilitating active learning in an innovative, high quality, and student-centered learning environment. This course was offered to 180 non-computing science students at a university in Hong Kong. In this article, this computing course will be first evaluated against the benchmarks established by The Institute for Higher Education Policy for ensuring quality in Internet-based distance education. Secondly, the effectiveness of the course was examined in two student tracking studies conducted before the mid-term and final examinations, respectively. Results showed that towards the end of the course, statistically significant differences in learners' behaviors were found, e.g., the use of self-assessment activities rose from an average of 1.27 hours per week prior to mid-term examination to 2.63 hours per week prior to final examination. It was also observed that students adjusted their studying methods and their attitudes towards the course over time. It is expected that by documenting this experience, some good practice in technology-mediated instruction can be identified.