Chapter 15: Evaluating online courses: Seeking Instruments and Evaluator Competencies

Evaluating distance learning environments can be a difficult task when the evaluator does not possess the appropriate skills and knowledge for the evaluation activity. Similarly, finding an evaluation tool that can be used with different types of courses can be challenging. Furthermore, complications emerge when evaluation tools have unclear definitions, along with different units of analysis and methodologies. This chapter explores the evaluation process performed by four participants with different experiences relating to subject matter expertise, instructional design, usability evaluation, and online teaching. Although participants’ descriptions of their evaluation experiences were similar, the evaluation process produced inconsistent results.