The OLC Quality Online Student Services Scorecard was developed to help institutions take an introspective look at the services being offered to students across the institution. It follows the life-cycle of the student from before admission, until graduation. It has been proven to start useful conversations, leading to improved services for all students, not only those who are fully online.

Engaging students through student services is valuable when considering quality of distance education. Through the student services, students should be able to access the equivalent support services that allow them to be successful academically and reduce the feeling of isolation. As post-secondary institutions exploring ways to differentiate their brand and to address how to support students in other states, the services required for students may need to be delivered in alternative ways. More students also are beginning their academic career 100% online. Institutions are developing an interest in how to create an online experience that can extend the campus experiences to the online students. By building connections with the institution through online services, students begin to feel as if they belong to the larger student population.

The origin for the Online Student Support Scorecard was in the 2025 Online Education Strategic Plan developed by the Florida State University System through the support of the Innovation and Online Committee at the Florida Broad of Governors. That plan identified three areas of emphasis to increase online courses and degrees in the state. As the online presence grew, the state was interested in address three areas: (a) quality, (b) affordability, and (c) access. To improve the quality of distance learning, two of the tactics where included to promote high quality student support services. Other quality tactics addressed the quality of course development and availability of professional development. The first tactic for student support was to develop a scorecard to measure the presence and quality of online student support services. The second tactic was to provide best strategies in providing support for online students. With the Online Education Plan as the springboard, the universities and colleges in Florida combined resources to develop the scorecard. Within the group were experts from student support service units across Florida brainstormed what was important for online students to access and how to define access. The scorecard has now become part of the OLC suite of scorecards and this is one of the ways that the OLC community can be involved in its future.

The Scorecard is usefully in several different ways. The Scorecard allows the institution to self-evaluate the availability and the quality of the services provide to the online students. The institutions utilize the data provided by the Scorecard to improve services in various ways. The Florida University System also used the overall results to explore possibilities to combined statewide services. Finally, the Scorecard was helpful for regional accrediting reviews as a demonstration of the institution self-evaluating and documentation of improvement over time.

During our time with you, we will give you an overview of how you can use the scorecard to find areas of opportunity for improvement at your institution. We will share our observations about improving online student support over the past two years since the development and implementation of the OLC Quality Online Student Support Scorecard. You will also have a brief opportunity to do a mock evaluation of your institution based on one section of the scorecard.

In this workshop you will create an implementation plan for your online course quality review and refresh process. Participants will be introduced to OSCQR, OLC’s online course quality scorecard and will be guided in the creation of an online course quality initiative implementation plan to systematically review and refresh the instructional design and accessibility of online courses and programs. Participants will leave with an implementation plan tailored to their individual context, and the scope and scale of their initiative. Access to the tools and resources needed to implement their project will be provided. And, best practices in implementing an online course quality review and refresh process will be reviewed and discussed. To provide deeper context and understanding, selected standards will be highlighted. Participants should bring a laptop and be able to access access the online course quality tools and resources.

This workshop is designed to address 3 key objectives:

1. The first hour of the workshop will focus on creating an individual implementation plan for your online course quality review and refresh initiative. Key questions will include: what model of course review will work best for the scope, scale and context of your initiative? What is your timeline? Who are your stakeholders? What policies and institutional organizational structures or procedures have to be taken into account for any aspect of your initiative?
2. The second hour of the workshop will focus on access and overview of the OLC OSCQR tools and resources you will use to implement and track your initiative. These include the OSCQR dashboard, the OSCQR rubric, and the OSCQR resource site.
3. The final hour of the workshop will be dedicated to discussing best practices in implementing an online course quality review and refresh process. with special focus on selected standards.

Workshop Objectives – In this workshop you will:

• Receive an implementation plan template that you will use to create your own individualized plan.
• Gain access to OLC OSCQR self-assessment rubric, as well as the online interactive rubric for use in team reviews.
• Gain access to OSCQR online dashboard to manage larger scale online course quality review initiatives.
• Receive an overview and orientation to the tools, resources, process, and best practices for conducting an online course quality review and refresh initiative.

We invite collaboration and feedback on the use of OSCQR and we will also solicit input and suggestions from the participants on the next areas of the rubric to be developed.

OSCQR approaches online course review and refresh as a professional development exercise, to guide faculty in their understanding of improving course design from an effective practices perspective, rather than as a course evaluation. An Action Plan is automatically generated by the course review process that presents recommendations for course design improvements based on the review, and assists in prioritization of course revisions based on the estimated time to make those improvements. The rubric also provides suggestions for course design improvements for each standard that can be selected from a menu of options by each reviewer to supplement reviewer feedback. The rubric can be customized. Standards can be added, edited, and /or eliminated. There is no license fee for use of the rubric. It is shared with a creative Creative Commons license: CC-BY 4.0 US. Because the OSCQR Rubric is licensed under Creative Commons, and the Dashboard is licensed under LGPL, the entire process can be shared, used by anyone with no cost, and can be customized to address individual campus environments.