Keywords

virtual universities, online courses, faculty evaluation, evaluation methods, evaluation research

Description

As enrollment of students in online courses has steadily increased over the last few decades, very little attention has been given to online instructor evaluation. This is an area of online education that needs additional research to better ascertain the current state of online instructor evaluation as well as discover ways to improve its effectiveness. The purpose of this study is to identify how institutions evaluate online instructors and why. Findings indicated that the post-secondary institutions studied utilized many types of evaluation including student evaluations, administrative evaluations, peer evaluations, self-evaluations, and metrics in their evaluations. Recommendations for the use of triangulation, course observation rubrics, formative evaluations, and metrics as part of an online instructor evaluation system are provided.