• How can we assess the quality of a program at an institution?
• Can we compare programs at different institutions?
• What functions and services are most important to those participating in online education?

I recently completed a series of studies examining parts of these questions, and the results include a set of indicators of quality and a set of quality factors, or steps, that need to be taken by an institution. Please refer to the following definitions for Indicators and Factors.

• Indicators are signs of success that the community college has a quality program and can be identified as outputs that are directly related to the quality of the program;
• Factors are inputs consciously made by the institution that contribute to the quality of the online program, whether through resources, policies, or requirements.
  

With the goal of identifying a set of factors, I began this research with a Delphi study. An open-ended survey was distributed to 21 Distance Learning/Education program administrators. More than 300 items were generated through this, and subsequently whittled down to 77 potential indicators through the remainder of the Delphi process.

A survey for Stakeholders in Distance Education at Community Colleges was generated from these results and distributed to students, faculty, administrators, and support staff at a community college system. The intent was to guage perceptions of importance for the 77 potential indicators, and, while the results generally agreed with previous studies in the literature, some new perceptions that appear specific to the community college were identified.

The 77 potential indicators consisted of a mix of factors, indicators, metrics, etc. A follow up survey was distributed to a group of 10 distance learning researchers. They were asked to classify a subset of the 77 items according to the definitions provided above. The participants refined the list of items to 8 indicators and 62 factors.