OLN Policies

Why Seven Principles?

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Why has OLN Embraced the 7 Principles of Good Practice?

Ohio has a full complement of two- and four- year, public and independent institutions that deliver educational content from a distance as well as within physical classrooms. Questions about the quality of new delivery methods arise with any new innovation. To enable broad statewide conversations about quality issues, OLN established a Task Force on Quality in Distance Learning.  The Task Force worked diligently, and reviewed national policy trends, including organizational and institutional policies, standards, and current research. Task force members agreed that the 7 Principles of Good Practice (Chickering and Gamson, 1987) have successfully stood the test of time and provide the foundation to high quality distance delivery methods.

OLN Task Force on Quality in Distance Learning

The OLN Task Force on Quality was charged in 2002 with determing the essential conditions for quality learning and with creating a strategy that stimulates the creation of quality e-learning content in Ohio.

OLN Task Force on Quality in Distance Learning FINAL REPORT:

• Quality Learning in Ohio and at a Distance: A Report of the Ohio Learning Network Task Force on Quality in Distance Learning (Adobe PDF).

• Read the statement from Susan Metros, Chair, OLN Task Force on Quality and Professor and Deputy CIO, The Ohio State University.

Some essential links about the Seven Principles of Good Practice

• Excellent overview of implementing the Principles.
• The Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education: A Historical Perspective by Zelda F. Gamson, Founding Director of the New England Resource Center for Higher Education and Professor of Education at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.
• The original Seven Principles article by Chickering and Gamson reprinted with permission on the web by the University of Hawaii.

The Seven Principles and e-learning:

• Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever by Arthur W. Chickering and Stephen C. Ehrmann.
• Seven Principles for Effective Teaching: A Practical Lens for Evaluating Online Courses by Charles Graham, Kursat Cagiltay, Byung-Ro Lim, Joni Craner, and Thomas M. Duffy. (A Publication of Michigan Virtual University).