COURSE DESIGN RUBRIC
The California Virtual Campus-Online Education Initiative (CVC-OEI) is a collaborative effort among California Community Colleges (CCCs) to ensure that significantly more students are able to complete their educational goals by increasing both access to and success in high- quality online courses and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The OEI Course Design Rubric was developed in 2014 by the OEI Professional Development work group to ensure that all courses offered as part of the initiative promote student success and meet existing regulatory and accreditation requirements. It has undergone revisions and updates since then in response to changes in available instructional technology and feedback from both instructors and reviewers.
Courses that are peer reviewed and aligned to the OEI Course Design Rubric:
- have met the CCC’s highest level of design standards to support online student success and
- can be made available for cross enrollment to students at participating colleges.
The Rubric is divided into four sections.
SECTIONS A-C
Section A: Content Presentation
The 14 elements for quality course design in this section address how content is organized and accessed in the course management system. Key elements include course navigation, learning objectives, and access to student support information.
Section B: Interaction
The six elements in this section address instructor-initiated and student-initiated communication. Key elements of quality course design covered in this section include regular effective contact, both between and among instructors and students.
Section C: Assessment
The eight elements in this section address the variety and effectiveness of assessments within the course. Key elements include the alignment of objectives and assessments, the clarity of instructions for completing activities, and evidence of timely and regular feedback.
Following a review by a team of trained faculty peer reviewers, each element in Sections A-C will be marked in one of three ways: