E-Learning Quality Assurance Checklist

E-Learning Quality Assurance Checklist

The success of e-learning courses depends on a range of factors, including the quality of the course. It’s also important to ensure the e-learning course you have invested in is error-free, accurate, and well-designed. Achieving these essential objectives involves having an?effective quality assurance (QA) process. It is helpful to use a QA checklist as part of this process to ensure nothing is missed.

QA checklists are often customised according to the project, but the following points are relevant for e-learning courses in most UAE and Saudi Arabian companies:

Consistency

Check for consistency in both content and design. The content should have the same tone throughout and it should be presented with a focus on the learner. The content should also be conversational rather than formal, as well as being positive and encouraging.

In terms of design, there should be consistency between each screen and element. Specific features to check include typography (including headings), colours, and branding.

Consistency is also important across media elements. This means images and videos should follow the same design consistency as the rest of the course.

Content Flow

It is also essential to check the flow of the content. It should be logical, and it should facilitate the learning experience. This means the flow of content should bring learners on a journey, with each stage building on the previous stage and supporting the next one.

Content Accuracy and Relevance

The content of the e-learning course should also be accurate. Particularly complex parts of the course should be double-checked by a subject matter expert and sources for figures and external information should be reviewed.

Checking the relevance of the content is also important, as relevance is critical to e-learning success. High levels of relevancy help learners to connect with the content and understand how it applies to their daily duties.

Interactivity

All interactive features of the e-learning course should be checked to?make sure they work as expected. It is also important to check interactive elements to ensure they are intuitive and are not complicated to engage with. They should also meet the learning objectives of the course, i.e., interactive elements should not be there for the sake of it.

Examples of interactive elements that should be checked as part of the quality assurance process include quizzes, scenarios, and gamified elements.

Visuals

Visuals such as graphics, videos, charts, diagrams, and infographics are important learning tools, so they should be thoroughly checked as part of the quality assurance process. As a starting point, they should be checked to ensure they enhance the learning experience. They should also help present information, ideally in a better way than any other alternative method, i.e., a graphic should explain a concept better than a paragraph of text.

Visuals should also be checked to ensure the information presented on them is readable. It is important to check this on different size screens, devices, and browsers. The positioning of visual elements on the screen should also be checked.

Audio

Audio elements are just as important as design, text, and visuals, so they should be checked as part of the QA process. This includes checking the quality of the audio to ensure it is clear and easy to understand. Checking pronunciation is also important as a mispronounced word in audio is just as bad as a misspelled word in text.

Navigation and Functionality

All navigational elements and functionality features should be checked and tested. This includes all menus, buttons, and links, as well as other navigational elements such as progress bars. As part of the QA process, all menu options and buttons should be clicked and/or tapped to ensure they function as expected. One of the most important things to look out for is content dead-ends, i.e., screens where there are no options for learners to proceed.

Navigational elements should also be intuitive. Where guidance or tooltips are presented, they should be clear and helpful.

Grammar and Spelling

Grammar and spelling should always be checked before an e-learning course is passed as complete. It is important not to rely just on spell-check technologies to complete this QA task. Spell-check technologies are helpful, but all content (including text on visuals) should be read and checked manually, ideally by more than one person.

Device Compatibility

Device compatibility is another important task in the QA process, particularly if learners will be completing the course on a range of different devices. For example, the experience for learners using a mobile phone to complete the course should be comparable to the experience of learners using a laptop.

Checking device compatibility also involves checking compatibility with operating systems and browsers.

Accessibility

Accessibility checks involve ensuring there are features that make it possible for people of all abilities to complete the e-learning course.

Methodical QA Results in Better Learning Outcomes

The QA process?is one of the final stages of an e-learning development project but is crucial to get right. It requires a methodical approach with high expectations and standards to ensure the e-learning course engages learners and delivers on your learning objectives. An e-learning course QA checklist like the one described above helps to achieve the required methodical approach.

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