CITL Online Course Quality Assurance Review

• Required: The course is fully built, including all lessons and lectures.
• Required: The course structure is logical and easy for students to navigate.
• Required: Weekly overview information and weekly objectives are included.
• Required: Readings and learning activities are listed for each week.
• Required: Assessments are clearly laid out in the course, with instructions, submission directions, and any other requirements for students.
• Required: Assessments are related to the materials covered in the class.
• Required: Student-Instructor Interaction - Methods of communicating with the instructor/instructional team are clearly defined in the course. Students have opportunities to learn about, and interact with, their instructor (e.g., welcome video, weekly announcements, office hours, email, Q & A forum).
• Required: Student-Student Interaction – Students are provided with opportunities for peer-to-peer interaction (e.g., ice breaker welcome board, group discussions, group projects).
• Required: Student-Content Interaction - Active learning opportunities facilitate student engagement with course content (e.g., regular class discussions, interactive assignments with instructor feedback, in-video quizzes).
• Recommended: Both formative and summative assessments are included.
• Recommended: Time estimates for all activities and assessments are included.
• Recommended: Lectures begin with a topical overview or list of objectives.
• Recommended: Media assets (images, animations, clips) and audiovisual materials are relevant to the topics discussed.
• Recommended: Individual lectures generally run 15 minutes or less.

• Required: Videos are devoid of temporary graphics, offline media warnings, etc.
• Required: All audio is properly synced with video, and volume is consistent.
• Recommended: Each lecture contains appropriate Illinois Block I in each frame (small and in corner are acceptable). If applicable, program styling standards are met (see companion style guide for the course/program to make determination).
• Recommended: Recorded person holds himself/herself in a relaxed, comfortable way, creating an atmosphere conducive to learning.
• Recommended: Speech is clear, understandable, and well-paced.
• Recommended: End of lecture transitions are consistent and professional (no “sigh of relief” from instructor, eyes dancing from main camera, etc.).
• Recommended: Lecture videos are devoid of media elements/choices that distract from lecture content (e.g., flickering keying, excessive green screen spill, overexposed lighting, jump cuts, unbalanced audio, etc.).

• Required: Content and assets are cleared for copyright.
• Required: Assets all have proper (legally sufficient) attribution and citation.

Important: Please see the CITL Online Course Accessibility Checklist for detailed explanations and informational resources for each of the following accessibility checkpoints.

• Required: (Keyboard) Clear indication of visual focus.
• Required: (Keyboard) Content is keyboard navigable for keyboard users.
• Required: (Keyboard) Tabbing order reflects the visual order.
• Required: (Color) Color contrast meets at least WCAG 2.0 level AA standards.
• Required: (Color) Color alone not used to convey information.
• Required: (Color) Page responds to high contrast settings and is still readable.
• Required: (Logical Structure) Content is logically ordered (e.g., hierarchical heading level structure, related items grouped using ordered and unordered lists, data tables for tabular data).
• Required: (Logical Structure) Tables have titles (i.e., a heading used to introduce table, or table caption in Word or HTML), and are properly formatted using table headers and scope (where applicable).
• Required: (Links) Hyperlink text describes the destination of the link (i.e., does not just provide the URL, and does not use phrases such as "click here" or "read more"). The most relevant information is placed at the beginning of the link text. Link text would make sense out of context.
• Required: (Links) Relevant document format information is provided in the link text (e.g., “PDF,” “PowerPoint,” etc.) to let students know the linked content may shift the user focus to another application. Links without format information point to web pages by default and require no added document format information.
• Required: (Links) Link text is used consistently throughout the course (same link text for all links to the same destination).
• Required: (Content Reflow) Content reflow or responsive design is readable on mobile devices.
• Required: (Graphics) Graphics (e.g., photographs, charts, or graphs) are clearly described and include alt-text and figure captions for informative images.
• Required: (Video/Audio) Player controls are keyboard accessible for keyboard users.
• Required: (Video/Audio) Captions are at least 99% accurate captions (no auto-generated captions).
• Required: (Video/Audio) User controls the timing of content changes (no Autoplay).
• Required: (Audio) Text transcripts are provided for content.
• Required: (Documents) Electronic documents offered in the course (e.g., PDF, Word, PowerPoint, etc.) follow best practices for accessibility.

• Required: For all LAS online courses, course meets LAS ID Verification policy.
• Required: LMS settings (e.g., due dates, timing, feedback) are correct for all assessments and other learning activities.
• Required: All text is clear, easily readable, and concise.
• Required: Capitalization style is consistent.
• Required: Content is free from placeholders.
• Required: For MOOCs, students are referred to as “learners.”
• Required: Links and buttons lead to the intended page and function as expected.
• Required: External links to systems that require a login or campus network presence are accompanied by student access instructions for those resources.
• Required: Where possible, students are not required to visit websites often blocked by corporate or government firewalls (including, but not limited to, YouTube, Dropbox, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Flickr).
• Recommended: Content follows the published style guide indicated on course Copyright List (use APA if not otherwise specified).
• Recommended: Ordered and unordered list items use sentence case (only the first word is capitalized). This includes answer choices on assessments.
• Recommended: References to screen areas are bold in every instance and not quoted (e.g., the Discussions link, the Next button, Overview pages, etc.).
• Recommended: Course components, such as a discussion forum, are uniquely titled, in bold, and use the same title consistently throughout the course.
• Recommended: Key values like time estimates and points are emphasized via bold text (e.g., "This assignment will take you 3 hours and is worth 100 points.").
• Recommended: All rubrics are written in present tense.
• Recommended: Any quiz or survey questions that use an all-of-the-above or none-of-the-above choice do not randomize the order of choices (i.e., all of the above and/or none of the above are always the last choices).
• Recommended: Calendar dates listed in overview information and on activity pages reference the week and day of the week (e.g., Tuesday of Week 1) rather than a specific month and day (e.g., March 22nd).