Open ECBCheck

Open ECBCheck is a low cost accreditation and quality improvement scheme for E-learning Programmes and institutions in international Capacity Building. It supports capacity building organizations to measure how successful their e-learning programmes are and allows for continuous improvement through self-assessment, peer collaboration and benchmarking. The Open ECBCheck provides a quality label valid for three years, after this period program and institution can re-apply in order to re-obtain the label. Certified institutions and programs also commit in reporting improvements made after having received the certification.

Open ECBCheck has been developed through a participative process initiated by InWent. This interagency collaboration involves about 25 international capacity building agencies (among which 8 UN agencies). ^[1]

Criteria

The Open ECBCheck is based on a self-assessment exercise followed by a peer-review performed by external agencies (see Process for more information). Both the self-assessment and the peer-review are guided by a set of criteria. The label has two different sets of criteria for the evaluation of a programme or an institution.

Set of Criteria for a Program / Course Certification:

The program/course quality criteria are divided into seven main areas:

1. Information About and Organization of the E-Learning Programme is related to the information provided about the program for (potential) learners and the general organization of the programme.
2. Target Group Orientation highlights the importance of the learners’ perspective in the various phases of a program, from the development to the evaluation.
3. Quality of the Contents is related to the quality of the material provided.
4. Didactical Design focuses on the learning design and on the quality of the learning experience.
5. Media Design is related to the accessibility and usability of the media provided to learners.
6. Technology: Equipment and Infrastructure is concerned with the support that technology provides to the learning experience.
7. Evaluation and Review comprises the factors that ensure the continuous improvement of a program / course.

Set of Criteria for an Institutional Certification

The institution quality criteria are organised into four main areas:

1. Education & Learning is concerned with the quality of factors connected with the experience of the learners (resources available, support provided by the organisation).
2. Organizational Strategy and Innovation is related to the way innovation is fostered and how the quality of elearning are embedded into the institutional strategy.
3. Organization Processes concentrates on the quality and documentation related to elearning that the organization created and provides to the audience.
4. Technology: Equipment & Infrastructure focuses on the way technology supports the learning experience.

Methods

The Open ECBCheck label makes use of 5 central methods for quality evaluation and validation:

1. Benchmarking: Systematic and continuous process to evaluate products, services or processes of an organization by comparing them with the recognized market leaders.
2. Benchlearning: Process of learning from the "best in the class", identifying the best practices available and integrating them in the organization.
3. Self-assessment: Analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of a company or organisation to identify areas of improvements and determine one position in relation to the others.
4. Peer-Review: External evaluation of an organization or program by expert that belong to a different organisation.
5. Qualitative Weighting and Summation: Method for evaluation based on criteria catalogue. Each criterion is attributed a weight according to its importance. The criteria are afterwards rated and in the final step the product of rating and correspondent weighting indicates the final score.