It’s Quality Matters Monday! Each Monday, we will highlight a Quality Matters standard and review its importance in an online course and how we evaluate this standard.

Today, we are reviewing Quality Matters Standard 1.3.

Click here to view Quality Matters Standard 1.3 in the Quality Matters Rubric. This standard addresses the inclusion of etiquette expectations, or “netiquette,” in the course.

As online communication is its own particular medium that lacks a face-to-face element, communication issues become amplified. That is why this standard recommends that courses include some specific netiquette directives as general guidelines for online communication.

While this applies to all forms of online communication, it is most applicable to discussion boards. We suggest including a Discussion Board-specific “Dos and Don’ts” handout for your students. Click here for an example of a handout.

Additionally, since you, as the instructor, can set the tone of the course, it is important that you start off the course on the right foot and “practice what you preach” in terms of netiquette. Click here to view the Ed Tech Du Jour video, “Building Community in Your Online Course.”

In our demo course, State U Student Orientation, you can find an example of netiquette expectations in Module 4: Online Communication.

These expectations can also be included in the syllabus, course overview, program overview, and/or the like.

Click here to access Quality Matters eLearning Marketplace. The Quality Matters eLearning Marketplace is a free, searchable database built to serve the broad QM community with an easy-to-use eLearning product/service directory organized within the 8 general standards of the rubric as well as by user and product categories.