The E-Design Assessment Tool: an evidence-informed approach towards a consistent terminology for quantifying online distance learning activities

Online distance learning (ODL) continues to expand rapidly, despite persistent concerns that student experience is poorer and retention lower than for face-to-face courses. Various factors affect ODL quality, but the impact of recommended learning activities, such as student interaction activities and those involving feed-back, have proven difficult to assess because of challenges in definition and mea-surement. Although learning design frameworks and learning analytics have been used to evaluate learning designs, their use is hampered by this lack of an agreed terminology. This study addresses these challenges by initially identifying key ODL activities that are associated with higher quality learning designs. The learn-ing activity terminology was tested using independent raters, who categorised the learning activities in four ODL courses as ‘interaction’, ‘feedback’ or ‘other’, with inter-rater reliability near or above recommended levels. Whilst challenges remain for consistent categorisation, the analysis suggests that increased clarity in the learning activity will aid categorisation. As a result of this analysis, the E-Design Assessment Tool (eDAT) has been developed to incorporate this key terminology and enable improved quantification of learning designs. This can be used with learning analytics, particularly retention and attainment data, thus providing an effective feedback loop on the learning design.