Abstract:

While the academic and professional discourse on the quality of distance education programmes offered by higher education institutions has been ongoing, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic it has gained more prominence, with emergency remote learning translating into purposeful blended and online programme delivery. Due to challenges such as inequality with regard to access to devices and space, lack of affordable and stable internet connection, and unreliable electrical grid, in the Global South in particular, asynchronous programme offering with no face-to-face interaction is likely to become more common, as it would provide a flexible model. This is thus an opportune time to reconsider what it means to offer quality programmes without any real-time interaction. Numerous efforts have been made to establish standards as a means to assure and promote the quality of distance programmes. Such standards would typically cover the entire quality spectrum of a distance programme, often neglecting the instructional design of online learning material component. Up to date, only one set of global instructional design standards have been published to guide instructional designers before, during and after the design of online learning material, namely Instructional Design Standards for Distance Learning (Association for Educational Communications and Technology; 2017). Yet in this paper, we argue that these standards were developed in the context of the Global North, and also prior to the rapid move to online learning, and thus possibly did not take current and contextual factors enough into account. Using a decolonial lens, we deconstruct the notion of quality with regard to online learning material design, towards appropriate standards, and to contribute to Southern Theory.

Keywords:

Asynchronous online learning, instructional design, Global South.