SNHU’s ODE program was launched in 1996 and currently provides a combination of 26 undergraduate, graduate and certificate programs. The composition of its student body is unique, with only 11 percent from the state of New Hampshire, 40 percent from the U.S. military (primarily in the Navy) and the rest from all over the country, as well as foreign countries. Because of its strong military presence, a typical SNHU ODE student is a 27-year-old male.

However, more important to educators than its size and unique student body, SNHU has developed an ODE program that is entirely focused on defining and implementing quality ODE, claims Goodman.

In relation to the issue of what facilitates sound teaching and learning experiences in ODE, "we all have different ideas of what quality is," he says, adding that "we decided that quality had to be very clean, very clear and something that everybody at this institution certainly could understand."

For instance, talk to any distance educator today and the common refrain about quality in online teaching and learning frequently centers around "interactivity." At SNHU it’s no different, except, perhaps for their approach to this topic. Goodman says that it’s wrong to compare an online classroom to a face-to-face classroom. "Quality has to be defined in its own terms as part of the online environment. Once we figured that out, we said ‘okay, what does it take to do a good online course?’"

To find the answer to this broad question requires a good deal of effort and examination of the research and data on what works best in an online teaching and learning environment. Goodman says that SNHU has developed an extensive handbook for its faculty that covers quality issues in detail. Some of the topics covered in this handbook include:

Although the quality of interactions often cannot be defined in concrete terms, there are certainly some basic tenets that can be followed. For instance, if a student logs in and says "I agree," that is not enough. The student must say I agree and here is why. The challenge is to teach professors how to spur on students to post significant responses inside class discussion boards, chats and e-mails. SNHU has a seven-week DE 101 instructor training course for all its new faculty members, a peer mentoring program and one-on-one coaching that all focus on, in part, showing faculty how to get students to interact in meaningful ways. Additionally, there needs to be a specific number of postings required by students. "Every student has to interact at a minimum level in every online class," says Goodman.

"We don’t want the teacher asking the questions and the students giving the answers, and then the teacher correcting them," says Goodman. "We want the students talking to each other, which is what you often do not get in the [face-to-face] classroom. In the online environment we have the ability for every student to be in front of the class much of the time. Whenever a student speaks online you can get everybody to listen to and communicate with that student. We teach instructors [in DE 101] how to do that."

Although the online class in many ways cannot be compared to a face-to-face class, there are certain similarities between the two that must be taken into consideration. "Students have this perception of a classroom having a midterm, a final and research and writing assignments," says Goodman. "We wanted to maintain that consistency. Part of that is for accreditation. We make sure we meet all of their requirements." Also, there is no deviation in the course descriptions, and the textbooks used are also identical in both online and face-to-face classes.

Goodman says that through their use of Blackboard they are able to track such statistics as how many and how often students log into a class, as well as review the interactions going on between students and faculty. An expert full-time instructional designer will often go into class sessions to determine whether or not a class is effective and then pull out best practices. "We then make sure if a professor does something really innovative and really gets the point across, that it is shared with all the other professors. We built a culture where everyone is willing to accept input."

Finally, the SNHU ODE program has formulated a concise definition of quality in online teaching and learning: "Quality is an online, interactive, collaborative approach supported with fully trained instructors and professors who are dedicated to online learning."