Quality Assurance

About Quality Assurance

Faculty member teaching a math course at the whiteboard

Online course quality at UCCS is the primary focus of the Faculty Resource Center. The OSCQR (pronounced "Oscar") rubric is utilized in the quality assurance process. OSCQR provides both flexibility and guidance on the design and development of high-quality online learning experiences for students. 

Originally developed as a partnership between the Online Learning Consortium and State University of New York, OSCQR is an open, customizable, course-level, quality-review process that integrates faculty directly into the review process, generates an action plan for future iterations of the course, and results in rigorous online courses. 

Online Learning Consortium

Available OLC Resources:

OLC logo

Quality Assurance Process

The UCCS OSCQR process incorporates a self-review, collaboration with an FRC instructional designer, and review by an additional UCCS reviewer to achieve standards in the following six domains:

  • Domain 1: Course Alignment
  • Domain 2: Getting Students Started
  • Domain 3: Organization and Representation
  • Domain 4: Accessible course design
  • Domain 5: Engagement and Interaction
  • Domain 6: Assessment and Feedback

Meeting the UCCS OSCQR standards results in a badge for the faculty member and a three-year UCCS QA certification for the course. QA certification is offered for both newly developed and existing online courses through the following options:

Option 1: Successful completion of the FRC’s Teaching Online Program (TOP) to design, develop, and then teach a new online course. Program participants enroll in the review process when completing the Design for Quality Assurance badge, the final phase of the TOP.

Option 2: Newly certify or re-certify existing online courses (up to two courses per year) by successfully working through the Design for Quality Assurance badge. Email the Faculty Resource Center at frc@uccs.edu to inquire more about the QA process at UCCS.

QA Certified Courses

  • NURS 4010: Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice
    Grounded in the basic understanding of the elements and processes of research and evidence-based practice.  Students will integrate reliable evidence from research literature to inform nursing practice and improve individual, family, and population outcomes.
    Certified Fall 2025
    Kathy Prue-Owens, PhD, RN
    Jennifer Zohn, PhD, MA, RN, PMH-BC, LPC, NCC
  • NURS 4015: Nursing Research and Evidence-based Practice
    Grounded in universal design for impactful teaching strategies, this course offers students a basic understanding of the elements and processes of research and evidence-based practice. Using multiple methods, students integrate reliable evidence from research literature to inform nursing practice and improve individual, family, and population outcomes.
    Certified Fall 2024
    Jennifer Zohn, PhD, MA, RN, PMH-BC, LPC, NCC
  • ENGL 3220: Gender and the Environment
    A course for students interested in exploring some key pieces of speculative fiction—Sci fi, dystopic fiction, and fantasy—of the past fifty years written by female-identified individuals and in thus interrogating the role of imaginative writing in this time of climate crisis. Taught completely online, the course covers four entire works of fiction by writers such as Charlie Jane Anders, Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, and N. K. Jemisin and asks students to reflect in written work, in collaborative assignments, and in discussions about the ways these authors engage—and look to transform—their immediate circumstances through the imagining of strange worlds.
    Certified Summer 2024
    Rebecca Laroche, PhD
  • ENGL 1800: Fundamentals of Creative Writing
    This course provides students with an overview to creative writing by surveying three genres of the field: poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Students learn to “read like a writer,” examining published pieces for elements of craft and then, with that information, develop their own creative work in each genre.
    Certified Spring 2022
    Leslie Rapparlie, MFA
  • HUM 3990: Hero to Superhero
    In this course, learners embark on a journey through time, art, and history through literature and film to explore the idea of the “hero” across 3000 years of western civilization.
    Certified Spring 2021
    Sydney Pearson, MA
  • ENGL 1410: Rhetoric and Writing II
    This course focuses on academic inquiry and argument, building upon the basic analytical and rhetorical proficiencies learned in ENGL 1310. Students write in-depth and well-researched arguments on substantive issues. They engage in extended inquiry which encompasses identifying, evaluating, documenting, and integrating print and non-print sources while enabling them to examine their chosen issue in its full complexity.
    Certified Spring 2021
    Nathan Price, MA
  • IELM 4035: Teaching Elementary Science
    This course addresses science teaching methods in elementary classrooms. Specifically, pre-service teachers will learn how to use Project, Inquiry, and Discovery-Based Instructional strategies to engage learners in exploring authentic, important, and meaningful questions and to promote engaging participation in STEM.
    Certified Spring 2021
    Kylie Swanson, PhD