The primary purpose of this manual is to provide a set of benchmarks, quality criteria and notes for guidance against which blended and online education programmes and their support systems may be judged. The manual should, therefore, be seen primarily as a reference tool for the assessment or review of blended and online education programmes and the systems which support them.
However, the manual should also prove to be useful to staff in institutions concerned with the design, development, teaching, assessment and support of blended and online education programmes. It is hoped that course developers, teachers and other stakeholders will see the manual as a useful development and/or improvement tool for incorporation in their own institutional systems of monitoring, evaluation and enhancement.
We recommend institutions who are assessing the blended and online education aspects of courses or programmes first to do the quickscan. Based on the results of the quickscan, you can restrict your focus in the manual to certain chapters.
