Regardless of the topic, length, and value of your course, the quality of your work should always be of paramount importance. 

An essential quality assurance tool that many instructional designers and eLearning course developers use is an internal review (IR) process. 

Once instructional designers and eLearning developers have completed a course (or brought it to significant completion stage), it is a good idea to have a quality check performed on the final (or near final) product. The mechanism for doing this quality check is a well-defined external review process.


Internal Review

As the term suggests, an internal review is performed internally by the course designers and developers. The two main purposes for conducting internal reviews are to ensure that all client requirements have been met and that the course content, design, and final presentation meet the highest levels of functional and technical standards. 


Internal reviews may be conducted by a specialized team of in-house staff, or contracted experts; or by a hybrid team of in-house staff and contracted experts. The goal is to have an internal end-to-end review of the course content, interface, and various design elements prior to having clients or learners review. 


Proposed Best Practices

In order to ensure the integrity of the quality assurance process, it is essential that instructional designers and course developers follow some best practices during an internal review. 

  • It is best to have multiple internal reviews during course design and development so that issues with content or presentation can be flagged early in the process. 
  • Segregation of duties and responsibilities is vital for the integrity of the internal review. While instructional designers or content producers can act as observers on the internal review team, the review must be conducted by independent third-parties (e.g., in-house staff or contracted experts). 
  • The internal review team should have a balanced set of skills including subject matter experts (SMEs), technical writers, developers, and technologists. 
  • It is a good practice to document review findings in a detailed report and assign the remediation of any issues to individuals or teams. 
  • The list of items in a course that need to be fixed is commonly referred to as a "punch list." This term is derived from the construction industry where all imperfections are marked with blue tape and need to be fixed before the final sign off. The punch list should be completed prior to the external review. 
In some instructional design settings, groups of instructional designers and content developers conduct a “peer review” of the course as part of an internal quality assurance process. While this may work for smaller projects, larger or more complex projects are best served by a formal internal review process.


External Review

Because instructional designers and eLearning content creators are often "too close" to the products and services they deliver, they may at times unintentionally lack objectivity in judging the quality of their efforts. Having their work reviewed externally for quality, in terms of fitness of use and purpose, is a good operating practice. 


In most cases, the external reviewer would be the client/sponsor/team. If the eLearning content is meant for internal consumption, then independent third parties may be engaged to conduct the external review. 


Proposed Best Practices 

An independent "external pair of eyes" can reveal opportunities for improvement that instructional designers and course developers may not have considered. However, the benefits of such external reviews can be gained only when conducted using some industry best practices: 

  • External reviews must not be conducted before an internal review is done, and significant shortcomings and issues are fully addressed. 
  • If the course content is being designed and developed for a client, the scope of such external reviews should be agreed upon in advance—preferably before the content is designed and developed. 
  • If the course is meant for internal consumption, and an external resource is being engaged to conduct the external review, then such reviews must be conducted under formal Terms of References (TORs) outlining in detail the scope of the review, timelines, and deliverables. 
  • External reviews should be conducted for each significant milestone of instructional design deliverables ( e.g., course design, major content, prototypes, etc.). 
  • It is always a good practice for the instructional designer or lead developer of the course to be part of the external review team—as an "observer.
  • The external reviewers should also create a punch list identifying everything that needs to be fixed before the final sign off. 
External reviews are most effective as a quality assurance tool when the findings are documented formally and appropriate remedial action is planned and monitored. A follow-up review should also be scheduled in advance.

To learn more about instructional design and eLearning, enroll in our self-paced course, Principles of Instructional Design: A Roadmap for Creating Engaging eLearning Content.