The Blazer Online Learning Design (BOLD) Standards are a resource for developing or revising online courses and suggestions for best practices in online instruction. In addition to helping faculty with course design, individual academic units may use the accompanying rubric to assess courses in their programs to ensure consistency in the quality of online course offerings.
The BOLD Standards Guide
The BOLD Standards guide provides a description of the course design process, a description of each standard and criteria for a well-built online course, best practices for teaching an online course, and guidance on how to conduct a review of an online course using the BOLD Standards.
The BOLD Standards Rubric
Academic units may elect to make available or even require a review of their online courses to ensure that they meet the BOLD standards. The BOLD Standards Rubric is a tool for conducting these reviews.
The BOLD Standards Resource Course
The BOLD Standards Resource Course provides examples, information, and further reading for each of the criteria of the standards. Both the BOLD Standards guide and the rubric link to the individual criteria in the resource course, but faculty can also just browse the course if desired.