Personalized online tutoring is fast becoming a popular concept in the US. The appeal lies in the personal attention devoted to the learner, ready availability, convenience of use and increased affordability due to off-shoring model followed by several tuition providers.

From the perspective of a learner, it is important to understand what online tuition is supposed to deliver and what should the characteristics of quality online instruction be.

What is Quality
Online tutoring in its best form is supposed to cater to the individual learning aptitude, personality and pace of the learner while imparting knowledge, skills and application. Thus quality of an online learning program needs to be measured by how much knowledge has the learner grasped and retained and how well can he apply it to problem solving.

Parameters affecting quality
Since by definition, online tutoring has to cater to the individual differences between learning aptitude of the learners, any discussion on quality should exclude it from parameters affecting learning outcome. Effective online tutoring is supposed to teach no matter whether the learner is fast or slow and that is the determinant of its quality.

Thus the factors affecting the quality have to be intrinsic to the process and operation of providing online tutoring. Broadly, these factors can be categorized as:

• Instructor quality
• Process control
• Content quality, and,
• Technology & infrastructure

Instructor Effectiveness
Online instruction takes personalization of teaching to the next level thereby making the role of instructor even more significant.

An enthusiastic teacher with great subject matter expertise and teaching aptitude can make the online classes very exciting. The novelty of learning online from a teacher sitting thousands of miles away becomes an exciting prospect.

Thus, in terms of instructor quality, it is important to ensure that the instructor has sound knowledge of the subject matter, basic teaching aptitude, great communication skills and in case of offshore teachers, command over spoken English including neutralized accent and an appreciation of cross-cultural nuances.

While the subject matter expertise and teaching aptitude is to be tested before recruitment, proper training enables the instructor to effectively communicate to students across the globe.

From the instructor effectiveness perspective, the implications are:

• Online tutoring provider should have stringent recruitment criteria to ensure teachers with good subject knowledge and teaching skills
• Systematic training be provided to build online teaching skills to an alien audience (eg students in an entirely different country)