Section 3. Guidelines for online course development
The Online Course Committee, composed of faculty, established these guidelines to assist an instructor when developing an online course.
All copyrighted materials used as part of any course must have acknowledgement of the material’s creator. There are a number of Web sites that elucidate the use of copyrighted materials. One such site is http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/index.html. (To determine Educational Use you may want to skip to http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter7/7-b.html)
Instructor Fully Developed Online Course (IFDOC)
This type of course is ready to deliver fully online. All course content material is developed by the instructor. This does not necessarily include images or audio that may be needed as part of the course.
- An online course will consist of the following five components.
- Less than or equal to five face-to-face meetings
- May include an orientation meeting
- May include course labs
- Meetings are agreed between the instructor and Chair
- Assessment
- Course Content
- Syllabus
- Student-to-student and student-to-instructor interaction, which can be accomplished using any combination of the following means
- Chat
- Instructor must schedule two hours per week per course
- These two hours are in lieu of office hours
- Discussion
- Activities
- One of the five components can come from a publisher or courseware developed source (as an example, assessment)
- This component is agreed upon between the instructor and Chair
Web-enhanced course
This type of course features online enhancement of traditional course content delivery by implementing some, but not all, of the components listed for IFDOC. The guidelines for these components will follow the guidelines for IFDOC. Once the course implements all of the components for IFDOC, the instructor is eligible for incentive payment. This revision from “Web-enhanced” to IFDOC will be subject to review and agreement with the department Chair.
E-Pack/Publisher or courseware developed course
This includes any course that has been developed by a text publisher or courseware developer. It can be used by the instructor to enhance a course or deliver a fully online course. This type of course is not eligible for the Web-based course incentive payment.
Section 4. Additional recommendation for online courses
During the course of developing the Web-based Course Incentive Proposal and Guidelines for Online Course Development documents, the OLC Committee had additional comments and recommendations that didn’t necessarily fall under the aforementioned sections. The Committee would like to forward the following recommendations.
Faculty
- Administration should strongly consider adding a software module to WebCT Vista that will allow the instructor and students to have synchronous online interaction. To this end, the Committee reviewed two programs:
- Centra (http://www.centra.com/solutions/education.asp) (Editor's Note: As of March 30, 2010, this website appears to no longer exist.) and
- WebEx (http://www.webex.com/solutions/conferencing-overview.html). Both programs have the capability to allow synchronous audio and video interaction and recording of those interactions, as well as shared applications, while conducting an online class. There are other programs, such as:
- Elluminate (http://www.elluminate.com/products.jsp) and
- Wimba
(http://www.horizonwimba.com/products/liveclassroom/) on the market that have
similar functionalities. Dr. Robert Mayes, of
- Feedback from the faculty indicates strong interest in online course development, but also expresses concern regarding training. To this end, we recommend the following:
- Re-implement the faculty-training program for online course development (see Example below).
- Publicize whom the faculty needs to contact to get courses or sections created.
- Publicize who will conduct training, when and where.
- Consider offering one-on-one training to assist faculty who are timid about online course generation.
- Utilize experienced faculty as mentors to assist others with creating online courses, especially exploring the different methods of student assessment.
- Encourage knowledgeable faculty to share experiences, both good and bad, and make suggestions for what worked and what didn’t work in the online course.
Example — Professional development program for teaching online
New (possibly all) faculty must complete this program. The training course consists of a one-week WebCT orientation and a five-week online instructional design course. This valuable training not only prepares the instructor to teach in the online world, but it also orients the instructor to the online learning model. It also helps us evaluate the instructor’s “online personality” and approach towards students. The training course is offered at no cost and is an unpaid experience. The eight to twelve hours spent each week in this training course will make the instructor more effective and prepared. It is important to be sure that, prior to starting the training course, the instructor’s commitment to teaching for Glenville State College is sufficient to make time for this course. (adapted from http://www.davenport.edu/tabid/367/default.aspx)
- Faculty want to know if all of them must develop an online course. Set a deadline for a completely online degree offering (like the Associate’s in Arts in General Studies). The proposal suggests Fall of 2007. If that is a definite goal, let the faculty know. Additionally, add online course development as a contract or hiring criterion when recruiting new faculty.
- Consider adding the Certification programs as part of the online offerings.
- Some faculty have expressed concerns that some courses are not suited for online course development. We recommend that the faculty member and departmental Chair review, discuss, and mutually agree on this point for the courses in question.
- We do not recommend that a faculty member be allowed to only teach an online course developed by another instructor. We feel that this would put undue burden on the developing instructor as the faculty member would not have experience to add, modify, or change the online course to suit her or his wants or needs.
- We recommend that the Office of Technology further explore automatically populating the student class list once the course is ready and online.
- While minimum course enrollment numbers were outlined in the Web-based Course Incentive Proposal, maximums were not addressed. Therefore, we recommend that course enrollment maximums be discussed and decided upon between the instructor and Chair.
- A concern expressed was that technology sometimes becomes unavailable and an alternate access to course materials should be available. We therefore recommend that the Administration, in conjunction with the Office of Technology, implement a backup strategy for online courses. For example, create a shared drive where the instructor who creates the online class will have an alternate place to put class materials besides the WebCT Vista server. Or alternately, the instructor will be required to put class materials on e-Reserves. We recommend that this be completed during the second semester of online class delivery.
Existing or prospective students
- Student computer skills were a concern for some faculty. Therefore the Committee recommends a small mini-course be developed, using Course-Maker, that can be accessed from GSC’s Web page. This mini-course will help the student selfassess whether their computer skills are adequate to take and complete an online course. We believe this may help alleviate concerns of a nontraditional student seeking to return to college.
- We recommend open access to a sample WebCT course so that a prospective or current student can see how a course might be structured, organized, and conducted. Again, this is to help the student assess if an online course is the appropriate educational venue for them.
Section 5. Online course suggested marketing strategies
At our last OLC Committee meeting, we invited Ms. Cinda Echard (Professor of Marketing) and Ms. Allison Minton (Public Relations). Our purpose was to seek assistance with potential marketing strategies that GSC might use to increase the awareness of online courses offered. With the assistance of Ms. Echard and Ms. Minton, we were able to identify five different strategies that GSC might use. Those strategies include focusing on:
- Course sampling or non-degree online courses, followed by
- Online general education courses that may transfer to other institutions, and
- Online courses that can culminate in a full degree. Other areas of administrative investigation may prove effective for additional venues to market GSC online courses, such as:
- Third party pay, and
- Certification offerings. All of these are discussed more fully below. There are three factors which GSC may capitalize on for the suggested marketing strategy.
Economics: In light of the higher automobile fuel prices, this strategy may be appealing for the lowincome and non-traditional students. Additionally, GSC’s tuition rate is exceedingly cost-effective when compared to other in-state institutions, even when factoring in the online course technology fee. Further, GSC’s out-of-state tuition costs may be less than some in-state tuition costs at other states’ institutions.
Time: This is a limited commodity for everyone. Taking an online course will allow students to manage their time according to their needs. This self-management of their time may especially appeal to the nontraditional student. Also, as pointed out in the Webbased Online Course Incentive Proposal, offering courses online will increase the scheduling flexibility of the traditional student.
Location: Taking online courses does not dictate on-campus attendance and will easily fit into any student’s busy schedule. This may play into the economic factor as well. Again, this may be especially appealing to the non-traditional student.
