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Course Certification Criteria

The course site certification review evaluates the following online course site design and content delivery pedagogical principles:

  • Hybrid and Online Course
    Must use approved standard course Home page design (e-Learning department provides a template of the approved Home page for instructor adoption) and must satisfy the following four online learning pedagogical principles:
    1. Contact Time and Content Organization
      1. For every instructional hour removed from the classroom, an equal one hour of online instructional activities must be provided.
      2. Instructional content must be organized into a set of 'Modules' (titled as lessons, units, chapters, etc.), with each Module presenting a series of related activities (presentations, discussions, assignments, assessments, etc.).

        The time it takes to complete all Modules (lessons, units, etc.) needs to equal traditional 'in-class' contact time. Traditional 'homework' (i.e. reading textbook, writing term paper, etc.) does not count for online instructional activity time.

    2. Periodic Assessments
      1. Students must receive continuous/periodic feedback to let them know how well they are doing.
      2. Faculty need to assess whether students are completing assigned instructional material, and assess students’ comprehension/achievement of the learning outcomes.

        Assessments can be applied in a variety of formats. It is recommended to provide this assessment/feedback in every Module (lesson, unit, etc.). In an online environment, the need to provide periodic assessments is much greater than in a traditional classroom -- a 'midterm and a final' is not enough to ensure an effective assessment schedule. Since faculty do not see if the students are attending class and paying attention, more frequent assessments are required.

    3. Interactive (critical-thinking-skill) Exercises
      1. Online Instructional Activities need to include faculty and student interaction.

        This can be accomplished in a variety of ways, students need to interact with faculty and be given the opportunity to discuss concepts and theories to stimulate conceptual thinking and provide an additional learning modality. In the online course environment faculty need to initiate these interactions -- since students are not in a controlled environment (classroom), 'online class time' competes with many external stimuli, and thus many students are not likely to initiate the collaboration  on their own account.

    4. Present Personal Expertise
      1. The course must be enhanced with instructor's personal expertise to provide instructional material comparable to the traditional in-classroom lecture presentations and/or demonstrations.

        This can be accomplished in a variety of ways, such as voiceover presentations, video, text based material, scripted discussions, feedback on assignments, etc. The Instructional Design Technology (IDT) Department assists faculty with development of this multimedia material upon request.

E-Packs, Cartridges, Building Blocks and Third-Party Instructional Sites

Course Instruction

Course Certification Requests

Granting of Certified Course Use