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

E-Packs, Cartridges, Building Blocks and Third-Party Instructional Sites
The majority of course instructional content must reside in the College Learning Management System (Canvas). The use of e-Packs, Cartridges, Building Blocks and/or Third-Party Instructional Sites (publisher provided systems/courses) cannot constitute the majority of the course content. Instructional components such as discussions and assignments must be performed/submitted within Canvas. If external sources are used for testing purposes, grading criteria must be provided in Canvas and all grading records must be transferred/posted into Canvas course grade book.

Course Instruction

Course Instruction
Courses cannot be instructed in an 'auto-run' delivery, utilizing only auto-graded activities as periodic assessment/feedback and without instructor initiated collaborative components. Collaborative components and faculty assessment/feedback on students’ performance must be present periodically within the course activities.

Course Certification Requests

Course Certification Requests
When an instructor finishes development of their Online or Hybrid course site, a request for certification needs to be sent to the PBSC Online department. The site will be reviewed to identify availability/application of the the 'Online Course Certification Guidelines' principles and the instructor will be notified of the result. Workday will be updated to reflect instructor's approved certification status.

Granting of Certified Course Use

Granting of Certified Course Use
Individual faculty members can volunteer to allow other instructors to use a copy of their certified course for instruction or designate the course as a ‘departmental template.’ Permission of such must be granted in writing (sample form below) and be authorized (co- signed) by the supervising administrator. A copy of the form must be forwarded to the PBSC Online department for records. When the form is approved and received, the PBSC Online department will provide a certification record for the faculty granted to use the certified course and copy the designated certified course into the receiving faculty’s section. This instructor can then be assigned to instruct such course as long as the instructor possesses basic skills for online instruction. If the course is designated as a departmental template, PBSC Online will archive the course and distribute copies per departmental needs. The department must assign a course template manager to provide management/updates of the course template and serve as a course template liaison to the PBSC Online department.

Sample Form:

I (name of faculty) give permission for (name of faculty/department) to use my certified (course prefix/number) Canvas course site (reference number of section to copy) for instruction.

Granting Faculty Signature: _____
Supervising Administrator: _____