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The aims of this document are to help faculty
new to online teaching develop quality courses and to assist departments
in assuring that online offerings represent the best of local practice.
The goal of WSU Online is to provide students with convenient
asynchronous access to learning experiences of the same quality and
completeness the university prides itself on in the traditional
classroom setting. Maintaining standards of academic quality is the
responsibility of the academic department and college. Because of the
newness of the world wide web as a means of instruction, however, it is
sometimes difficult to identify equivalencies between the new and the
more traditional means of instruction.
Thus a group of experienced WSU Online faculty
from all academic colleges has led the WSU Online delivery team in
articulating the following standards derived from three years’
experience and our local practices in teaching online. Committee members
include William Clapp, Computer and Electronic Engineering Technology;
Betty Damask-Bembenek, Nursing; Charles Davidson, Chemistry; Tom Day,
Child and Family Studies; Bruce Handley, Business Administration; Levi
Peterson, Prasanna Reddy, English; Gene Sessions, History; Tamara Aird,
Scott Allen, Peg Wherry (WSU Online).
The WSU Online development team in continuing
education has been assigned responsibility for assisting faculty in
online course development, including provision of technical tools and
orientation to teaching online as well as assisting faculty at all
stages of course development. The team is also responsible for providing
technical support and assistance to students enrolled in online courses.
WSU Online team members are Tamara Aird (Project Leader), Scott Allen,
Marvin Ellis, Cynthia Palumbo, Susan Smith, Jeff Willden; Peg Wherry
(Distance Learning Director)
COURSE PLANNING
1. An online course should be based on the same
learning outcomes and demand the same rigor as a traditional class. The
identification of courses to be taught online, the semesters in which to
offer them, and the assignment of instructors rest with the academic
department.
2. Students should spend the same amount of time
on an online course as they do for a campus course. The rule of 15 clock
hours of class time per credit hour should guide development of an
online course.
Comment: In
addition, the well-established notion of spending two hours out of class
for every hour in class means a student should spend a total of at least
45 hours in study for each credit hour earned.
3. Online courses should reach the same learning
outcomes as traditional courses. Assessment of the effectiveness of
online offerings should be conducted at the same time as and in a manner
consistent with departmental standards and practice for traditional
courses.
Comment: The
generic WSU Online "evaluation" instrument is administered
online and addresses technical delivery issues more than quality of
instruction. Departments may wish to adapt their standard instruments to
online purposes.
4. Online faculty are responsible for
identifying copyrighted materials used in their courses and for either
citing that material appropriately or obtaining written permission to
use it in the web environment in advance of coursework beginning.
Comment: The
concept of "fair use" is still quite unstable in cyberspace.
The only rule seems to be the one about an ounce of prevention being
worth a pound of cure. Online staff can assist faculty in the
permissions process. Costs for permissions and a cost code for paying
for them should be identified early in the course development process.
5. Discussions, chat, use of media (especially
streamed media) should all be chosen to be value-added to the student.
Comment: Is the
urgency of the content worth the frustration of overlapping dialog in
real-time chat? Is the big MPEG file worth the download wait? The WSU
Online team constantly monitor new web technologies and assist faculty
who adopt them. Through this experience, they are developing and
revising guidelines for the use of multi-media. Development of any
multi-media applications (video, audio, animations, etc.) should involve
the Online team as early as possible.
6. Every course should address the needs of
students with disabilities; boilerplate language can be provided.
Comment: One
member of the WSU Online team is specifically assigned to staying
current on issues of accessible media.
COURSE COMPONENTS
7. All online courses use the course template
(which includes navigation pathways and design standards) developed by
the WSU Online team and modified by the experience of WSU Online
faculty.
Comment: It is
in students’ interest for all courses to be similarly structured and
to follow the same navigation strategies–students should only have to
learn one way to learn in the web environment. The Online team provides
help and technical support to students enrolled in Online courses and
can be most effective when they are most familiar with all features of a
course design.
8. Course content should be up-to-date at the
beginning of the term, with dates changed from term to term and links
updated.
9. Because online courses are unique in being a
form of publication, experienced online faculty feel that each course
must reflect the highest professional standards, including careful
attention to such fundamentals as spelling, grammar, and mechanics.
Comment: Even
though access to courses is restricted to enrolled students, posting
material to the world wide web is a form of publication that reflects
not only on the individual faculty member but also on the institution as
a whole. Errors can be magnified and multiplied in the online
environment. The standard stated here addresses the instructor’s work.
Each instructor may set and should articulate his own standard for the
level of editing expected in student work. If the instructor views web
assignments as written work to be graded on mechanics as well as
content, that should be clearly stated. If the instructor is more
concerned that students make substantive content contributions to an
online discussion without worrying about spelling (for instance), that
too should be clearly stated.
10. When possible and when supportive of course
objectives, the course should draw on and incorporate some of the vast
information resources available via the web.
Comment: Many
textbook publishers now host websites, and there are many databases,
archives, and other information resources available. New resources
appear and old ones change, so an instructor should review this point
periodically after a course is developed. One way to identify possible
resources is to make an annotated "webliography" an extra
credit assignment in either an online or traditional class.
11. Instructors should feel free to use library
resources to the same extent for online courses as they do in
traditional classes.
Comment:
Stewart Library staff have done an outstanding job of designing services
for distant learners. The Library is consistently praised by distance
learning professionals reviewing WSU Online.
12. There should be task submissions for
students with substantive feedback on a regular basis, preferably
weekly.
Comment: Online
courses give students more options to schedule–or to procrastinate–their
course work. To replace frequent class attendance as means of pacing and
motivation, experience has shown that regular and somewhat more frequent
submission deadlines are effective. It is especially important to create
a very early assignment or message from the student to the instructor.
One of the lessons from Independent Study is that the sooner students
start their work, the more likely they are to finish. Instructional
quizzes built into lessons or assignments offer one opportunity for
integrated, immediate feedback.
13. Online instructors should set and articulate
clear and realistic timelines for responding to students and should
adhere to them.
Comment: Users
of the web have come to expect a response every time they click, which
is unrealistic in the context of careful consideration of student work
It is essential for faculty to manage student expectations and to set
ground rules. Experience suggests that students be told to expect
feedback on routine items in 2-3 days; assignments or more complex
projects should include a statement that grading will be completed
within some longer but still definite period of time. It is also wise to
alert students when the instructor will be at a conference or traveling
or otherwise temporarily unavailable.
14. Special efforts should be made to create and
support a learning community among online students who may feel they are
working in isolation.
Comment: Online
discussion and chat are two obvious methods; group projects are also
possible. Class discussion can function somewhat differently online than
in the traditional classroom, because it is feasible to require every
student to participate. The instructor can choose her role in
discussion: deliberately directing it at every stage, setting the
initial question and providing prompts, intervening only when necessary,
or just turning the students loose.
15. The course should use the richness of the
electronic medium to the fullest extent possible. Online faculty should
possess skills in word processing and electronic communication at least
equivalent to those identified in the computer literacy requirement for
students.
Comment: Use of
other than electronic communication should be based on course content
(i.e., where student performance must be literally hands-on, where
coursework requires the manipulation of items or substances, etc.).
16. Course design should include appropriate
orientation about how the course is structured and how online tools
work.
Comment:
Although our students are arriving with more sophistication about
navigating cyberspace each semester, they still need clear statements of
expectations and strategies for success. To address this need, a course
should have a clearly labeled set of instructions: a separate page
called "Orientation," "Start Here," etc.; a brief
bit of streamed audio or video of the instructor welcoming students and
providing a starting point; a face-to-face meeting on campus (though
this can be a problem for students outside northern Utah), etc.
17. The online medium should be used for
teaching and learning activities. A syllabus and a set of online tests
do not constitute an online course.
Comment: Since the usual image of a
teacher is a person standing at the front of a classroom talking, it is
natural to assume that’s what teaching is. But teaching is not
primarily a set of motor skills (standing or pacing and talking): what
is the teacher talking about? One WSU department chair commenting
on teaching in another context came up with the following list of
teaching tasks: "Beside the problems of motivation, a teacher
focuses attention on relevant areas, models modes of understanding,
makes unusual connections between experience and the content, and
between disparate content areas, all missed if one merely reads a
book." And all of that is in addition to presenting material (i.e.
lecturing)! A wide range of teaching and learning actions can be
incorporated into an online course.
In the words of one faculty member beginning to
develop an online course, "Think about what you could do in class
if you could do whatever you wanted." The web environment makes it
possible to use visual and audio media in ways that would be cumbersome
in a face-to-face class, and it makes every student a more active
learner. Students can’t just sleep in the back of the room in an
online environment.
18. Every course should address academic
honesty.
Comment:
Although the student handbook policy is posted in WSU Online, each
course should also include a statement of expectations and penalties. It
is especially important to spell out whether and to what extent
collaboration among students is appropriate. Chi-tester is actually a
very secure testing environment, and there are strategies for making
"homework" assignments less susceptible to cheating.
11/17/00
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WSU
Online