Online Course Approval and Development Process at Colorado School of Mines
Role: Online Program Manager
Mines’ online/hybrid course design and development process consists of seven steps:
- Review and Approval: Mines has a well-defined approval process for all new courses, programs, and changes in course or program modality. Full internal approval is required before moving forward.
- Pre-Course Build Phase (~1 week): faculty complete a self-paced Canvas course to get comfortable with the eLearning
- Engineering and Facilitating Online Learning (EFOL) Course (5 weeks): All faculty are required to pass this 5-week online professional development course on online design and facilitation before they can begin online development. Upon completion of EFOL, faculty attend a kick off meeting with an Online Learning Experience Designer (OLED).
- Design/Development Phase (~12 weeks): faculty work collaboratively with an OLED to develop the course. The typical commitment from faculty is 8-10 hours/week for about 12 weeks to develop each online course. The course development process has established benchmarks to monitor and adjust the course build. Some courses have been pulled from development or the launch pushed back to ensure the course meets the expected
- Course Review and Revision Phase (~2 weeks): members of the Online Standards Committee review the course against Mines Online Standards. Following review, the faculty and OLED make revisions based on the review
- Coaching Phase: an OLED coaches faculty during their first semester of teaching the course. During this phase, the OLED actively observes interactions between the instructor and students and provides feedback.
- Continuous Improvement Phase (time varies depending on data): there is a mid-course feedback established to make course adjustments during the semester. Once the course has concluded, feedback obtained from the course is reviewed to determine if any revisions need to be made before the course is taught again.
Online Course Development Process at Pasco-Hernando State College
Role: Researched and Developed Process
The Online Course Development Process blends best practices for E-Learning with the subject matter expertise of the assigned faculty member. This process brought together a skilled instructional design team that included an instructional designer, multimedia specialist, and a subject matter expert (SME) in the creation of over 150 model courses. The goal of this team was to develop a course that encompassed a “consistent and coherent technical framework for students and faculty” as referenced in the Manual for E-Learning at PHSC.
Model Online Course Development
Role: Project Manager and Budget Supervisor
The following tables illustrate the number of courses developed, total budget allocated to subject matter experts, number of sections offered and total headcount for each semester for the last five years.
