Building an Online Course

The following section, "Essentials Checklist for Course Authors," offers an abbreviated look at the requirements listed below.

Timeline and Project Scope Document

A timeline and scope document is required for contracted projects. These are developed between the Author(s), Program Coordinator, Faculty Reviewer, Academic Services Operations, and Learning Design.

Academic Services Operations will provide a template for the timeline and scope document.

When all of the information has been gathered, use this link to submit the template to Academic Operations.

Timeline

There are at least 4 milestones with due dates that cover the entire scope of the project. They are required to issue a contract. Most full Dev/Revs (new course development or course revision projects) are scheduled for 2 semesters.

• Calculate the launch date (this is the Friday before classes begin)
• Create at least four milestones
• The milestones can be calculated by dividing the duration of development by four
• The 4th milestone is two weeks prior to course launch date
• Go/No-go Date: while updates may be requested as you proceed, there is one administrative checkpoint where you will be asked for information to determine if the course can be launched on time.

Syllabus

The course syllabus is an essential part of your course. Your syllabus gathers all the vital information about your class in one place. The course syllabus is important for students to be successful in the course.

All the vital components of your syllabus can be found in this Canvas course template shell. Copy this into your course or you can use this link to request a copy of the course template shell.

Have all your syllabus edits finalized in your course one month before the start date.

For more information about Faculty Senate Requirements and College recommendations review: What should be on my syllabus?

Textbook information

The World Campus requires the following for each textbook or other materials that are to be purchased by the students.

• Author
• Title
• Year
• Edition
• Publisher
• ISBN-13

Please submit this information by the following dates. Depending upon which semester your course will be launching:

• Fall semester launch: the second week of the previous March
• Spring semester launch: the second week of the previous October
• Summer semester launch: the second week of the previous February

Grading

“Provide a breakdown of the graded elements of the course and the percentage weight for each category.” (Faculty Senate: source)

Schedule

The World Campus will need to know the due dates for all assigned activities. They add this information to the syllabus if:

• the option to display the schedule in the syllabus has been selected and
• the dates have been entered into each Canvas activity.

You can use a spreadsheet, or some other document, with all the due dates for the assigned activities. Click on this link to download an example template. Please send your completed schedules 6 weeks before the start of the launch semester. We will need two schedules. One for fall and spring semesters that are 15-weeks long and another for the 12-week summer semesters.

Media Planning

For courses with videos, interactive media, etc., send an email 3 months before your course is scheduled to launch. The Office of Learning Design will follow up with you.

For courses without videos, interactive media, etc., send an email 4 weeks before your course is scheduled to launch to request an Accessibility review of your content.

Quality Assurance Checks

All courses need to undergo a series of QA checks performed by the Office of Learning Design. This process begins one month before the launch date.

1. The Program Coordinator will submit this form to start the Dev/Rev (new course development or course revision) process
2. Academic Services Operations will provide a scope document which includes a timeline that will need to be approved by the Program Coordinator and others before any work begins or a contract is issued
3. Sign and return the contract to Academic Services if applicable
4. Contact IST Office of Learning Design for a Canvas Master Course, choose one of the options below for the Canvas Master:
   • Start with a copy of the current World Campus course template (CT) by requesting the CT using this form, then import an existing Canvas template
   • Start with the IST World Campus Shell as a common starting point to develop a new course
     
   • Start with a blank course development space for a more free-form approach to the design of the course
5. If your project contains video or interactive media content, contact office of Learning Design 3 months prior to course launch to address accessibility checks
6. Create Course Syllabus
   1. Send list of required materials before the due date
   2. Grading breakdown for class
   3. Schedules for FA/SP and SU semesters
7. Request a quality assurance (QA) check one month before launch – copy editing, transcripts, captions, alt text review

Clear QM

Is a rubric built on four select standards based on the Quality Matters Course Review Rubric. Clear QM aids Authors and Faculty Reviewers with assessing the quality and appropriateness of the course content and related academic work of a Dev/Rev (new course development or course revision) project. Here is the rubric with instructions on how to use it. Contact the Office of Learning Design if you have questions.

Faculty Collaboration

In addition to the Undergraduate Program Coordinators or Graduate Program Director and the Faculty Reviewer, the college recommends authors discuss their course content with the following groups of faculty:

• Undergraduate Course Champion
• Other Teaching Faculty

Design Consultation

The following is a list of course design and development services:

• Review and assist with course delivery requirements
• Assist with course-based planning
• Draft learning objectives and rubrics
• Organize course content in Canvas
• Design course activities for Accessibility and Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI)

Course Development and Production

The Office of Learning Design will also help with:

• Building syllabi with customized course policies
• Developing assessments with rubrics that are aligned with learning outcomes
• Development of learning activities (simulations, virtual labs, etc.)
• Planning and development of multimedia content
• Copyright questions

Send an email to schedule a time to discuss your ideas.

Attend Online Faculty Development

All new online faculty teaching for the College of IST are expected to complete the online teaching course available from World Campus Faculty Development. Seasoned online faculty are encouraged to go through the program as well.

Familiarize yourself with Canvas

Canvas is the Penn State learning management system (LMS). Learn how to use Canvas at the online Canvas Learning Center or visit the Canvas page on this site for more resources.

If you are assigned to teach a course and have not yet been added to LionPATH, Penn State’s academic records system, you may not see the Canvas space for your course. For help with this issue, contact ist-aso@psu.edu.

Get to know your course

Course webpages, course committees, faculty leadership, and the Learning Design team can help you get to know your course. Visit the what belongs in my course page, where you can find request forms, email addresses, and guidance to complete the following basic steps:

• First, request Canvas course shells, content templates, and learning design support from the Learning Design Team.
• Second, consult course documentation to understand the intent of the course.
• Third, read the official course description in the Penn State University Bulletin.
• Fourth, connect with those who have responsibility for managing the course content; they can answer any questions.

The College of IST’s World Campus courses (those courses prepared and delivered to our students who choose Penn State’s virtual campus, World Campus–WC–as their primary campus) all have course templates from which your section will be copied. If it’s your first time teaching the course, you’ll want to go through your course ahead of time to make sure you understand what’s being covered and how it all fits together.

Meet with the course’s instructional designer and Course Committee chairperson who know the course before the start of the semester. They know the course and will be able to explain how the course runs. Refer to the Course Support page to find the instructional designer for your course.

Check with Learning Design before making changes

Instructors may make changes to content the first time they teach a course, but those changes are best limited to changing details in assignments and exams–in order to prevent common academic integrity issues. If you spot mistakes or areas that could be improved, let your instructional designer know. Not all suggestions can be implemented in the course, but they will be considered by the course author and the instructional designer.

To ensure consistency, 80% of course content must remain unchanged from the course template. Instructors may change up to 20% of the content. The course learning objectives established by the course committee must be satisfied. Please be sure to consult with your instructional designer regarding desired changes and additions.

Know important dates in the semester

• Beginning and end of semester
• Regular Drop and Regular Add periods
• Any scheduled breaks
• Final exams

Penn State’s Office of the University Registrar Academic Calendars page lists these dates and additional information.

Familiarize yourself with academic policies

Prior to the semester, review information on academic policies and procedures for actions such as academic integrity, course drops, deferred grades, and the grading system. In addition, be sure to consult information on SEEQs and syllabi.

Publish the course and introduce yourself

To publish your course, click on the Home page, then go to the upper right corner and click on Publish. Students can see the course materials after they are published in Canvas.

Once your course is published, send out a welcome announcement. This can be written in advance and scheduled via the Announcement tool.

Online courses require more upfront preparation than traditional face-to-face courses. You prepare assessments, assignments, lectures, and activities prior to the course launch. Having the content finished before the launch date allows instructors to focus on student engagement. This way instructors can plan for additional time to communicate with their students since most interactions will occur asynchronously. All of this preparation benefits the students allowing for flexible life/work/school schedules.

These four areas are a big part of the design and development process:

1. Learning Objectives—You can write a learning objective at any level (e.g. at the course level, at the program level, at the lesson level). Well defined learning objectives should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound). Learning objectives help keep course content, activities, and assessments aligned. They communicate the purpose and goals of what you’re trying to achieve to both students and other educators. Knowing your learning objectives will help you identify where the course needs improvements.
2. Assessment—You want to measure that students are, in fact, learning the material. Assessments evaluate students on what they’ve been doing. This could be an exam, a major project, or other assignment that shows student learning. You should align your assessments with the learning objective(s). It is not appropriate to grade students on things they’ve never done before (e.g. combine concepts they have not previously done or perform an activity they’ve only read about).
3. Content—Usually in an academic setting, students start their learning by consuming content on the chosen topic. Textbooks are commonly used for this purpose. Content can come in many forms–readings, videos, graphics, lectures, etc. You can create or curate content for your course. Through lending your expertise you are enhancing the material and making the course unique.
4. Practice—Students should practice applying the content in ways that are appropriate for the course. Some subjects, like programming, lend themselves very well to practice activities. Others, like understanding abstract theories, can be challenging to develop effective, engaging, and meaningful learning activities. Give students the opportunity to practice the material with ungraded assignments before expecting them to perform well on graded assessments. Provide meaningful feedback on all assessments to guide students in their learning.