From CRAAP to Platinum: Reimagining Online Expectations for Faculty and Programs

We often joke that our distance education programs grew “organically.” We had several early online adopters and a variety of online course offerings, along with  online programs in Loss Prevention, Nursing, and Education. After having offered online courses for over 20 years and having a motto of “High Tech/High Touch,” our regional comprehensive university launched a global campus in the fall of 2016.

Within our presentation, we plan to:

• Discuss a timeline of online training and events prior to the recent positive institutional changes

In 2012-2013, distance education was chosen as an Action Project. The team recommended faculty training and student preparation requirements, focusing on our Moodle-based LMS. For faculty, our Center for Teaching and Learning developed a four week "Teaching Online” online course for new online teachers and a shorter self-paced tutorial for veteran online teachers. Students who enrolled in online courses were asked to take a one time Moodle-based instruction quiz before they could enter online courses.

In 2015, we hired a Vice President of Extended Learning and Community Engagement to expand the number of fully online programs and take the lead for our distance education infrastructure; under his charge, distance education student services (online student advising, orientation, and technical support, chat, and video) were created and enhanced in preparation of the expansion of online programs. Later that year we were also approved to offer unlimited distance education courses, with the exception of correspondence courses.

In 2016, our Online Teaching Fellows program was introduced to increase the quality expectations for design and delivery. We will discuss this a bit later in more detail.

After our 2017 accreditation site visit, we were told that online courses were not consistent in terms of rigor or expectations with those in the face to face environment. Our reviewers told us they liked our Online Teaching Fellows Program but recommended that we create an inclusive, systematic process to ensure quality, consistency, and rigor in the online environment. This is what we will be discussing for the rest of our presentation.

• Outline a professional development model for supporting implementation of best practices in online course design and delivery.

With the launch of our Global Campus, we recognized the need to build a core group of faculty leaders in online course design and teaching. To address this, we developed a new Online Teaching Fellows (OTF) initiative. OTF is two-part professional development series aimed at developing faculty expertise in the design, development, and delivery of online courses.

Each program in the series is delivered in a hybrid format for 10-12 weeks, with a small number of synchronous meetings.  There are typically two offerings of Program 1 each year, during Fall and Winter semesters. Program 2 is typically offered during summer semester, when most participants are not teaching and have more time to devote to the program.

Program 1 is a foundational program. Participants are introduced to instructional design principles, Quality Matters standards, and various instructional technology used for building online courses. They engage in discussions about online pedagogy in their disciplines and evaluation of online teaching.  Ultimately, each participant designs and develops course learning objectives and at least one full course module.

Program 2 is a more advanced program that aims to produce online leaders and courses that meet Quality Matters standards. Participants pick up where they left off in Program 1, using additional online tools, increasing the richness of the course content, and completing design and development of a full online course.  In addition, the focus turns toward evaluation, as participants are assigned to teams and complete full Quality Matters design reviews of each others’ courses. They also complete readings and a practice exercise on evaluation of online teaching. Finally, after receiving their Quality Matters review feedback, they create and execute course revision plans.  As in Program 1, they present their courses to each other. In Program 2, in order to broaden the impact of their work, they also schedule presentations to their departments.

OTF has been a success, with over 50 participants from 16 academic departments. OTF addresses the needs of faculty who are developing new online programs or who have a high level of interest in improving their online teaching. However, it requires a time commitment that faculty who are less committed to or impassioned about online teaching will not make. We recognized that to support campus-wide implementation of best practices, additional faculty development programming was needed to enable all faculty to meet increasing requirements. Specific examples of workshop topics developed or re-packaged to prepare faculty for these changes include:

• Writing learning objectives

• Organizing online courses

• Ensuring alignment of objectives, activities and assessments

• Increasing interaction in online courses

• Creating video mini-lectures

In addition, workshops are being developed to prepare faculty to be course design reviewers and to conduct teaching observations of online courses. Many of those faculty are likely to be graduates of OTF, but they will need review, as well as preparation for our specific processes.  

• Breakdown a stepwise process for scaffolding existing online courses to reflect best practices in design and delivery

Utilizing Quality Matters for design standards and Chickering and Gamson’s (1987) “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education,” we developed a stepwise approach of expectations that start as early as Entry Level standards (meets contractual obligations and guarantees that the course is not a correspondence course) that scaffold to bronze, silver, gold (meets all of the 3 point Quality Matter Specific Review Standards), and platinum (meets all of the QM Specific Review Standards). Each level adds Quality Matters standards and increases communication between the instructor and student; ultimately at the platinum level, the course would meet all design and delivery standards.

At this point, we are in Phase 1 using the Entry Level Course Design Assessment Rubric to evaluate fully online course syllabi. Faculty must meet entry-level standards for the January 2019 term. Each academic year new and existing online courses will need to meet the progressive standards.

• Discuss team communication strategies for implementing positive changes to quality standards and expectations across the institution

Over the course of 12 months, the online teaching scholars and the vice president for extended learning presented on this process in multiple faculty forums, two faculty senate visits, and multiple department head and dean information sessions. As mentioned previously, we understand that there needs to be alternatives to the Online Teaching Fellows but will also create handouts, send e-mails, and record presentations.

• Identify challenges in changing an established culture of online teaching

Traditionally formative assessment is the norm for both face-to-face and online courses. Although, Quality Matters is the standard for course development and design there are no punitive consequences if the standards are not met. With the minimum standard stepwise approach, faculty will not be able to teach the online course if that year's increased criteria is not met. Below is a change model adapted form Kotter’s (1995) eight steps to change:

1.    Establish a sense of urgency (HLC Accreditation)
2.    Forming a powerful guiding coalition (ELCE Advisor Group, and HLC Group)
3.    Creating a vision (Online Rigor)
4.    Communicating the vision (Forums and department meetings)
5.    Empowering others to act on the vision (Feedback sessions)
6.    Planning for creating short-term wins (entry-level standard)
7.    Consolidating improvement and producing still more change (stepwise approach)
8.    Institutionalizing new approaches (Long term plan)

• Report results from first phase of the process

At the time of this conference, the online teaching scholars will have reviewed 558 individual course syllabi from 120 faculty for the Entry-Level Expectations.  

• Highlight initiatives that recognize online teaching innovators and leaders

Part of building a culture of high-quality online teaching is recognizing faculty who contribute to its growth. We created two new initiatives with that goal:

1. The Excellence in Online Teaching Award recognizes an outstanding individual who has creatively utilized appropriate Internet-based technologies to teach online and/or blended courses in higher education. It will be awarded annually along with the university’s traditional teaching and scholarship awards.

2. The Celebration of Online Teaching is a more informal event recognizing OTF graduates, showcases exciting innovative online courses and content, and provides a networking opportunity for online faculty.

• Stimulate conversation during the Q & A session

We will ask that participants reflect and consider the following for the question and answer portion of the presentation.

1. One of our challenges is scaling up the review process, how might you address this at your institution?
    

2. The most challenging faculty to work with in this process are the self-described “pioneers”: those who have been teaching online for a long time and are convinced that they do it well, regardless of how their work compares to best practices.  What strategies might you use to convince these folks to make necessary updates to their courses?
    

3. How would differences in institution characteristics (e.g., community college vs. 4 year university, unionized vs. non-unionized faculty) affect implementation plans?
    

4. If you were implementing (or have implemented) similar standards at your institution, would/did you take a different number of steps?