Training and course development for online courses are completed over a period of two semesters—or one semester and summer. This means that departments need to plan new online offerings well ahead of the usual semester scheduling cycle to allow enough time for faculty members to complete training and course development prior to the course being offered.
Currently we offer 3 cohorts annually—one starting each semester and one starting in the summer—consisting of an OTT course followed by the course development and design review process. There are 12 seats in each OTT course. DE has resources to fund up to 10 participants as described in the funding section. To increase participation opportunities, the remaining seats are available for faculty supported through their department/college, a grant, or a self-support funded program.
Proposals for new online classes and sections to be taught in a coming semester must be submitted according to the following deadlines to ensure consideration.
| Deadline to Submit
Proposal |
OTT Course | Course Development | Course Revised
& Ready |
Course First Offered | Quality Matters
Design Review |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 11, 2009 | Summer 2009
(May 18-Jul 10) |
Fall 2009
(Sep 14-Nov 13) |
Nov 20, 2009 | Spring 2010 | Summer 2010 |
| May 15, 2009 | Fall 2009
(Sep 28-Nov 20) |
Spring 2010
Jan 25-Mar 26 |
Apr 9, 2010 | Summer 2010 | Fall 2010 |
| Oct 23, 2009 | Spring 2010
(Feb 1-Mar 26) |
Summer 2010
(TBD) |
TBD | Fall 2010 | Spring 2011 |
Boise State supports offering academic courses in flexible delivery methods in part through the development of high quality, successful online courses and programs. This requires the investment of resources that ensure: faculty have the opportunity to learn teaching skills, strategies, and best practices that are effective in online education; faculty receive expert support in developing courses for the online environment; and sufficient resources are available for the ongoing instruction of the new online course/program.
Academic departments have full academic oversight of all online courses and programs. The academic department chair initiates plans to teach a course or take a whole program online, ensuring that it is appropriate for online instruction and fits into department and college goals and priorities.
If a department has the resources to support faculty training, course development, and course instruction, the proposal form is used to communicate its plans and schedule faculty for training and development support. If resources are needed from the University for faculty training, course development, and/or course instruction, then the proposal form will also serve as a request for University DE funding. The DE director, , is available for funding questions at 208.426.1689.
Please note that the two components that support online courses—faculty training and course development/review—do not have to be combined. The training component is appropriate by itself for faculty untrained or inexperienced in online instruction, who will be teaching a course that has already been developed for online delivery. The course development/review component is appropriate by itself for courses not developed for online delivery that will be taught by a faculty member who has had previous training or experience in online instruction.
Boise State is committed to providing appropriate training and support for faculty teaching in distance education. All faculty assigned by their academic department to teach online are strongly encouraged to complete the OTT course before teaching online.
The OTT course is offered completely online. It explains and models current best practices and effective teaching strategies for online instruction. The course is intensive and designed to provide faculty with the experience of being a student in an upper division or graduate online course. The OTT course has been piloted and tested by Boise State faculty over the last year. The course takes a minimum of 9-10 hours per week to participate in all activities. Faculty members are urged to only take the OTT course when they have sufficient time to be fully involved.
The 4-part Blackboard workshop series, or comparable training taken elsewhere, is required prior to beginning the OTT course.
Financial support is explained in the funding section below. Receiving the support is contingent upon:
Boise State is committed to assuring that courses and programs taught online meet broadly accepted best practices. In addition, all online courses, must meet appropriate accreditation guidelines. To do this, the optional course development and review process will rely on the Quality Matters (QM) rubric-developed by Maryland Online through a FIPSE grant-that incorporates research, instructional design principles, and accreditation standards.
Faculty members who are developing new online courses are strongly encouraged to participate in the online course development and design review component of this program. Faculty developers will be able to take part in formal support opportunities as well as to request support from AT instructional designers. In addition, the DE faculty development coordinator will follow up with the faculty regularly to ensure that they are asking for and receiving the support they need while they are in the development process.
Following course development, new online courses are reviewed for completeness and basic usability and quality design by a peer developer and OCFDP instructor prior to being offered. Near the end of the first semester the course is taught, its design—not content—is thoroughly reviewed by a team that includes the instructor, two peer reviewers who are experienced online teachers and have received QM training, and an instructional designer. Course design peer reviews will be based on the QM rubric, which is integrated into both the OTT and the course development process. Peer reviews provide a profile of proposed courses and identify course strengths and weaknesses. Faculty course developers then plan how to incorporate feedback from the reviews into revisions. The plan and peer reviews are forwarded to the department chairs for approval.
Financial support is explained in the funding section below. Receiving support is based on:
All Boise State courses must comply with copyright laws. This includes courses developed through the OCFDP. For more about copyright compliance go to http://boisestate.edu/generalcounsel/copyright/, and follow the links under “Copyright” in the left-side navigation bar.
There are limited resources to support the development of courses for online delivery. It is the intent of the University to pay for the development of each specific course one time and that the original developer will share the course with others who are assigned to teach it. Additional instructors should also participate in the OTT prior to teaching an existing course. The document entitled Online Instruction at Boise State: Statement on Intellectual Property Rights (PDF file) is used to define the ownership of courses developed through the OCFDP.
The OCFDP Proposal form requests information about the faculty member’s experience with online education, as well as details about the academic course to be developed.
Faculty members selected for a specific OTT or development/review session sign the Letter of Agreement (PDF document) and return it to Ann Randall within a week after they are notified.