In a move to stimulate the use of alternative delivery methods, the regents of the University System of Maryland instituted a policy that all students take 12 credits through out-of-classroom experiences and other nontraditional means prior to graduation.
In order to assure that fully-online courses are pedagogically sound, the UMES Office of Instructional Technology (OIT) developed a set of guidelines and requirements as well as a rubric used to evaluate completed courses. The standards were developed by a committee comprised of instructional technologists and teaching faculty. All online courses must be approved as satisfactory by the campus online learning committee and are considered the property of the university to be shared within the institution. All instructors developing fully-online courses are required to meet with one or more instructional technologists representing the OIT for assistance with learning object development. The result has been an overall increase in the quality of the online course offering at UMES with all courses now meeting or exceeding the standards for acceptability.
Standards
Objectives and Student Learning Outcomes
The instructor must establish objectives and student learning outcomes that reflect not just the content of the course but also the e-learning mode of instruction. They must be communicated in a manner that that is clear and measurable. These must be identified in advance of creating the course and must be communicated directly to learners. To help assist faculty in the development of student learning outcomes it is recommended that Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives is used to help guide the phrasing.
Instructional Activities
All instructional activities should be designed to reflect the subject matter as well as the benefits derived through e-learning (e.g. project based learning, authentic instruction, Webquests, and etcetera). All activities should be purposeful and thoughtfully designed to assist students in achieving the instructional objectives. They must also be scaffolded, organized, and paced meaningfully throughout the semester.
Assessment
Assessment of student progress should given throughout the course measures progress towards objectives and outcomes. A variety of assessment protocols should be instituted and courses should not be dependent on multiple choice based exams. Rather, a combination that may include simulations, eportfolios, WebQuests, guided discussions, Wiki building, blogging, test and quizzes, assignments, case studies, critical analyses, and etcetera should be utilized.
Interaction/Communication & Feedback
It is important that the instructor plan for, develop activities that support, and facilitate interaction. The ability to engage in critical discourse through e-learning endeavors has been shown to benefit the learning process. The use of communication tools should be thoughtful and educationally relevant. The instructor must be an active participant in online chats and/or discussions and performance expectations must be articulated to students. The Office of Instructional Technology has developed a rubric which can be adopted by UMES faculty for assessing student discussion/chat performance. The instructor must be readily accessible to students and provide timely and meaningful feedback to students. It is important that expectations are established and the type of feedback a student will received must be communicated to students in advance. Student grades must be made available to students individually, privately, and in a timely fashion.
Instructional Materials
All materials delivered must enhance learning and support learning goals and should never distract and/or detract from the learning process nor place unnecessary stress or burden on students. Materials must be purposeful, accessible, include instructions, logically organized, and available to students with slow internet connections.
Layout/Interface Design
The interface must be clear, professional, simple, appropriate, and planned in such a way to facilitate learning. The layout must be logical and navigable and not confuse the learner.
Multimedia Usage
Multimedia elements can greatly enhance the learning experience for students of varying learning styles; however, when ill planned and/or developed they can be a tremendous distraction and/or place a burden on the students.
Course Management
Instructors can not be absent from their online course and must manage all aspects of learning. Online courses take time to develop and can be more time consuming initially then their in-person counterparts. The instructor should also plan on offering online office hours as well as checking the course website on a daily or near daily basis.
Rubric
A detailed rubric is available; however to fit within the word count limitations just the basic criteria are referenced.
1. Prerequisites are clearly listed in multiple areas and well explained.
2. All technology requirements are listed.
3. Objectives and outcomes are given and written in such a way that they are clear and measurable.
4. All activities are related to student outcomes and objectives
5. Assessment of student progress is given throughout the course and measures progress towards objectives and outcomes. Multiple forms of assessment are utilized with several encouraging critical thinking, reflection/evaluation, or meaningful synthesis of ideas.
6. Sustained interaction is facilitated by the use of communication tools.
7. Course materials are easy to locate, accessible, understandable, meaningful, organized logically, and developed to enhance student achievement.
8. Instructor uses communication tolls to provide students with readily available and timely support that helps keeps students on target.
9. Instructor provides frequent and timely feedback.
10. All learning and activities are paced in a way that is meaningful and facilitates learning mastery. Announcements, calendar and other tools used to help students stay on track.
11. Expectations for student discussion/chat participation are communicated to students.
12. Grading is timely, accessible by students, and secure.
13. Course content is clear, meaningful, plentiful, accessible, and supported by the instructor.
14. Navigation is clear, logical, and all buttons/links work.
15. Color, buttons, images, graphics, and etcetera enhance the course.
16. Multimedia used is appropriate, enhances learning, accessible, professionally created, linked to course content, available in an alternative text based format, and work.
17. The instructor devotes the appropriate amount of time to the development of the course, timely support of student learning, and sustaining of learning. Online office hours are provided.
18. This course is easy to reuse, simple to modify/ improve, serve a large potential audience, and have longevity.
