Distance Education Course Approval

Faculty members should be familiar with the course approval process before they design, adopt or teach an Online/Hybrid course. This course approval process takes about two semesters to complete.

New Course With an Online/Partially Online Format

  1. All new Online/Hybrid courses must also go through the DE course approval process. This process begins by completing all parts of the course approval forms and submission through CurricUNET Links to an external site..
  2. Division dean must approve the submission before it is forwarded to your college Curriculum Committee.
  3. After the final approval for online or partially online course delivery by the Curriculum Committee, the course can be offered in the schedule. The faculty member must have completed the required training to develop the course (see above).
  4. Faculty members developing an online or partially online course will work in tandem with the DE support: Instructional Designers, Instructional Technologists, the Accessibility Specialists and the Distance Education Coordinator along with other successful Online/Hybrid teaching faculty. As part of our membership in the CVC Consortium, we have adopted a rigorous Peer Online Course Review process that will help you ensure you have met the OEI Course Design and Peralta Equity Rubrics, and have a quality Online/Hybrid course. Throughout the development/design process, faculty collaboration should be used to ensure best practices and to share insights into both technology and pedagogy.
  5. Moving from the traditional classroom to a “virtual” classroom is not as simple as merely putting existing course notes and readings online. This would be considered a “Correspondence Course Links to an external site.” and therefore not an Online/Hybrid course. Faculty should work with the DE Team to  develop a course that creates a strong “instructor presence" and meets our Regular and Substantive Interaction policy.

 

Course DE Addendum

After 2020 almost all courses at CSM will have or need an DE Addendum. This addendum allows for the option to teach a course either fully or partially online. There is a separate section in CurricUnet called the DE Addendum and what follows is sample language that you can adapt for use with your own course DE Addenda.

Training Section

  • Faculty members who teach in any distance education modality must have completed training in the past three years in any of the following areas: online teaching pedagogy, technical training in the learning management system currently in use, and accessibility best practices. Faculty training may be completed within the District, or a nationally recognized training program.
  • Please include specific information about training course title, dates of training, and who provided training. 

Distance Education Modality

Courses can be Fully Online, Partially Online (Hybrid) or both.  For each modality you will need to indicate expectation for regular and substantive interaction, the frequency of each type of contact, and whether the interaction is between students, faculty to students, or student to faculty.

Contact Types

For each modality please include specific examples of the types of activities that will be used.  For example:

  • Lecture: Faculty to student contact (Substantive): Weekly instructor-mediated coverage of topic through one or more of the following: Live and/or recorded video, instructor created or curated content (may include instructor-created or selected links for core course content).
  • Personal Communication (Email, Chat, IM, Text): Faculty to Student (Regular): Syllabus provides policy for responding to student queries; Weekly online office hours via Zoom/video conference; Email and LMS Inbox messages.
  • Announcement: Faculty to Student contact (Regular): Weekly announcements that outline lessons and highlight upcoming deadlines; (Substantive): announcements posted after assessments or major assignments that provide feedback.
  • Online Discussion Boards: Student to Student contact (Substantive): Introductions Discussion Board; Compose, Post, and Respond to classmates' post, Peer Review of assignments. Student to Student (Regular): Q & A Open discussion board. Student to Faculty contact (Regular): Q & A Open discussion board.
  • Assignment Feedback: Faculty to Student (Regular): Syllabus provides the policy for regular assignment feedback and grading. Regular and substantive feedback in a timely manner for all assignments. Individual or group substantive feedback based on assignment design.
  • Office Hours: Faculty to Student contact (Regular): Office Hours as required by current faculty handbook. Faculty to Student contact (Substantive): Individual consultations to support specific assignments

Accessibility Section

Distance education courses, resources and materials must be designed and delivered in such a way that the level of communication and course-taking experience is the same for students with or without disabilities. Students should have maximum opportunity to access distance education resources "anytime, anywhere" without the need for outside assistance.

Examples include:

  • Accurate transcripts are included for audio recordings.
  • Closed captions, audio descriptions, and transcripts are included for videos.
  • Instructional materials have been tagged to indicate organizational structure and reading order.
  • Images, tables and/or diagrams include textual representations.
  • If applicable, the instructor will ask the publisher (e.g. McGraw-Hill and Pearson) to provide a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) which evaluates how accessible the product is according to section 508 standards.
  • If any instructional resources are not accessible for a student, faculty will work with the Disability Resource Center to propose an alternative activity, resource, or assignment for any student with an accommodation to meet section 508 standards.
  • All required course materials must be accessible to students with disabilities. How will this course meet this requirement?
  • Online conferencing sessions will be recorded with transcripts or live-captioned if needed
  • Accessible versions of textbooks and publisher materials will be made available as needed
  • Required documents (Canvas pages, slides, Word docs, etc.) will be accessible

In the DE Addendum, please be sure you read, understand, and then check each box indicating your course will be fully accessible to all students.

Content and Methodology

Title V asks "how course outcomes will be achieved in a distance education mode."

Some combination of instructional materials, instructional equipment, assignments, methods of instruction, or methods of evaluation will be used to achieve course outcomes in this mode. Below, describe what is appropriate/possible for this course.

For each  modality describe the instructional equipment, methods of instruction and methods of evaluation you will use in your course.  

For partially online courses, some in-person, synchronous contact may be required. Please describe the portion of required in-person components for this course that are needed to achieve the learning outcomes of the course. This also includes if in-person proctored exams are required. 

Be sure to answer “Yes” to the questions: Can all the course outcomes be achieved in the fully online or partially online distance mode? You will need to do this in both Fully Online and Partially online sections if you have opted for both methods of delivery.

 

The DE Coordinator reviews all DE Addenda for courses going through the CSM Curriculum Committee Links to an external site. process.  If you have questions, please reach out to the DE Coordinator Links to an external site.. 

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