Course Development Policy
The College of Business aspires to create high-quality learning experiences for its students with engaging content, meaningful activities, and assessments that accurately reflect student subject matter mastery and are suitable within the online environment. To meet these objectives, we have partnered with the Office of Instructional Innovation to create a course development process. This document describes the process and its phases, the resources that will be utilized, the deliverables to be completed, and related policy.
Resources, Roles, and Responsibilities
The course development process is a team process. This section lists the roles and responsibilities of the design team that will work with you throughout the process.
Subject Matter Expert (SME)
The Subject Matter Expert (SME) is involved in all phases of development. This is the faculty member that has been appointed by the department chair to create and deliver the course for at least the first time.
Instructional Designer (ID, Larry Hess)
The Instructional Designer (ID) is also involved in all phases. The College of Business has an embedded Instructional Designer assigned to the College by the Office of Instructional Innovation (OII). The embedded Instructional Designer is one of several instructional designers who work to support the new and evolving programs across Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ University. The embedded Instructional Designer also serves as a liaison with key OII staff, including the Production Services Team and Project Manager.
Project Manager (PM, Jen Van Nostran)
The Project Manager (PM) is involved beginning in Phase III in the creation of the course development process. The Office of Instructional Innovation strives to assign a single PM to work on COB course and program design projects. The PM works with the SME to establish realistic milestones and deadlines in their project management system and tracks the pipeline of current projects.
Production Services Team
Production Services is a large team of OII staff and students who, once the vision is set by the SME and ID, help to bring it to life through producing audio and video, creating interactive learning objects, and integrating course content, activities, and assessments in the Blackboard learning management system. Production Services schedules resources based on the timeline and deadlines set forth in the course development plan. The instructional designer works closely with the production services team to ensure the work performed matches the vision of the subject matter expert as articulated in the course scope and course map documents.
College of Business Information Technology Team (Mike Snavely and Derrick Bolin)
The COB Information Technology Team supplements the services provided by the Office of Instructional Innovation and bridge the gap between course design and course operation. They work in an integrated manner with the OII learning designer and SME to ensure the course is properly set up for effective operation. Some areas of assistance include configuring virtual classrooms, onboarding and equipment acquisition, submitting content for captioning and transcription, creating test pools, managing and hosting equipment, training faculty on the use of Blackboard and associated tools, and course copying, configuration, and testing. The team serves as a faculty point of contact for all things related to course operations and serves as a liaison between the COB and OII.
Additional University Resources
OIT Service Desk
The OIT Service Desk should be your students' first call for help with Blackboard, their OHIO ID and password, as well as computer software, computer hardware, University applications and Internet-related questions. During the course design phase, it is important to consider the use of complicated or unusual software in your course and how it will be supported. When necessary, the COB instructional design team will work with the SME to locate or create tutorial content to help students succeed.
Librarian
Chad Boeninger is the reference librarian for the College of Business. Faculty SMEs should consider working with him to maximize the value of the library's electronic resources. Among other things, he can help with curating content and developing student research activities and assignments.
Student Accessibility Services
The Office of Student Accessibility Services facilitates services and reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities to make Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ University programmatically and architecturally accessible. The office offers confidential consultation about disability questions and concerns for all members of the campus community. Nina Henderson is the accessibility coordinator for the College of Business. While our internal team works carefully to ensure that course content is accessible, Nina and her colleagues are our best resource for answering complex questions or concerns about accessibility.
Course Design Standards
The College of Business adheres to a set of quality standards to ensure courses meet their stated learning objectives and deliver an engaging learning experience representative of the OHIO College of Business brand.
All courses are designed within Blackboard.
Every course will have a course introduction in the form of a recorded video or written document that is created during course design and is consistent with templates provided by program directors that includes:
- General overview of the course
- Narrative summary of the course
- Course structure and any distinctive components of the course
- Course learning outcomes
In addition, the course development process was designed with Quality Matters standards in mind. Successful completion of each design phase, while engaging in a properly consultative process with your ID, will result in a course that meets QM standards. The current QM rubric is attached.
Assurance of Learning Requirements
The College of Business is required to maintain a library of documents to support accreditation efforts. Included in these documents are your syllabus, your course scope document, and your course map. These last two documents are created in the first two phases of the course development process.
Course Design & Development Process
Overview of Process
You will be working with an assigned instructional designer from the Office of Instructional Innovation. In addition to the Instructional Designer, OII provides course development resources including project managers, a team of production services specialists, and instructional technologists.
OII’s Instructional Design Team is comprised of highly skilled and academically trained education professionals whose job it is to assist faculty in developing courses that are of sound instructional design and aligned with best practices of online and adult learning. Specifically, the ID will engage with you in brainstorming creative activities, exploring technologies and other innovative techniques, guiding alignment, coaching assessment strategies, writing outcomes, reviewing the course for quality standards, and connecting you with resources during each step of this process. Leverage these resources to support you in developing high quality courses that are both effective and engaging and aligned with program standards.
The SME and ID should have open communication throughout the project. At times, the schedule may need to be adjusted. It is expected that the SME promptly inform the PM and ID of any schedule changes so that the project plan can be updated and resources reallocated. The PM provides aggregated progress reports to CoB and OII leadership for strategic planning purposes, to monitor resource utilization and identify any at-risk courses.
Process Steps and Key Deliverables
During the 8 phases of the course development process, you will have shared milestones and deliverables with various OII team members that will be guided and directed by both you as the subject matter expert, the instructional designer, and the project manager. A typical course development timeline is depicted below and followed by descriptions of each step in the course design and development process.
Proposal Submission
In order to be considered for compensation for new course development or the refresh of an existing course, the faculty SME must submit a for review by the Program Director, Chair, Associate Dean, and course development team. Submitting this form serves as the entry point to the course development process. The course is then entered into the development queue and the process of resource allocation begins. Appointments for course design and development are made at the discretion of the Department Chair, who will also review progress at set milestones within the course development process.
1. Concept Phase
In the Concept Phase, the Instructional Designer (ID) and the Subject-matter Expert (SME; usually a faculty member) will define goals and expectations for the design of a course. The ID will meet with the SME to describe OII’s process for course design and development and determine if the proposed course design is standard or non-standard. Following this conversation, the ID will further scope the project to identify the needs of the SME and the support role that the ID and OII will provide. The ID will complete all Course Scope Documentation and distribute to involved personnel (e.g. instructional designer, production services).
Time: 1-3 weeks; or 1-3 meetings with SME
Major Deliverable: Course Scope Documentation
2. Design Phase
In the Design Phase, the ID and SME will collaborate to complete a Course Map. The ID and SME will meet early in the phase to clarify the design needs of all stakeholders involved (program, courses, professional organizations, etc.). Course maps must be approved by the Department Chair prior to course development.
Time: 3-10 weeks
Major Deliverable: Course Map
3. Agreement Phase
During the Agreement Phase, the ID and SME will engage an OII Project Manager (PM)* to finalize a Project Plan. The PM, ID, and SME will review the completed Course Map and determine development expectations, timelines for deliverables, and resource requirements, including whether OII Production Services (PS) will be used.
Time: 1-2 weeks
Major deliverable: Project Plan
4. Prototyping Phase
In the Prototyping Phase, the ID and SME will survey strategies, techniques, and technologies that may be useful for content development. The ID and SME will meet on a predetermined schedule to develop a module prototype. The design of the module prototype will be informed by the Course Map and the Project Plan.
Time: 1-10 week
Major Deliverable: Module Expectation Agreement
5. Production Phase
In the Production Phase, the ID will build the course and organize all course media and content in Blackboard.
Time: Up to 12 weeks
Major Deliverable: First Iteration of the Full Course
6. Quality Review Phase
In the Quality Review Phase, the ID and SME will assess and revise the course’s quality, based on the quality measurement rubric selected during the Agreement Phase and on best practices. Revisions and updates will be completed as necessary. Once the quality review is complete, the Department Chair must sign off for payment to be issued.
Time: Up to 4 weeks
Major Deliverable: Completed Quality Course Review Checklist
7. Delivery Phase
In the Delivery Phase, the ID will provide support to the SME during the launch of the course.
The ID will be responsive for design-related issues in the course. This is also a time to meet with the SME to talk about potential changes by discussing what went well and what did not during the first run of the course.
Time: 1 Week (1 Meeting)
Major Deliverables: Pre-launch Meeting and Course Improvement/Revisions List
8. Revision Phase
In the Revision Phase, the course will be revised based on faculty and student experience (course evaluations, direct student feedback, technology surveys, etc.).
Time: Within 4 Weeks of Course Completion
Major Deliverables: Course Revision Meeting and Continuation Plan.
Faculty Compensation
As part of the course development request process, the percentage refresh will be established (for instance, 50%, 75%, complete design/redesign). Compensation will be based on the aforementioned pro-ration of the current COB course development rate. Payment is triggered by the completion of the Quality Course Review Checklist and signoff by ID, Chair, and CFO.
Course Content Ownership
COB graduate programs seek to create a culture of sharing and collaboration across and within graduate degree and certificate programs. As such, the general expectation is that all course material, whether development was compensated or not – is to be used for the betterment of the student experience. It is expected that faculty responsible for course development are also provided the opportunity to teach that course per the collaborative efforts of department chairs and programs directors in faculty scheduling. Subsequent offerings of the course may be assigned to others as determined by program or departmental course assignment policies and it is expected that the most updated version of the course will be shared with all faculty members assigned to teach the course.
In accordance with University Policy 15.006, course materials created under a course development contract will be owned by the University and become part of the Graduate Programs catalog of course content and used by other instructors. Please see the entire policy for more details.
Questions about this policy or request to deviate from the above should be directed to the Program Director and Department Chair who will then engage the Associate Dean if needed.