2021-2022 — Sonoma State University— OCS Grant Report

Proposal Summary: At Sonoma State University, we proposed to contribute to the launch of SSU's first state-supported master's program in Early Childhood Studies by providing space in an Education-faculty specific set of cohorts for our Level 1/2 program, as well as by developing a course template emphasizing QLT best practices to assist ECS faculty members in obtaining QLT External Certification. SSU proposed to establish a campus working group in order to centralize and enhance support for online course certifications. Finally, SSU proposed to expand support for certified QLT course reviews. 

Campus Goal for Online Course Services

The  focus of our proposal was to support faculty in developing campus-wide online instructional courses that meet QLT best practices, as well as to support the development of SSU's first state-supported master's program in Early Childhood Studies. To this effect, we facilitated Education-faculty specific cohorts of our Canvas Design Foundations (Level 1) and Online Facilitation Fundamentals (Level 2) programs and designed an ECS course template to assist faculty in preparing for QLT External Certification of ECS courses. With the support of our Senior Instructional Designer, Dr. Kristin Denver, the self-review process has begun with three of the ECS faculty members who aim to submit courses for external certification in early FA 22. 

We aimed to complete a minimum of five QLT External Reviews throughout the grant year, which we successfully accomplished. The first four courses that went through review were certified on their first attempt, and the fifth course is currently under review.  

Additionally, we proposed to establish a campus working group to centralize and enhance support for online course certification. The development of this group delayed to AY 2022-23 due the return to in-person instruction in 2021-22, and a need to build additional consensus and gather feedback from campus stakeholders, however, the purpose of this group would have been to streamline and provide better guidance to the campus on the process for getting courses approved in CSU-wide programs like CourseMatch and QLT, as well as to aid programs working to diversity their modalities of instruction. The goal of establishing a working group has been re-identified as a priority in SSU's 22-23 grant application and is being supported by teh UPCEA consulting project to provide institutional data and insight ont he reas of greatest opportunity for new online programs for the campus. 

• Goal 1: Contribute to launch of SSU’s first state-supported master’s program.
• Goal 2: Provide expanded support for certified QLT course review. 
• Goal 3: Establish campus working group to centralize and enhance support for online course certification. 

OCS Lead(s)

• Justin Lipp, PhD, Director, Center for Teaching and Educational Technology
• John Lynch, PhD, Assistant Director, Center for Teaching and Educational Technology
• Kristin Denver, Psy.D, Senior Instructional Designer, Center for Teaching and Educational Technology
• Gina Baleria, PhD, Assistant Professor of Journalism 

Supporting Campus Partners

^{Center for Teaching and Educational Technology, School of International and Extended Education, Information Technology, Disability Student Services, Office of the Provost. SSU Faculty and Staff subject matter experts.} 

Campus Commitment Toward Sustainability of QA Efforts

• Ongoing support for continued offerings of Canvas Design Foundations (Level 1) and Online Facilitation Fundamentals (Level 2) programming. 
• Development of SSU's Quality Learning and Teaching (QLT) website.
• SQuAIR ALLY Accessibility Score Research Project.
• Graduate Initiate support for increasing students' course accessibility.
• Weekly webinar trainings to support faculty on Canvas design, accessibility, gradebook and rubric design, UDL, and a variety of other topics. 

Summary of Previous OCS Accomplishments

• Continued development and growth of Canvas Design Foundations (Level 1) and Online Facilitation Fundaments (Level 2) programming.
• Support quality online course offerings during Fall 20' and Spring 21' semesters. 
• Increase CSU Fully Online contributions. 
• Continuous engagement in the QLT Review process.
• Support the transition to remote instruction in Fall 20' and Spring 21'. 

Dissemination of OCS Efforts— Conferences 

• The Canvas Course Design Foundations (Level 1) and Online Facilitation Fundamentals (Level 2) courses are now a prerequisite for faculty members seeking QLT certification. 
• Presentation of ALLY Accessibility Score Study results (SQuAIR) to SQuAIR group and SSU Office of the Provost, and President's Report to the CO.  

Training Completions

Course Peer Review and Course Certifications

SSU has established a workflow and QLT website for supporting faculty efforts for those seeking QLT Self-Review and/or External Review. The Canvas Design Foundations (Level 1) and Online Facilitation Fundamentals (Level 2) are designed based on the QLT Rubric exemplary practices and serve as prerequisites for the QLT certification process. In these programs, faculty receive the benefit of peer and facilitator feedback during the course design/redesign phase. 

SSU has successfully completed four additional QLT Certified courses this year with a fifth course currently under review.  

• COMS 215 - Gina Baleria (December 3, 2022)
• COMS 210 - Gina Baleria (March 9, 2022)
• UNIV 238 - Kristin Denver (March 18, 2022)
• COMS 302 - Gina Baleria (June 22, 2022) 
• EDUC 417 - Mary Gail Stablein (July 8, 2022)

The following individuals are SSU Certified Peer Reviewers: 

• Justin Lipp
• John Lynch
• Kristin Denver
• Gina Baleria
• Noelia Franzen
• Tim Hensel
• Krista Altaker

Student Quality Assurance Impact Research 

SSU participated in the SQuAIR project for this first time during the 21-22 grant year with the assistance of Kyle Falbo, CTET Faculty Fellow. The Research Question we sought to answer was: 

• What is the correlation between Level 1 & Level 2 completion and the accessibility of Canvas Courses? 

The results of the study suggest that there was a 17% increase in Ally accessibility scores for those participants who had completed the Level 1 and Level 2 professional development courses. Please see the following resources for additional information: 

• ALLY Score Research Project Slide Presentation 
• Ally Study.docx

Development of Campus OCS Resources

• Canvas Course Design Foundations (Level 1) - Canvas Commons
• Online Facilitation Fundamentals (Level 2) - Canvas Commons
• Online Course Design Template - Canvas Commons
• ECS Course Design Template - Canvas Commons
• QLT Webpage 

Accessibility/UDL Efforts

• Canvas Accessibility Tools
• ALLY/Canvas integration
• ALLY Accessibility Score Research Project (SQuAIR)
• UDL and Accessibility content in Level 1 and Level 2 programming
• UDL, Accessibility, and ALLY workshops offered by the Center for Teaching and Educational Technology
• Increased QLT self-review and external certifications
• Partnership with DSS
• ATI/UDL group - SSU has put forward $50,000 in permanent graduation initiative money annually starting in 2022-23 to support accessibility efforts related to instruction. 

Next Steps for OCS Efforts 

• Development of a HyFlex pilot August - November 2022 with the goal of informing larger training programs in SP and SU 2023.
• Contribute to the launch of SSU's first state-support Master's program in Early Childhood Studies.
• Establish a campus working group to centralize and enhance support for online course certifications. This effort will be supported by the UPCEA consulting project to provide institutional data and insight on the areas of greatest opportunity for new online programs for campus. The 22-23 OCS grant will be used to support this forthcoming initiative. 
• Continuation of Level 1 & Level 2 online course design institutes for faculty .
• Continued support for certified QLT course reviews.