AY 2022-23 — San Diego State University

Campus Goals for Online Course Services

We included two main goals in our proposal:

Goal 1: Continue to grow and formalize SDSU’s use of QLT as the campus standard for QA efforts in online teaching and learning in collaboration with ITS Faculty Fellows, SDSU Global Campus, and other SDSU campus partners.

Goal 2: Establish, grow, and evaluate the efficacy of a new faculty development program focused on the design, development, and evaluation of hybrid and fully online courses across the seven Colleges that comprise SDSU. This new program, the Self-Paced Online Teaching (SPOT) Training Program, represents an extension of SDSU’s long-running Course Design Institute (CDI), with a more inclusive, expanded approach to the types of courses for faculty participants to work on, at all stages of development and beyond. 

The SPOT Program was created in response to requests from college deans to expand our reach to meet increasing demand for online and hybrid courses. Whereas the former CDI program only ran in Spring semester and supported a cohort of 14 selected faculty for high demand, high enrollment courses, SPOT aims to support more course development, year-round, for a larger variety of courses. Adding more quality online and hybrid courses to the existing options for students directly supports Student Success goals and local Graduation Initiative efforts.

Online Course Services Lead(s)

• Katie Hughes, M.A., Lecturer, Department of Rhetoric and Writing Studies, and Faculty in Residence, Instructional Technology Services (ITS)

Supporting Campus Partners

• James Frazee, Deputy Chief Information Officer, Senior Associate Vice President, Information Technology Division
• Sean Hauze, Director, Instructional Technology Services
• Ethan Garcia, ITS Learning Technologies Manager
• SPOT Co-Leads: 
  • Katie Hughes, ITS Faculty in Residence & CUS OCS Lead
  • Andrea Saltzman Martin, Instructional Designer Lead for ITS & College of Education
• SPOT Coaching Team: 
  • Katie Hughes, SPOT Co-Lead
  • Andrea Saltzman Martin, SPOT Co-Lead
  • Jon Rizzo, ITS Senior Instructional Designer
  • Kristi Collins, ITS Instructional Designer
  • Stuart Voytilla, ITS Faculty Fellow, Professional Studies and Fine Arts
  • Nancy Jones, Lecturer, School of Accountancy
  • Maya Ginsberg, Lecturer, School of Music & Dance
  • Sonya Schumann, Lecturer, School of Music & Dance

Campus Commitment Toward Sustainability of OCS Efforts

• Maintain and expand efforts to support local Graduation Initiative efforts with QLT-based faculty training in online and hybrid course design through reviving the CDI Program, expanding the SPOT-CDI Program, and referring faculty to CSU OCS courses.
• The semester-long CDI Program will be offered Spring semester to faculty whose colleges refer them for course release provided by Academic Affairs, with up to 15 participants admitted.
• The online, asynchronous SPOT-CDI Program will run both Fall and Spring semesters and will accommodate up to 20 participants per semester. Through CSU OCS funding, we plan to provide one faculty with course release in Spring to accommodate more participants, as well as provide two faculty with Professional Development funding to coach during both Fall and Spring semesters.
• We will continue to promote the CSU OCS courses to faculty across campus for whom the 3-week online courses are the best option.
  
  
  
  
  
  Faculty Training Program Placement by Pathway

   
  
  

• In addition, we will continue to offer ongoing workshops focused on various topics related to teaching and learning strategies for online, hybrid, and in-person classes.
  
  

• We will solicit faculty who have completed SPOT Review Pathway to undergo CSU formal course reviews, as the SPOT Program included a QLT Self-Review, which prepares them for participating in the formal course review process.
   

Summary of Previous OCS  Accomplishments

• We have run our CDI Program using the QLT rubric since its inception in 2011. 
• In addition to our campus based QLT trainings, we have referred faculty to the OCS trainings for the last several years as well. 
• In 2022-23, we had five faculty complete informal course reviews, with feedback from ITS Faculty Fellows. Four of those faculty were formally course certified by CSU in Spring 2023.

Dissemination of OCS Efforts— Conferences 

• InstructureCon, July 26-28, 2023, attended by Katie Hughes, OCS Lead & SPOT Co-Lead

Training Completions

We focused on two training programs during AY 22-23:

1. Self-Paced Online Training (SPOT) Program 
2. CSU Online Course Services 3-week online courses

SPOT Results

Fall semester: 20 participants signed up; 8 completed the program and received certificates of completion (6 designers and 2 reviewers). Five requested extensions and 7 dropped out of the program. 

Spring semester: 23 participants signed up; 10 completed the program and received certificates of completion (6 designers and 4 reviewers). Two requested extensions and 11 dropped out of the program.

CSU Online Course Services 
We had faculty completions of 22 CSU OCS courses during AY 22-23, and four faculty course certifications awarded.

Course Peer Review and Course Certifications

We completed peer reviews of blended/online courses at both campus and CSU levels.  

Campus Level Peer Reviews

Through our SPOT Program's Review Pathway, six faculty completed QLT self-reviews of their existing courses:

• Joseph Price: PSY 332, Psychology of Adolescent and Early Adult Development
• William Welsh: ASTR 310, Astrobiology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life
• Edith Frampton: ENGL 544, Postcolonial Literature
• Angela Feres: RELS 258: Death, Dying, and the Afterlife
• Elizabeth Cordero: PSY407, Health Psychology
• Stephanie Frame: RWS305W, Advanced Composition for International Students

In addition,12 Design Pathway faculty received ongoing peer reviews from SPOT coaches, one QLT objective at a time as they designed their new courses:

• Valerie Li: ACCTG 333, Accounting Information Systems
• Yan Luo: ACCTG 431, Auditing
• Dillon Chapman: ART 157, Introduction to Art
• Denise Lebsack: ENS 330, Exercise Across the Lifespan
• Anthony Merritt: AFRAS 170B, Afro-American History
• Brandon Mastromartino: HTM, Sports Marketing
• Allie Cook: RWS 305W, Writing in Various Settings
• Alex Farugia: RWS 305W, Writing in Various Settings
• Tawny Whaley: PHIL 200, Critical Thinking and Composition
• David Judd: RWS 305W, Writing in Various Settings
• Shira Cohen: BA 670, Managerial Accounting
• Cássia de Abreu: PORT 101 & 102, Beginning Portuguese

CSU Level Formal Course Reviews
In Spring 2023, four faculty courses were certified by the CSU through formal reviews:

• Noah Arceneaux: JMS 494, Media Law and Ethics
• Maya Ginsberg: MUSIC 351, Music and Culture: Hip Hop
• Nancy Jones: ACCTG 333, Accounting Information Systems
• Sonya Schumann: MUSIC 151, Intro to Music: History of Rock

Development of Campus Online Course Services Resources

• ITS online support in the Virtual FIT (Faculty Instructional Technology) Center 
• Training & Workshops offerings through ITS and CSU OCS
• Course Design Institute (CDI)
• Self-Paced Online Training Program (SPOT-CDI)

Accessibility/UDL Efforts

• Our SPOT Canvas course Module, "Accessibility and Universal Design," includes an explanatory Overview page, the QLT Rubric Section 8 core objectives, and Examples and Resources pages containing multiple links. In addition, in each SPOT module, the QLT objectives are explained in the context of UDL principles in a "Making Connections" section.

SPOT Canvas Module

• Our UDL specialist in ITS, Jon Rizzo, conducts workshops, disseminates information and resources, and offers consultations with faculty to promote and train them in UDL best practices. Over the last year the following were accomplished in relation to UDL & Accessibility support at SDSU:

  • Videos captioned: 1,838

  • Videos audio described: 52

  • Faculty trained in UDL and accessibility: 187

  • Ally software used in Canvas: 78,735 alternative formats downloaded by 14,796 students; 4,083 accessibility fixes to instructional materials made by faculty and staff 

• In addition, ITS continued the UDL/Accessibility Faculty Ambassador Program and recruited five new faculty members and began their training. Faculty Ambassadors help enhance accommodations for disabled students by acting as advocates for students and promoting UDL/Accessibility techniques at SDSU.

Next Steps for OCS Efforts 

During AY 2023-24, we plan to expand faculty support programs as we continue to implement QLT as the campus standard in the following ways:

• Update and revive our long-standing Course Design Institute semester-long course, featuring weekly meetings with a cohort of faculty participants given course release by Academic Affairs to develop courses that are high-impact, large enrollment, and/or bottleneck courses to facilitate timely graduation for students.
• Grow our Self-Paced Online Teaching course for faculty to design or review online/hybrid courses, using the QLT rubric and the SPOT asynchronous Canvas course as the framework.
• Promote QLT and UDL resources and offer updated workshops and trainings to faculty across campus.
• Showcase faculty who have completed QLT course reviews and received certifications.
• Continue to promote CSU OCS training courses through timely communications with Deans, Department Chairs, and ITS support staff.