AY 2023-24— San Diego State University 

At San Diego State University (SDSU), we proposed to maintain and expand efforts to leverage existing campus programs to support local Graduation Initiative efforts in the following ways: 

• Reviving, updating, and increasing participation in our Course Design Institute’s (CDI) semester-long online/hybrid 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 that facilitate timely graduation for students. The cohort was supported by a team of six coaches.
• Continuing to offer the year-old Self-Paced Online Training (SPOT) faculty development program focused on the design, development, and evaluation of hybrid and fully online courses across the seven colleges that comprise SDSU.  We enlisted seven coaches–four instructional designers and three faculty– to support faculty participants as they completed this QLT-based Canvas course in either designing new or reviewing existing online courses.

Campus Goals for Online Course Services

We included two main goals in our proposal:

Goal 1: Continue to implement QLT as the campus standard for QA in online and hybrid teaching and learning across campus.

Goal 2: Expand faculty support programs for designing and reviewing their online and hybrid courses by reviving our CDI semester-long online/hybrid course and continuing to grow our SPOT program, originally developed through funding from the CSU OCS 2022-23 award, and expanded with funding from OCS in 2023-24 to include more coaching support, including from CSU course-certified instructors.

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, Vice President & Chief Information Officer, Information Technology
• Sean Hauze, Senior Director, Instructional Technology Services
• Ethan Garcia, ITS Learning Technologies Manager
• CDI and SPOT Co-Leads:
  • Katie Hughes, ITS Faculty in Residence & CSU OCS Lead
  • Andrea Saltzman Martin, Instructional Designer Lead for ITS & College of Education

CDI and SPOT Coaching Team:

• Katie Hughes, CDI & SPOT Co-Lead
• Andrea Saltzman Martin, CDI & SPOT Co-Lead
• Jon Rizzo, ITS Senior Instructional Designer
• Kristi Collins, ITS Instructional Designer
• Nava Amoona, ITS Instructional Designer
• Stuart Voytilla, ITS Faculty Fellow, Professional Studies and Fine Arts
• Maya Ginsberg, Lecturer, School of Music & Dance
• Sonya Schumann, Lecturer, School of Music & Dance

Campus Commitment Toward Sustainability of OCS Efforts

We will maintain ongoing efforts to support local Graduation Initiative efforts with QLT-based faculty training in online and hybrid course design through the CDI Program, the SPOT-CDI Program, and faculty referrals to CSU OCS courses:

• The semester-long, QLT-based CDI Program will again be offered in the Spring semester to approximately 15 faculty whose colleges refer them for course release provided by Academic Affairs.
• 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 continue 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.

Other commitments include:

• Continuing to offer ongoing workshops focused on various topics related to teaching and learning strategies for online, hybrid, and in-person classes.

  Inviting faculty who have completed the CDI and the SPOT Design Pathway to participate in the SPOT Review Pathway to review their courses.

  Soliciting faculty who have completed the SPOT Review Pathway to undergo CSU formal course reviews, as the SPOT Program includes 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, with one year (AY 2022-23) skipped due to realignment of post-pandemic priorities.

  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 on a year-round basis. 

  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, and an additional faculty member had their course certified in Spring 2024.

We focused on three training programs during AY 23-24:

1. Course Design Institute (CDI) Program

   Self-Paced Online Training (SPOT) Program 

   CSU Online Course Services 3-week online courses

CDI Results

After a year’s hiatus during with the SPOT Program was launched, we revived our long-standing CDI semester-long online/hybrid course for faculty receiving course release from Academic Affairs and selected by their colleges to develop new online or hybrid courses that are high-impact, large enrollment, and/or bottleneck courses to facilitate timely graduation for students. We developed a new CDI Canvas course and held weekly 2-hour meetings covering a different aspect of course design each week of the Spring 2024 semester, including guest presenters and exemplars from other faculty. The 19 participants–the largest ever CDI cohort– were supported by a coaching team of six ITS Instructional Designers and Faculty Fellows. The instructors and the courses they developed in Spring 2024 are listed below:

• Andres Aguilar, CCS 310, Chicano and Mexican Music

  Abraham Amkpa, THEA 427, African American Theater, Performance and Cultures

  Collett Ashurst, N458, Nursing Management and Leadership

  Shira Cohen, ACCTG 334, Intermediate Accounting II

  Marie Draz, LGBT 322, LGBTQ+ History and Culture

  Christy Dykstra, ENVE 649, Water/Wastewater Modeling Simulation

  Sambuddha Ghatak, CJ 304, Race, Equity, and Criminal Justice System

  Alvin Henry, ASIAN 102B, Asian American History

  Gregory Holland, CHEM 200, General Chemistry

  Hajar Homayouni, CS696, Data Quality Assurance

  Maria Ibarra, CCS 150, Critical Issues in Chicana Studies

  Jenn Karnopp, EDL 830, Leadership for Learning

  Alexa Mokalis, JMS 418, Social Media Influencing and Community Leadership

  Christopher Paolini, COMPE 561, Database and Web Programming

  Alanna Peebles, JMS 489, Media Studies Research Methods 

  Ian Ruston, LING 253, Grammar and Usage for Writers

  Stephan Suh, ASIAN 102A, Politics, Power, and Asian America

  Burrel Vann, CJ 301, Law in Society

  Felicity Yin, ART 345, Introduction to Non-Western Art

Faculty feedback: In the CDI exit survey, 100% of CDI the participants ranked their CDI experience as "very helpful" (the highest ranking option), and indicated through open comments that the program met and surpassed its goals. For example, one faculty stated, "This was an extremely helpful experience that demystified the idea of teaching an online class, especially in an asynchronous setting. In addition, the skills, techniques, and approaches I learned here go beyond the online setting, helping to improve my in-person teaching as well."

SPOT Results

Fall semester: Fourteen participants started the program and 4 completed and received certificates of completion (3 designers and 1 reviewer). Some faculty signed up but requested extensions or dropped out of the program.

Spring semester: Fifteen participants started the program and 6 completed and received certificates of completion (all designers). Again, some faculty signed up but requested extensions or dropped out of the program.

Faculty feedback: In the exit survey, 100% of respondents stated they would recommend SPOT to others. One participant stated, "Thanks to the structure and the examples provided on the Canvas course and the guidance of my mentor, I was able to put together the foundation for a course that I was otherwise very nervous about creating. I now feel confident..."

CSU Online Course Services 

We had faculty completions of 16 CSU OCS courses during AY 23-24, and one faculty course certification awarded.

Course Peer Review and Course Certifications
Campus Level Peer Reviews

Our SPOT program’s Review Pathway requires a self-review using the QLT rubric as the starting point for course review and improvements based on any ratings below 2 / 3. We had one faculty self-review through this pathway, completed by Yashu Chen for her Communications 321 course, Introduction to Health Communication.

The nine Design Pathway faculty who completed the SPOT program also received ongoing peer reviews from SPOT coaches, one QLT objective at a time, as they designed their new courses. These faculty informally met the QLT core-24 objectives in their course designs:

• Kendell Padrick, LING 305W, Advanced Composition for International Students

  Kourtney Murray, HUM 140, Greek and Roman Myths and Legends

  Christine Knott, WMNST 382, Gender, Science, & Technology

  Torey Romero, COMM 462, Ethnography & Communication

  Aner Zhou, ACCTG 432, Cost Management

  Bree Merschel, RWS 305W, Writing in Various Settings

  Mary Marchan, WMNST 341A, Women in Early American History

  Esra Tunc, RELS 103, American Religious Diversity

  Rutger Hadge, PHIL, Philosophy of Video Games

CSU Level Formal Course Reviews

One faculty member from the previous year’s SPOT Review Pathway, Angela Feres, complete a second self-review in order to submit her course, RELS425/ANTH424,The Supernatural in Cross-Cultural Perspectives, for CSU course certification, which she received in Spring 2024.

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

Both the CDI and SPOT Canvas courses include modules dedicated to UDL and Accessibility, including explanatory Overview pages, the QLT Rubric Section 8 core objectives, and Examples and Resources pages containing multiple links.
Our UDL specialists in ITS, Jon Rizzo and Nava Amoona, conduct workshops, disseminate information and resources, and offer 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: 2,257

  Faculty trained in UDL and accessibility: 226

  Ally software used in Canvas: 90,294 alternative formats downloaded by 14,796 students; 6,673 accessibility fixes to instructional materials made by faculty and staff

In addition, ITS continued the UDL/Accessibility Faculty Ambassador Program and trained 6 new faculty ambassadors. SDSU now has a total of 13 ambassadors. 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 2024-25, we plan to continue our existing faculty support programs as follows:

• Update and offer the Course Design Institute semester-long course in Spring 2025 to a cohort of 15 faculty nominated by their college deans. These faculty will be provided course release by Academic Affairs to develop courses that are high-impact, large enrollment, and/or bottleneck courses to facilitate timely graduation for students.

  Offer the Self-Paced Online Teaching (SPOT) course both Fall and Spring semesters for any interested 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.