Fresno State Online Course Services (OCS)

Summer 2024 - Spring 2025

Our Commitment: Our team in the office of Innovation and Digital Excellence for Academic Success (IDEAS) continues to focus on our university strategic plan. We have been mapping all of our GI 2025 efforts to the strategic plan, including Goal Three A, Strategy 4: While online learning is not suited for every student, nor is every program suited for online delivery, Fresno State aims to offer more online graduate programs to remain competitive and serve the workforce in the Valley and beyond, who may need flexibility in their schooling. Our intent is to continue expanding the number of faculty who participate in QLT training while communicating the value of choice and flexibility in learning modalities for our students.

Our Commitment: Fresno State continues to be committed to our ongoing partnership with the OCS team. Over the past academic year, our faculty have participated in a number of activities that align with our student success plan as outline by the 2024-2025 challenges and successes below. All of these efforts align with our Office of Instruction Effectiveness (OIE) and our collaborative efforts to align our campus GI 2025 efforts.

MERLOT
MERLOT is a collection of free and open online teaching, learning and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community. The MERLOT collection of open resources spans across a wide variety of disciplines and education levels. What sets MERLOT apart is a combination of peer reviews, member comments, learning exercises and other valuable information and metadata associated with the materials.

2024-2025 Accomplishments and Challenges

Collectively, our campus continues to find innovative ways to leverage the interests of our faculty and provide professional development opportunities for them. Bellow are the goals we set for the 2024-2025 academic year as well as a summery of some of the accomplishments as well as challenges.

Goal 1: Offer a Fresno State Humanizing STEM for Online Learning

Our Humanizing STEM for Online Learning was offered, and 15 faculty members completed the course and created their faculty showcase. Dr. Dermot Donnelly-Hermosillo, a full professor in the chemistry department, facilitated it. Those faculty members have now been invited to complete the QLT Course Improvement Plan and meet with an instructional designer for an internal QLT review. Also, 114 faculty members completed OCS training during 2024-2025. Of those faculty, 58 completed one of the QLT course offerings.

Goal 2: Support the development of five online graduate-level courses.

In collaboration with the Department of Public Health, a new Online Masters of Public Health degree program was recently approved by the university. Our instructional design team was instrumental in working with the program coordinator and several faculty. Six of the 11 classes were converted from traditional course offerings to online courses. We are optimistic that the program will begin in fall of 2025. Self reviews were completed with support from our instructional designers. Once those courses are taught a few times, we are hopeful that the department will have the entire program QLT certified to stand itself apart from other CSU’s that offer similar graduate degrees.

Goal 3: To have a minimum of five internal course reviews submitted and approved by the CO level review.

We have strategically identified 40 courses and faculty who would be ideal for internal course reviews and submission to the CO level review. Our instructional designers looked in Canvas at over 150 online courses that met our internal criteria of having been taught repeatedly post covid. Invitations to the 40 faculty have been shared several times. However, with all of the attention this past academic year focused on AI and now ChatGPT we have not yet completed the internal reviews. We continue to reach out and hope that over the summer that faculty will have more availability.

Formal QLT Reviews

The following courses were approved at the CO level as QLT certified courses: Psychology of Aging (GERON 103), Critical Thinking in Chicano and Latin American Studies (CLAS 30), Fashion Merchandising Fundamentals (FM 21).

The following course was reviewed at the campus level and was not ready to submit to a CO level review: Alcohol and Alcoholism (PH 111).

The following course was removed from consideration for a CO level review due to faculty personal reasons and will be submitted in the future:

Educational Measurement and Program Evaluation (ERE 288).

Challenges

Our Academic Policy & Planning committee in our academic senate has spent the last two academic years revising and asking for feedback from various campus stakeholders on our online course review and faculty professional development required for online teaching and learning (APM 206).

Huminizing STEM Quotes and Showcases

Faculty Participant Quotes

"As I transition into teaching my humanized online course, I’m most excited about fostering a genuine sense of connection with my students—right from the start. It’s easy for online learning to feel isolating, but now I feel equipped with tools and mindsets to build a classroom culture where students feel seen, valued, and safe to be themselves".

"As I get ready to teach my humanized online course, I’m most excited about creating a space where students feel connected and engaged, even online."

Selected Faculty Showcases

Jane Lee, Zhezhu Wen, Ph.D., Dr. Hayssam El-Razouk

Next Steps for Quality Assurance for 2025-2026

Goal 1: QLT / AI Design Institute

Leveraging faculty interest and/or skepticism about AI, our team will offer a three day (12 hours total) QLT / AI Course Redesign Institute with the intended audience of faculty members who have already designed and taught fully online courses and have completed a campus level review. We will allow up to 30 faculty members to participate in the institute.

Goal 2: Build OCS Awareness

Attend at least 30 out of 52 departments on campus and build awareness about OCS by providing presentations and Q and A in departmental meetings. Additionally, attend a minimum of five out of eight College/School assemblies and share out OCS resources with invitations for one on one consultations with our IDEAS team.

Goal 3: CO Level Reviews

Submit a minimum of two course reviews to the CO. There were five successful QLT reviews approved by the CO in 2023-2024. We have not been as successful in 2024-2025. This is in part due to a shift in focus by our IDEAS team to support, offer training, and provide professional development (campus wide) for AI.

Quality Assurance Team

Jolynne Blake, Instructional Designer
William Hardiway, Instructional Designer
Jason McGensy, Instructional Designer
Yet Chen Fong, Academic Technology
Diahann Gutierrez, Office Support
Dr. Nicole Walsh, SQuAIR Researcher
Dr. Natalie Munoz, Director Center for Faculty Excellence
Dr. Bryan Berrett, Director Office of IDEAS, Quality Assurance Coordinator
bryanberrett@csufresno.edu

Image of our Office of IDEAS team

We are committed to providing professional development opportunities for all faculty members as indicated by our 2023-2024 IDEAS Annual Report.