Fresno State Online Course Services (OCS) 

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Fall 2025 - Spring 2026

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 2025-2026 successes below. All of these efforts align with our collaborative efforts to align our campus strategic plan.  We provide infrastructure for ongoing support, resources, and training for students and employees across our campus and into our community *(1A, 1B, 2, 3B, 4, 5). 

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.

2025-2026 Successes

Our team ran our AI Design Institute on January 12-14, 2026 with a total of 23 faculty participants that teach online courses. Each day faculty members had various learning opportunities with our team and two faculty AI Champions, Dr. David Ruby and Dr. Scott Sailor, who helped co-create the learning experience.

Our Office of IDEAS gave presentations to build awareness about OCS by providing presentations at several colleges, schools, and in department meetings. Our team presented at five assemblies in the Fall 2025 semester: College of Science and Math, College of Arts and Humanities, Kremen School Of Education and Human Development, College of Health and Human Services & the Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology; and 17 departments in Spring 2026: Math, Chemistry, Public Health, Music, Communication, Recreation Administration, Animal Sciences and Agricultural Education, Mass Communication and Journalism, Biology, Educational leadership, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Chicano and Latin American Studies, Food Science and Nutrition, Liberal Studies, Construction Management & Architectural Studies, as well as Art Design & Art History. We also continued to share our message about OCS in different ways. That included a monthly blurb in our team newsletter, posted information on our website, and direct emails to faculty.

Successful QLT course reviews:

  • FIN 30 Personal Financial Planning (Tanya Stratton)

  • FIN 120 Principles of Finance (Le Zhao)

  • FIN 128 Investments (Tanya Stratton)

  • GERON 103 Psychology of Aging (Jill Schneider)

  • GERON 161 Multicultural Aging (Jill Schneider)


“Thank you Dr. Skylar, Office of IDEAS and peer reviewers for your time, guidance and valuable feedback during this process to help me improve my class for our students!” Jill Schneider on QLT Certification Review Process

QLT reviews in process:

  • SOC 131 (Sophia Boutilier)

  • SPED 120 (Kristina Rios)


OCS Training Courses

  • 33 completions of Introduction to Teaching Online using QLT

  • 9 completions of Advanced QLT Course in Online Teaching 

  • 1 completion of Reviewing Courses Using the QLT Rubric

  • 37 completions of AI Tools for Teaching and Learning
    (mix of faculty and staff)

  • 30 completions of AI Tools for Higher Ed Professionals
    (mix of faculty and staff)


2025-2026 Challenges

The Fresno State academic senate officially dissolved our Online Blended Learning (OBL) sub-committee in early spring of 2026. Essentially, this single act has now forced our office of IDEAS team to step up even more. The previous OBL committee was responsible for informal course reviews and committee members were knowledgeable about the QLT instrument. Partially due to this situation, Fresno State finalized a contract with Dr. Brett Christie from Nectar Inc. to leverage the CURIE AI software as part of campus our self review process in fall 2026.

Next Steps for Quality Assurance for 2026-2027


Goal 1: Ally / Canvas Accessible Course Institute

Leveraging faculty interest in access and affordability, our team will offer a three day (12 hours total) Ally / Canvas Accessible Course Institute with the intended audience of faculty members who have already designed and taught fully online courses and want to complete a campus level review. We will allow up to 30 faculty members to participate in the institute.


Goal 2: Submit a minimum of four course reviews to the Chancellor's Office.

Goal 3: Provide faculty support with QLT reviews, course creation support, and curriculum development. 

Quality Assurance Team

  • Ashley Abrahamson, Instructional Designer
  • 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