Approving a Class for Online Instruction

In order to teach a class either totally online or even partially online, it needs to be approved by the curriculum committee. In the past, a class that was taught less than fifty percent online was referred to as a hybrid class and did not need any approval. Now all classes, no matter what percentage of the class is taught online, must be approved by the Curriculum Committee.

The good news is that the approval application has been streamlined and is now only about half as long as the original. The focus of the process is to demonstrate that the online class you want approved can successfully achieve the same objectives that are described in the face to face class outline.

Here are the steps you need to follow to have a class approved for online instruction.

1. Get a copy of the official outline for the course you want to have taught online. If your department does not have it, you can find it in the Office of Instruction. Ask Erline for a copy of the course outline.

2. Go online to Curriculum Forms and select the form under "For Distance Education" titled "Distance Education Form. "

3. Fill out the form. Be very clear as to how your face-to-face course objectives can be fulfilled online. Examples of writing online objectives may be found at Online Objectives.

4. You need to include three pages of your online class which have been checked for student accessibility. To do this, go to your Etudes development shell and create three pages. I suggest a course syllabus, a section in your module and an assignment. Then follow the instructions in the following link, Accessibility Instructions.”

5. Attach the original class outline and the results of the accessibility test to the Distance Education form and turn it in to Erline in the Office of Instruction.

The form will then be circulated to several members of the Curriculum Committee for preliminary approval. Then, the form will be returned to you to correct the suggestions made by the committee members.

_______________________________________________________