The development and build of a course sees the material planned in the design stage take form in an online environment. HuskyCT Ultra Course View (UCV) is the course enterprise system UConn uses for delivering its online content. Regardless of a faculty member’s technology skills, they and the eCampus team will work together to achieve the following steps.
Decide on a Course Structure for the HuskyCT Section
Once your course components are developed and aligned, you will need to determine how they will be organized in HuskyCT. eCampus provides a blueprint that ensures QM, ADA and accessibility compliance, and common web standards are met.
Gather and Develop Instructional Materials.
Much of the material you will use for your course will come from face-to-face courses you have taught. Some of this material will need to be digitized, recreated, and/or substituted to meet web, copyright, and accessibility guidelines. The instructional design team along with University Libraries will also assist in finding, digitizing, or even creating new materials specifically for the online learning environment. Annotated PowerPoint slides and course notes are just two examples of instructional materials possible in your online course.
Create Activities, Assessments, Assignments, Discussions & Blogs
Once you have learning objectives to guide you and a course plan in place, you will need to build out all the elements of the course in Blackboard. In addition to building the discussions, activities, assessments, etc., grading criteria and rubrics will need to be created and placed in the course and settings will need to be applied to make the elements available to students and liked to the grade book. In limited amounts, Video Content can be very effective.
Complete Syllabus
The syllabus will have the typical elements of a face-to-face course but also need to include elements specific to the online environment. Examples include technology requirements, minimum technical skills, authentication and proctoring information, preferred contact method for office hours and communication at a distance, etiquette expectations, links to on campus resources like the Library, ITS, and Digital Learning Center.
During this phase, a faculty member will:
- Work with eCampus staff to determine the best overall structure for the course
- Guide instructional design team’s development and build process
- Gather materials and ensure they meet Federal ADA and Copyright requirements
- Review and become familiar with how to run the online course
- Build components when appropriate
- Provide information for syllabus
During this phase, an instructional designer will:
- Provide project management support
- Familiarize the faculty with eCampus’ HuskyCT blueprint
- Implement the plan outline in the design and development documents, time lines, curriculum alignment guides, and course development frameworks
- Review content and materials for alignment with Quality Matters and web design principles
- Build the course in HuskyCT
- Provide customized build and development support for unique faculty and situational needs
During this phase, Quality Matters has standards that specifically apply to the following:
- Course Overview and Introduction (1.1-1.8)
- Instructional Materials (4.1-4.6)
- Learner Interaction and Engagement (5.1-5.4)
- Course Technology (6.1-6.5)
- Learner Support (7.1-7.4)
- Accessibility (8.1-8.4)