March 11, 2009

Why You Need an Online Course Template: Q&A with Renee Cicchino

By: Christopher Hill in Distance Learning Administration, Instructional Design, Online Education

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An online course template can bring greater efficiency and quality to online courses. In a recent interview, Renee Cicchino, senior instructional designer at Seton Hall University’s Teaching, Learning and Technology Center, shares some of the benefits and challenges of online course templates, and explains why she prefers the Quality Matters rubric.

Q: Who benefits most from the use of a course template—the faculty or the students?
Cicchino: Everyone benefits from using a course template! The materials within the template assist faculty in such a way that they are able to focus on course content rather than what the hardware and software requirements are for using the course management system. In addition, the template materials help faculty who may not have taught or developed an online course before in terms of providing a sample course structure and reminders to provide a clear late policy and instructions on how students should submit their assignments.

The students benefit from faculty using the template because it provides a consistent learning environment. The template also provides details and resources about the university which can help ease anxiety of new students as well as provide a sense of community for the distance learner.

Q: What are some of the challenges in implementing a course template?
Cicchino: Our main challenges in implementing the template are keeping up with changing technology and updating the template. Each time we upgrade our LMS or a new version of Adobe Acrobat is released, we need to update the template materials and tutorials. We need to stay on top of the tools faculty use in their courses to ensure they have the most up-to-date resources to give to their students. In addition to technological changes, best practices and new uses of these tools are placed in the exemplar course and the Blackboard organization as well as being made into resources for faculty. It’s a lot to keep up with!

Q: Do you have a preferred rubric that you like to use?
Cicchino: For Seton Hall, Quality Matters is the best rubric for our online course development initiatives. Quality Matters was adopted by the College of Arts and Sciences Educational Policy Committee as the standard for creating their online courses in 2004. We (the Teaching, Learning and Technology Center) have been supporting the initiative by becoming a QM institution, providing and updating the template, providing training on using the template and the Quality Matters rubric and having three Instructional Designers trained as reviewers – one of which is certified.

Since taking the lead on this initiative two years ago, I have researched a couple other rubrics but have found that the Quality Matters rubric is the most comprehensive and well-structured rubric to meet our student and faculty needs. I find the annotations and examples of what each element means extremely helpful for the reviewer and faculty when developing or redesigning a course. I like that every few years QM revises and updates their standards based on pages and pages of literature and best practices. Quality Matters also provides training opportunities and literature as well as online support for using the rubric. (More information on Quality Matters is available here.)

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Tags: online course design, online course templates, online learning tools, online teaching, quality assurance online courses, quality of distance learning programs

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