Overview
As the demand for high quality online educational opportunities continues to grow, SIUE is intentionally increasing our online offerings through a collaborative approach which leverages the collective expertise of the academic departments, faculty content experts, and professional instructional designers to ensure quality and rigor in the new online course offerings and optimize the student learning experience. In many cases, the initiative to expand online course offerings is at the behest of academic departments who are anxious for support and guidance as they move their program or portions of their program online. In other cases, departments are asked to develop online courses because the University has identified a market need and has a mission-driven obligation to try to meet that need
As part of membership in NC-SARA, which allows SIUE to offer distance education courses nationally, SIUE is obligated to adhere to the Interregional Guidelines for the Evaluation of Distance Education which are included in the SARA Policy Manual. The Guidelines require SIUE to adhere to principles that protect and support both students and faculty engaged in online courses and programs. As such, the efforts of the academic on-line course development team must be coordinated with other units such as the Office of the Registrar, Online Student Services, and SIUE Marketing and Communication to ensure that the online courses SIUE supports, schedules and advertises are high quality, meet students’ educational needs, and fully comply with the standards of our accrediting bodies and federal regulations.
This website provides an overview of the online course development process led and supported through the Office of Online Services and Educational Outreach, as well as some resources for academic departments and faculty content experts who elect to participate in the initiative. For more information, contact Mary Ettling at mawalke@siue.edu or 618.650.3215
Relevant Excerpts from NC-SARA Interregional Guidelines
Item 2 states the institution’s plans for developing, sustaining, and, if appropriate expanding online learning offerings are integrated into its regular planning and evaluation processes.
Item 3 states Online learning is incorporated into the institution’s systems of governance and academic oversight.
Item 4 states Curricula for the institution’s online learning offerings are coherent, cohesive, and comparable in academic rigor to programs offered in traditional instructional formats.
As supporting evidence to the items above, some of the following are listed as ways an institution demonstrates adherence to each of the items.
Our Assurances to Students
- Plans for expanding online learning demonstrate the institution’s capacity to assure an appropriate level of quality
- The curricular goals and course objectives show that the institution or program has knowledge of the best uses of online learning in different disciplines and settings
- The curriculum is coherent in its content and sequencing of courses and is effectively defined in easily available documents including course syllabi and program descriptions
- Scheduling of online learning courses and programs provides students with a dependable pathway to ensure timely completion of degrees
- Course design and delivery supports student-student and faculty-student interaction
- Course and program structures provide schedule and support known to be effective in helping online learning students persist and succeed
Our Assurances to Faculty
- The institution ensures the rigor of the offerings and the quality of the instruction (See FAQ for specific information)
- Development and ownership of plans for online learning extend beyond the administrators directly responsible for it and the programs directly using it
- The institution’s faculty have a designated role in the design and implementation of its online learning offerings
- Curriculum design and the course management system enable active faculty contribution to the learning environment
See links below for further information
Sample Content Expert Agreement (Scopes of Work)
