Online course development training
Online course development training is six (6) weeks, is cohort-based, mostly asynchronous with planned Zoom sessions each week.
Assignments are as follows:
- Course syllabus. Faculty fill out the Nevada Online course syllabus template
- Course map. Faculty align their course-wide student learning outcomes to weekly activities, assessments, and content
- Welcome video. Faculty create a brief video where they introduce themselves and welcoming students to the course (3 minutes or less; instructor face is present)
- Lecture material drafts/plans. Faculty meet with Design Team to discuss plans for videos and/or submit drafts/lecture plans to Instructional Designer to review, provide feedback, etc.
- Module blueprint. Faculty fills out the module blueprint (template for week 1 of their course)
- Lecture recordings. Faculty record and drop all lecture material for week 1 of their course
Fall 2025
- Training start: ~February 10
- Development: March-June
Spring 2025
- Training start: ~June 1
- Development: July-October
Spring 2026
- Training start: ~September 1
- Development: October-January
Training expectations
Faculty are expected to do the following:
- Meet assigned deadlines.
- Prepare consistent, edited, and finalized course materials.
- Communicate concerns, issues, questions, etc. with their assigned design team.
- Meet all Nevada Online course essentials, Department of Education, and University requirements and policies in the design of their course.
- Respect their instructional design team’s expertise and understand that their role in providing support, guidance, and enforcing policy.
Nevada Online's team is expected to do the following:
- Communicate and support faculty in the meeting of all Nevada Online course essentials, Department of Education, and University requirements and policies in the design of their course.
- Listen to and address all faculty concerns and questions, clarify development process and training assignments, provide solutions and feedback on course content, offer ideas and examples for faculty inspiration, and support the faculty throughout the entire training and development process.
- Review course materials for accessibility, consistency, and communicated instructions and information in preparation for continued course development and the building of an easy to navigate, well organized, error-free online course in Canvas using the appropriate tools for all assignments.
Learning expectations
- Best practices in online asynchronous development, including regulatory standards
- Available software, equipment, and services
- Tips for expediting teaching with generative AI, Canvas Commons, templates, and more
- Ideas and methods that fellow faculty employ
- One-on-one attention:
- With an instructional designer who reviews your course content carefully and helps you align all activities, assessments, and content with the course-wide outcomes, provides suggestions for instructions, meeting standards, and consistency across the course, and animations/design suggestions to make lecture content visually appealing
- With a technologist who walks you through recording software options, providing suggestions and tips for creating quality video with ease
- A support system via the Nevada Online design team and faculty members in your training cohort
- A fully built, accessible and well-designed online asynchronous course
- Experience working with a design team and using templates
- Knowledge of current standards and best practices in online learning
- Experience creating asynchronous video material and aligning course-wide outcomes to activities, assessments, and instructional materials
Questions?
For questions regarding course development, please reach out to Nevada Online via email at nevadaonline@unr.edu.