Course Development Timeline and Workflow

Pre-Planning

• Deans draft course descriptions (sometimes with an expert in the field involved) and course outcomes. These course elements have been approved by the College’s curriculum committee in alignment with the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE) accreditation process, so they cannot be substantially changed without consulting the curriculum committee

• The Deans select a SME for the course build.

• LXDs are assigned courses to build.

• The Director or Assistant Director of Learning Experience Design will send an introductory email connecting the SME and LXD on the project to formally begin the course design process

Kick Off Meeting - This initial meeting between the SME and the LXD covers the conceptualization of the course, its development, and the timeline. The LXD explains the process, roles, tasks, expectations, and deliverables. After the logistics, discussion moves to Course Description and Outcomes. This ensures the course development has a clear destination in mind. In addition to the Course Description and Outcomes, the SME and LXD will also brainstorm ideas for the Course Project. Best practices for this step often looks like the LXD asking the SME about real world scenarios, skills, and products. By starting with a blank canvas, the LXD can support the SME in ideation and allowing their personal background and expertise inform the project format.

The “homework” after the kick-off meeting is for the SME to make any edits to the Course Description and Outcomes, add detail and refine the Course Project idea, and decide if the course will have a textbook. The textbook decision is made early on to determine the availability of the resource (some version of the resource must be available for less than $100, either print or digital). The Associate Dean of Retention and Completion has access to a special database of digital editions that are less common or have limited availability. However, if a required textbook does not have a digital version widely available or from this repository, it cannot be used. Where possible, we recommend using Open Educational Resources (OERs) for textbooks because they are free and easily available online, such as through OpenStax. SMEs should follow the 10% rule. If 10% or less of a textbook will be used, then students do not need to purchase the book and the SME can provide PDFs of the chapters/pages used. Anything over 10% will require purchase. While the textbook can often also give structure to the course, be wary of the SME overly relying on the textbook for the course.

If the selected textbook is not an OER, you can check with the librarian at the Unity library to see if she can source the material. Here's more information:

• Send her the full citation including ISBN

• Always ask for unlimited concurrent usage for a textbook

  • If very expensive or not an option, discuss with the Director of Educational Product Development

• Enrollment in class is not necessary

• When searching for books uncheck "Unity has it" and ask Sandra if we can get it

• If expensive for library but also expensive for students, elevate to Chris to discuss with Jen about

The next meetings involve finalizing the Course Description and Outcomes and solidifying the assessments/product(s) (report, paper, presentation, etc.) of the Course Project. A Course Project pre-approval template will be completed and submitted to the dean overseeing the build to ensure the proposed project is appropriate. The Course Project often leads with a purpose that clearly connects to the course outcomes, an overview of the finished product outlining the project elements, and a scenario or launching off point that situates the work the students will be doing. The Course Project document should also identify the portions of the project that will be accomplished over the weeks of the course. Course Projects often benefit from a specific scenario and parameters so that students can understand the scope of the project while still also adding personal choice and interest.

With the foundation of the Course Project in place, SMEs and LXDs will begin to create the Assignments and Discussion that serve to advance project sections or necessary skills. These follow the backwards design model to clearly connect to the Course Project and its outcomes. What will students need to know and create as they move towards completing the Course Project? After the Assignments and Discussion posts are created, SMEs work towards writing the student-facing directions: someone taking the course should be able to read what is written and proceed through the steps to complete the task.

In tandem with the creation of the milestone Assignments and Discussion posts, the overall shape and sequence of the course begins to take shape. Week 1 often requires selecting a Course Project topic and introduces the themes of the course. The following weeks then have themes or topics that relate to the assignments and learning materials. The co-creation of the assignments and rough course outline often clarifies the process of the Course Project and its components.

The whole course project process extends over the course of a few meetings/weeks. Regardless of the development timeline (roughly 12-16 weeks), the Course Project should be accomplished in roughly one month because this timeframe commits the SME and LXD to the foundation course elements, which inform the overall course design features and scope.

After the course project has been approved by the Dean(s) at roughly Week 3/4, the draft of the course outline created for the Course Project can be fleshed out to become the overall course outline. Each week should have a theme/topic, learning outcomes, learning materials, and a total of roughly three assessments (typically only two in graduate courses). As with the Course Project process, Assignments and Discussions are conceptualized and then student-facing directions are written. Through the backwards design model, SMEs determine what content knowledge students will need in order to complete the assigned tasks, and choose learning materials to address these needs. SMEs also develop rubrics to accompany Assignments and Discussions. After most of the material for a week is assembled, SMEs write a weekly overview that introduces the theme/topic of the week and maps out the connections and pedagogical choices for the design and organization of the week.

The course outline gets submitted to both another LXD team member and then the Dean for an overall course outline signoff. LXDs will read for accessibility of assignments/discussions, clarity of directions, as well as rubric alignment. Deans will particularly look out for alignment to and fulfillment of course outcomes, student-facing directions and the logistics of assignment completion, and that the amount of work required is appropriately rigorous. Precision in these elements ensures a smooth course rollout during the term.

The unique nature of Unity courses requires SMEs to record their own lectures or videos for courses. Best practices dictate short videos of approximately 5-10 minutes (and a maximum of 30 minutes of SME-recorded video content) per week to introduce or explain topics or provide specific content knowledge that may be more effectively conveyed via a lecture than a reading or other resource.

LTSS is the primary point of contact for SME videos. As noted in the timeline, LXDs will connect the SME to the LTSS assigned to develop media for that particular course (the LTSS will be assigned to the New Build in the kickoff email). The LTSS will support the SME in recording the first video for the course, the Course Project Overview video. The video will go to the Dean for review while the LXD and SME develop the rest of the textual course design. Then, the LXD will connect the SME with the LTSS once more to record the rest of the videos.

The final stages of course creation involve building the course in Canvas from the corresponding google docs and then appointing the SME to the QA (Quality Assurance) role. The SME then copy-edits the Canvas course, verifies the links and other materials, and reviews all content in the course.