Requirements for Building Online Courses

Quick Start

See the Essentials Checklist for Authors for an abbreviated look at the requirements listed below.

Timeline and Project Scope Document

A timeline and scope document is required for contracted projects. These are developed between the Author(s), Program Coordinator, Faculty Reviewer, Academic Services Operations, and Learning Design.

Academic Services Operations will provide a template for the timeline and scope document.

When all of the information has been gathered, use this link to submit the template to Academic Services Operations.

Timeline

There are at least 4 milestones with due dates that cover the entire scope of the project. They are required to issue a contract. Most full Dev/Revs (new course development or course revision projects) are scheduled for 2 semesters.

Calculate the launch date (this is the Friday before classes begin)
Create at least four milestones
The milestones can be calculated by dividing the duration of development by four
The 4th milestone is two weeks prior to course launch date
Go/No-go Date: while updates may be requested as you proceed, there is one administrative checkpoint where you will be asked for information to determine if the course can be launched on time.

Syllabus

The course syllabus is an essential part of your course. Your syllabus gathers all the vital information about your class in one place. The course syllabus is important for students to be successful in the course.

All the vital components of your syllabus can be found in this Canvas course template shell. Copy this into your course or you can use this link to request a copy of the course template shell.

Have all your syllabus edits finalized in your course one month before the start date.

For more information about Faculty Senate Requirements and College recommendations review: What should be on my syllabus?

Textbook information

The World Campus requires the following for each textbook or other materials that are to be purchased by the students.

Author
Title
Year
Edition
Publisher
ISBN-13

Please submit this information by the following dates. Depending upon which semester your course will be launching:

Fall semester launch: the second week of the previous March
Spring semester launch: the second week of the previous October
Summer semester launch: the second week of the previous February

Grading

“Provide a breakdown of the graded elements of the course and the percentage weight for each category.” (Faculty Senate: source)

Schedule

The World Campus will need to know the due dates for all assigned activities. They add this information to the syllabus if:

the option to display the schedule in the syllabus has been selected and
the dates have been entered into each Canvas activity.

You can use a spreadsheet, or some other document, with all the due dates for the assigned activities. Click on this link to download an example template. Please send your completed schedules 6 weeks before the start of the launch semester. We will need two schedules. One for fall and spring semesters that are 15-weeks long and another for the 12-week summer semesters.

Media Planning

For courses with videos, interactive media, etc., send an email 3 months before your course is scheduled to launch. The Office of Learning Design will follow up with you.

For courses without videos, interactive media, etc., send an email 4 weeks before your course is scheduled to launch to request an Accessibility review of your content.

Quality Assurance Checks

All courses need to undergo a series of QA checks performed by the Office of Learning Design. This process begins one month before the launch date.