Contact Information

Henderson Learning Center Room #3

(785) 670-2381

Faculty Technical
Assistance Guidelines

Overview

This document provides important guidelines to faculty members who wish to create, maintain, or update online courses and programs at Washburn University. These guidelines include proper procedures and timetables for requesting Development and Support through the ETC Distance Education subcommittee and receiving WebCT training/technical assistance.

These guidelines are the recommendation of the Online Education team, composed of representatives from Continuing Education, Instructional Media, Library Services, and WebCT Technical Support (WebTech).

Goals

The WebTechs will 1) follow the priorities for providing technical assistance established by the Online Education team; 2) establish and communicate clear expectations for WebCT skills acquisition so that faculty will, by degrees, become relatively self-sufficient; 3) create timetables by which faculty members can better plan, develop, and deliver online courses; 4) offer timely and sufficient technical training for all online course faculty; and 5) encourage online faculty development.

Priorities

Because of the success of the online education program, an increasing number of faculty use WebCT to provide instruction to students. To ensure that these instructors receive adequate training and technical support, the following priorities and considerations for assisting faculty have been established:

2+2 PLAN courses as part of the following degree programs:
BS in Criminal Justice; BAS in Human Services; BAS in Technology Administration; BIS in Administrative Communication, Communication Management, or Liberal Arts; BS in Nursing; and Bachelor of Health Science
Courses that are part of a complete online certificate or degree program
General education courses
Graduate and upper division courses
Lower division courses
WebCT-assisted courses and MyWashburn Course Homepages

Expectations

As with all training, there will be different levels of competency among faculty members regarding computers and WebCT. It is unrealistic to expect that new users to WebCT should be as well versed in the software as veterans who have been teaching online for three or more semesters.

With this in mind, the Online Education team requires that all faculty members meet certain skill levels so they can be held accountable for their own course development. During an instructor's first semester of online teaching, he/she can expect WebTechs to provide assistance in all technical aspects of course building. Faculty who teach a completely online course for the first time are also eligible to receive a one-time stipend for developing online pedagogical skills. As faculty members become familiar with WebCT, they will be expected to have the skills necessary to complete more tasks without assistance.

Below is an outline of the skills faculty members using WebCT will be expected to learn:

1^st Semester: Full assistance from WebTechs

2^nd Semester: Syllabus tool, Discussion Messages and Topics, Mail, Calendar, Quizzes (Settings and Grading), Assignment Creation and Grading, Chat

3^rd Semester: Content Modules (Add and Modify), Grade Book (Add/Modify Columns), Manage Students, Manage TAs

4^th Semester: Quiz Creation, HTML Conversion, Quiz Question Databases, Presentations

Please note that these skill expectations are tied to the instructor, not the course he/she is teaching. An instructor who begins teaching a second course after one year of online teaching will be expected to have third semester skills.

At the start of every semester, an instructor should always remember to:

Update the syllabus
Examine all hyperlinks in Content Modules for broken links
Update the Calendar
Update Quiz and Assignment due dates
Post new Discussion messages
Update contact information, as necessary
Update course content, as necessary

These changes can be made by the instructor. Instructors who plan to make multiple changes to a course in a coming semester (changes to the curriculum, new textbook, new exams) should begin well in advance. Extensive revisions should be considered as time-intensive as developing a new course. WebTechs will work with instructors (as skill levels require) to assist with these changes.

Course Development

Preparation is necessary in the building of any course, and this is no less true when developing one online. Faculty members are encouraged to develop a new course at least one semester prior to offering it to students and to use the Quality REACHE rubric to design their course. This means that an instructor should plan to spend several hours a week for a semester developing an online course. Trying to develop and teach an online course simultaneously reduces the amount of time one spends on teaching and can adversely affect the quality of a course.

Timetable recommendation for course development:

Step	Action	Start Date
1.	Receive WebCT Training and review the Quality REACHE rubric http://www.washburn.edu/iss/seminars/webct.html	One semester before the course is offered online.
2.	Request a New Course Development area: http://www.washburn.edu/iss/forms/webct_new.html	Once training is complete.
3.	Develop Course
3a.	Build course Welcome Page and syllabus	Once course development area has been created.
3b.	Begin converting and uploading course content.	At least 3 months before the start of semester
3c.	Set up Assignments and Quizzes	At least 2 months before the start of semester
3d.	Create Discussion topics and post introductory messages	At least 1 month before the start of semester
3e.	Personalize course	At least 1 month before the start of semester.
4.	Content moved from development server to the production server by the WebCT Administrator	2 weeks before the start of classes.
5.	Remind students to visit the WebCT Student Orientation for an overview of the WebCT software tools.	First day of classes

WebCT Training

The WebTechs offer WebCT training to faculty every semester. The training classes are offered on-campus at the University, usually on the first Thursday and Friday of the month. Depending on the needs of the instructors (due to upgrades in the software, etc.) additional training classes may be offered.

Training classes are divided into two sessions. The first session is an overview of the WebCT Tools as seen from a student point of view. The second session shows faculty members the designer tools they will see as instructors in a course. Training also includes some discussion of online thinking, copyright and accessibility information, and pedagogy in an online classroom. Each day of training requires two to three hours.

Because faculty members may not be able to attend the required training sessions, either because of scheduling conflicts or distance, the WebTechs also offer access to online training materials.

In Conclusion

Adherence to these guidelines will help ensure adequate training and technical support for all online course instructors, the development and delivery of quality online courses and programs, and the continued growth and success of the Online Education program at Washburn University.