COL Services & Guidelines
The COL Integrated Design Team
This approach to instructional design focuses on program-level development. Our goal is to think about each course as a part of a bigger whole, and to keep our focus on the student’s overall experience in a program. This produces student achievements you can confidently assess and demonstrate. The goal is for your course activities and student portfolios to allow you to easily externally validate your learning goals and show clear evidence of graduate competence.
The foundation of program-level design is to have faculty agree on criteria for student success. When faculty have a consensus on curricular goals, course projects and assignments can be designed or adjusted to meet and demonstrate them. Departments may want external evaluators to help ensure that program coutcomes meet desired professional standards, and positive assessments can support outreach efforts.
The Quality Matters Course Review Process
COL instructional design staff have adapted an online learning course evaluation rubric based on the industry-standard criteria defined by the Quality Matters Program. This rubric provides a baseline of good practice for online course structure and accessibility within a framework of Universal Design for Education. While this review process does not guarantee good learning outcomes, it is a good starting place for departmental review of existing courses. Students can also use the rubric to make sure their online learning experience is meeting University requirements for accessibility and quality.
The Learning Technologies Collaboratory
The new LTC is a collaborative effort by OIT’s User Support Services, COL and the Instructional Development Support Center (IDSC) to provide faculty support for the Desire2Learn learning management system. The LTC team includes one full-time instructional designer from COL and the staff of the Help Desk and IDSC. They can help with D2L training, troubleshooting, and advanced-function issues with D2L. The LTC is located in SMSU room 18, adjacent to the Help Desk. To reach the Help Desk, call 503 725-HELP (4357). To reach the LTC instructional designer, call 503 725-2244. Phone support is available from 8-5 M-F, and walk-in hours are 10am to 4pm M-F.
Face-to-face workshops on D2L and teaching online are offered in the LTC on Fridays. The training schedule can be found here: http://oit.pdx.edu/training.
The Help Desk should be your first stop for basic D2L help like getting logged in, activating your course, or finding functions and tools. If the Help Desk staff can’t solve your problems they will refer you to IDSC staff. The LTC instructional designer can help with advanced functionality and course design issues. Keeping faculty D2L support located in the LTC allows the rest of the COL staff to focus on design, research, and development.
