VIU's Commitment to Quality Online Teaching & Learning

To Help Reduce the Anxiety Often Experienced by New Online Learners

Each VIU online course contains a Getting Started and How To module that provides an orientation to WebCT's online teaching and learning environment as well as an introduction to the instructor, course outline, course objectives, format and instructional strategy, grading and assignment criteria, and instructor/learner expectations.

Getting Started provides general tips on how to be successful in an online course, how to get technical support, and tutorials in course specific software skills supplemented by links to many online resources to enhance our learner support. To assist learners with time management we provide a Schedule-at-a-Glance which includes the recommended path through the content, a week-by-week or topic-by-topic schedule of course-related events, due dates for readings, assignments and assessments with suggested time-on-task.

How To provides step-by-step instructions on how to use all of the tools that are integrated in the learning environment including: Navigation, Communication, Assessment, Study Tools, and Guidelines. Also provided are a series of “viewlets” that take the student through a virtual tour of the most commonly used WebCT tools such as: Mail, Discussion, Chat, Quizzes, Glossary, and Assignment Drop Box.

A Sample Content Module

• Introduction – Introduces learners to overall goal of module; helps connect content to be learned with previous content; ensures learners realize importance of concepts to which they will be introduced and how these are applicable for them, immediately and in the future.
  
  
• Teaching Objectives & Anticipated Learning Outcomes – Clearly stated to provide learners with realistic expectations about requirements of the module and what they ought to know and be able to do upon completion of this module.
  
  
• Making the Connection – Advance Organizer – High-level overview of material to be covered, for the purpose of activating prior learning; provides a quick review of key points from prior modules and shows how new concepts ladder and build on previous concepts already presented.
  
  
• How to Successfully Complete this Module – Tips with a list of activities required and recommended time-on-task to assist learners to manage their time and course priorities.
  
  
• Introduction to Reading Materials – Identify background reading required for the module, optional readings, and key points to which students should direct their attention.
  
  
• Discussion of Readings – Debrief and provide a transition into the next course component.
  
  
• Content Presentation – Expand on main concepts presented in background reading; provide additional information with a variety of examples, and/or present alternate views, illustration, diagrams, or other appropriate media to support the content.
  
  
• Integrated Interactivity – Multimedia with links to cases, scenarios, labs, interactive glossary, group projects, etc. These allow learners to further connect new knowledge/skills with existing knowledge and experiences.
  
  
• Self-Assessment with Immediate Feedback – Opportunities for learners to check their understanding and to receive immediate feedback that is formative and/or remedial.
  
  
• Summary/Review of Key Points – Show how main concepts and key points relate to stated objectives/outcomes provide a checklist so learners can verify they have grasped the most significant concepts. Learners can use to guide their review and study.
  
  
• Class Discussion – Learners will be encouraged to consider questions, register their impression, and check responses against those reported by others in the class; this will help activate prior knowledge, review implications of concepts just learned, and peak interest as a lead-in to a new concept. Guest speakers may be invited to moderate specific topics.
  
  
• Guided Practice & Group Work – Provide multiple opportunities for learners to further connect new concepts with prior learning as they practice applying new knowledge and skills in problem-based learning scenarios and collaborative group projects.
  
  
• Module Wrap-Up – Questions and issues raised throughout the module will be posted as a FAQ, along with a checklist of the required and optional activities with due dates. A dedicated Module 'Questions & Answers' topic will be set up in the discussion forum or the instructor may hold a synchronous Q&A class session.
  
  
• Assignment and/or Module Quiz – These will be graded and provide targeted feedback with recommendations to learners about their progress in the course prior to learners proceeding to the next module.

Our Online Design and Development Process

The Online Development Team follows a Instructional Systems Design approach to the development of online courses.

P. A. D. D. I. E: Planning, Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation (for continuous improvement).

Please review more details by clicking here.

Accessibility of Online Learning Materials

The online learning materials created at Vancouver Island University will be made accessible for students. We will ensure this universal accessibility by providing the following:

• Text equivalents for all images including graphs and charts
• Text equivalents for multimedia incorporating animations, audio, and video
• Ensure materials are clear, simple and usable
• Ensure that all information conveyed with colour is also available to those with colour deficient vision
• Ensure tables make sense and identify headers for data tables and make line-by-line reading sensible for layout tables
• Identify document language and any changes of the language
• Provide alternatives for features such as applets or plug-ins that may not be supported on a student's home computer system
• Adopt a systematic approach to check for usability and accessibility
• Solicit student feedback

Modularity of Course Materials for Re-Use, Modification and Customization

VIU's online courses are modularized to facilitate use, re-use, re-engineering and long-term maintenance. We support the instructional use of learning objects – reusable, self-contained chunks of educational content that can be used alone or combined to create curricula that will allow distributed learning environments and content from multiple authors to work together. This will facilitate the delivery of online courses in multiple contexts to increase flexibility of teaching and learning and will also make the updating of courses much easier to manage.

Facilitating Interoperability and Sustainability

VIU's Online Development Team will assemble course materials in an online interactive course using the tools and features provided by the Learning Management System (LMS), WebCT. Our online course structure and format will facilitate the use of diverse platforms and ease sustainability concerns – the file structure provided will allow web-ready content to be published to stand-alone web-sites or uploaded into an alternate LMS. Individual files will be formatted for web delivery and source files and documentation will be provided.

Standards and Specifications

VIU's Online Development Team understands the need to design and build all of our online learning materials to industry standards. Compliance to these standards and specifications will ensure that course content will be widely available and effective. At the present time we are working within WebCT and we are adhering to IMS standards. The IMS Global Learning Consortium develops and promotes the adoption of open technical specifications for interoperable learning technology. Several IMS specifications have become worldwide de facto standards for delivering learning products and services.

Migration to Open Source

Using a variety of design and development tools we will ensure that all the content created will have the ability to be exported and imported from WebCT to other Open Source Learning Management Systems. This ability to migrate from system to system will allow us to share, re-use, and customize content for a variety of learning styles and methodologies.

Modularity of Course Materials

This modular format will allow course content to be deployed through multiple online teaching and learning management environments, and it will provide for interoperability and ease of continuous improvement for content updating and maintaining the currency and accuracy of course materials.

Modularization of individual course components will encompass presentation screens, media elements, assessment instruments with grading scheme and criteria, glossary, discussion topics with primer messages and Facilitator's Guide, and individual Content Modules. A Curriculum Guide will include Lesson Plans and instructions on how online course content could be used in a hybrid and/or mixed mode delivery format or to supplement face-to-face instruction.

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