Printed Rubric

1. This should be found in the introduction to the course. An effective way to drive the students to this is to label an icon on your D2L course's homepage with something to the extent of "Start Here," or "Read Me First."
2. In this introduction, you should simply outline where things are in your course. For example, tell the students that if they want to check their grades, they should click on the "My Grades" link on the left-hand tool bar or on the icon on the homepage.
3. Instructions provide a general course overview, guide the new student to explore the course website, and indicate what to do first, rather than list detailed navigational instructions for the whole course. It's a good idea to provide some of the same information in the syllabus.

1. This can be in your:
   • Welcome Letter
   • Under your "Start Here" or "Read Me First" sections in D2L
   • In your syllabus
2. It should describe the course to the student along with other information like the schedule or pace, course activities, testing procedures, etc.
3. You should also document course procedures and methods of communication in your syllabus or welcome letter.
4. Provide a statement that gives the new student an idea of how the learning process is structured including schedule, communication modes, types of activities, and assessments. These features should be found in the syllabus also.
5. Provide some or all of the following:
   • The course schedule (self-paced, following a set calendar, etc.)
   • Course sequencing, such as a linear or random order
   • Types of activities in which the student will be required to engage (written assignments, online self-tests, discussions, group work, etc.)
   • Course calendar with assignment and test due dates
   • Preferred mode of communication with the instructor (email, discussion board, etc.)
   • Preferred mode of communication with other students
   • Testing procedures (online, proctored, etc.)
   • Procedure for submission of electronic assignments

1. Expectations for student conduct for email, discussion boards, chats and other communications are clearly stated in the syllabus and at the appropriate place in the course site.
2. Rules of conduct for participating in the discussion board
3. Rules of conduct for email content
4. "Speaking style" requirements (e.g. use of correct English required as opposed to net acronyms)
5. Spelling and grammar expectations

1. This is an important piece to start your course and is an effective way to let the students get to know things about you, such as those they would only learning by meeting with you one-on-one in the classroom.
2. This can also be part of your welcome letter or syllabus.
3. The initial introduction creates a sense of connection between the instructor and the students. It should present the instructor as professional as well as approachable, and include more than the essentials, such as the instructor’s name, title field of experience, email address and phone.
4. It could include:
   • information on your teaching philosophy
   • past experiences with teaching online
   • personal info that you might want to share like hobbies and a photograph of yourself
   • your personal website

1. Student introductions help create a supportive learning environment and sense of community. Explain to the students where and how you want the introductions to be done. Often introductions are done on the discussion board and generally are not evaluated.

Note: student introductions may not be appropriate for every course--for example, cohorts. That being the case, instructors are still encouraged to have students introduce their backgrounds in the course's content area. If this is ultimately not appropriate, the points for this standard should still be awarded with notes provide as to why it was student introductions are not appropriate for the course.

1. Explanations of technical requirements and skills, and prerequisite knowledge and skills may be found within the course, and/or in supporting material not on the course site. The more places you provide it the better the chance that students will see it.
2. Providing the technical requirements in advance will cut down on the drops that occur when a students gets into a course and finds that they cannot complete it.
3. Examples of technology requirements include hardware, software and plug-ins and ISP requirements.
4. Examples of technology skills may include using email with attachments and saving files in software programs like Word and Excel.
5. It is important to provide directions for downloading plug-ins and other software that will be used in a course.

Note: if you require your students to use a word processor in your class, it is not always a safe assumption that your students will have the same word processor (e.g. Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, etc.) as you. Even if all of your students have Microsoft Word, they may have different versions, which can be incompatible. For this reason, it is recommended that you specify exactly what word processor and version you require. If your students do not have a word processor, you can request that they purchase the necessary software, use one at a local library, or download OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org/), which is compatible with most of the features/formatting of Microsoft Word. (see also Review Standard VI.3)

1. Cite specific examples (see Examples below)
2. Your learning objectives should precisely describe what students are to gain from instruction and then guide you as an instructor to accurately assess student accomplishment for the objectives, in specific, observable terms.
3. Learning objectives should precisely describe the specific competencies, skills, and knowledge that students should be able to master and demonstrate at regular intervals throughout the course and should provide students with greater focus and clarity of learning expectations and outcomes.

Special situations: In some cases, the course objectives are institutionally mandated and as an individual instructor you do not have the authority to change them. If the institutionally-mandated learning objectives are not measurable, then please be sure to develop measurable objectives in the module/unit level that align with the mandated course objectives.

1. While learning objectives should be easy enough to understand there should still be use of content mastery and critical thinking skills in the learning objectives at the course and unit/module level.
2. Critical thinking skills may include the ability to:
   • distinguish between fact and opinion
   • distinguish between primary and secondary sources
   • identify bias and stereotypes
   • evaluate information sources for point of view, accuracy, usefulness, and timeliness

1. Avoid the use of jargon, slang, acronyms, etc. unless said items are clearly understood by students in that field of study.
2. Avoid the use of overly-technical terms or language.
3. Avoid the use of terms that students will learn in class, but may not know beforehand.

1. Use of an alignment table can be useful to illustrate this to students. In the example below (see Examples below), the learning objective/outcome is stated along with how it will be assessed. If your department, school/college, university or accrediting organization requires specific objectives/outcomes--NCATE, for example--those would be placed in the "Standards/Code" section.
2. Instructions to students can take various forms (e.g. narratives, bulleted lists, charts) and may appear at different levels within the course, such as module-based or weekly assignment sheets. Instructions should be clear and complete.
3. Information should indicate which learning activities, resources, assignments, and assessments support the learning objectives (see Examples below).

1. Multiple Choice Identification Quizzes
2. Hands-on Fieldwork
3. Labs

1. Try to associate your module goals/objectives with your overall course objectives so that the students can immediately see how the work they are doing on a particular chapter or assignment will help them achieve their course goals/objectives. (see Examples below)
2. Learning objectives at this level can be from the text or written by you, but should align with the course objectives either way.
3. Module-level objectives should precisely describe the specific competencies, skills, and knowledge that students should be able to master and demonstrate at regular intervals throughout the course and should provide students with greater focus and clarity of learning expectations and outcomes on a weekly, modular, or unit basis.

1. Assessments, learning objectives and learning activities should align in a clear and direct way. Your assessment formats should provide a reasonable way to measure your stated learning objectives.
2. Assessments can be quizzes facilitated through D2L or any number of other methods to evaluate the progress of the student (e.g. research papers, discussions, assignments, etc.)
3. The key to satisfying this review standard is to make sure those assessments match your learning objectives (see examples below).

1. heat stroke
2. inebriation
3. chemical poisoning ⇐
4. a concussion

1. Review the clarity of way you present your grading system to the students. List all the activities that will be graded and make sure they align with the objectives. Then look to see if points or grades awarded all total to your final grading system. A rubric can be very helpful in doing this type of alignment.
2. Your grading policy should list a grading scale/table (e.g. 90-100% = A, 80-89 = B, etc.).
3. You grading policy should also include a list of all possible points in the course (e.g. 2 exams x 100 points = 200 points, etc.).
4. In addition to these it is helpful to include a statement or rubric regarding how the student is expected to achieve a certain grade or number of points.
5. Having such policies spelled out in your syllabus provides transparency into your class policies. Not only will this help your students know what to do to achieve success in your course but will allow you to easily justify grades given to students.

• Has an in-depth coverage of topics
• Few or no grammatical or spelling errors
• Turned in on time
• Complete and properly formatted bibliography
• Appropriate use of footnotes
• Conclusion related to hypothesis and any deviation from hypothesis is discussed in detail

• Covers required topics, but may have other issues
• Limited number of grammatical or spelling errors
• Turned in on time
• Limited issues with bibliography
• Limited issues with footnotes
• Conclusion related to hypothesis, but may be incomplete

• Limited coverage of topics and/or problems prevalent in other sections of the paper
• May or may not have been turned in on time
• Issues with bibliography
• Issues with footnotes
• Incomplete conclusion or research did not completely test or explore the hypothesis

• Incomplete coverage of topics and problems prevalent throughout paper
• Paper not turned in on time
• Issues with bibliography or bibliography not provided
• Issues with footnotes, or lack of footnotes altogether
• Hypothesis not properly tested and/or not related to conclusions

1. Students learn more effectively if they receive frequent, meaningful, and rapid feedback. This feedback can come back directly from you or by feedback built into your assessments.
2. It is important that the students understand how feedback to all types of assessment will be returned to them in what time frame. Doing this up front will save lots of questions and email to deal with during the course.
3. Specific turn around times should be stated (see examples one and two below)
4. An instructor's involvement in the course should be documented (see examples three and four below).

1. Use of D2L generally satisfies this requirement (see Examples below).
2. Avoid having students mail/fax assignments if possible.
3. Assure that your exams/quizzes attempt to limit online cheating (see Examples below).

1. Allow the students to take practice quizzes before actual quizzes so they can anticipate you testing style.
2. Use games, simulations or other interactive exercises to both engage and assist your students.
3. Peer revision can be helpful (e.g. having another set of eyes on a research paper before it is submitted can be invaluable).

Note: self-check practice assignments may not be appropriate for every type of course (e.g. a literature review course). In this case, the point should be awarded for this standard and comments provided as to why self-check practice assignments are not appropriate for the course.

1. In general, placing PowerPoint presentations—-ideally both in their native format and as PDFs-—in your course, as well as any lecture notes, websites, course outlines or other materials used in the instruction of the course will satisfy this review standard.
2. The instructional materials you select should be easily accessed on line. You should also provide instructional on how to access them and, if applicable, instructions on how to obtain technical support for said materials.
3. Be sure to let students know up front if any software or other materials (including texts) need to be purchased for the course. You may also need to alert your bookstore to have the materials available for the distance students.

1. Make sure the students can easily navigate to the materials as well as the units, assignments and assessments to which they are associated.
2. Be sure that the materials and technology you use are understood by the students; how and where they are used. If you provide links to external resources, such as websites, explain which unit or assignment the link is used for.
3. When placing such materials online, be aware of the following:
   1. Not all students have Microsoft Office, as it can be an expensive add-on. If you want to place native files (Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint slides, etc.) consider converting them to PDFs and making those available as well. You may also want to direct your students to use OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org), an office suite like Microsoft Office, but free of charge. OpenOffice can create, open and write to files create in MS Office.
   2. Be conscious of the file size of the materials you use in your course. We live in a state where a large number of rural students, many of whom still rely upon dialup to access their courses. While something may appear to load quickly on campus or using a broadband connection, modems are considerably slower, so care should be taken to assure that the materials do not negatively affect the experience of students using modems.
4. Do not use large videos in your courses as students will limited bandwidth will not be able to effectively utilize them as a resource.
5. Consider streaming your audio and video materials.
6. Utilize standard media formats. MP3 or OGG for audio are compressed formats that are widely supported. MPEG is a common video format and is supported across all major platforms and by most popular media players. PDF for documents is supported by all major platforms (more so than office formats like Word or PowerPoint).
7. Do not place materials on reserve.

Note: please see Technologies required for this course are either provided or easily downloadable. for additional information.

1. Materials in your course should be intuitive to students to use. Students should also be able to easily recognize how the materials relate to the stated objectives.
2. If you link to external websites, make sure you state both why you are so doing and how they relate to the course materials. Simply having a list of URLs and telling the students to visit them is not sufficient to satisfy this review standard.

1. Often textbooks come with supplemental materials from the publisher (CD-ROMs, videos, audio, chapter summaries, practice quizzes etc.). If you choose to use these, keep the following in mind:
   1. Tailor the materials to fit your course:
      1. The materials can be more in-depth than what you cover in class, so you should make sure that you utilize only the subject matter covered in your class.
      2. Conversely, you may choose to cover a topic in more detail, so you may need to expand upon the supplemental material.
      3. Visually, the materials may differ from your course, so you may want to change the appearance to match your course, so that the students experience continuity when moving from your materials to the supplemental materials.
      4. Additionally, sample quizzes may also contain material you have not covered in your class, so before you place them in your course, make sure they stay within the realm of the subject matter you assign to your students.
2. Avoid the urge to use flash animation or other visual gimmickry. While they may be interesting at first, they can quickly become annoying if not directly related to your subject material.

1. If you create your own materials (animations, diagrams, etc.) be sure to cite them accordingly so students know not to look elsewhere for the item (e.g. their textbooks). This is also important when sharing materials with other instructors so that they will know to obtain your permission before using such materials.
2. If you choose to use supplemental material from the publisher, also make sure to cite it as well so the student can find the material on their CD-ROMs, books, etc.
3. If you use an ePack or many supplemental materials from a publisher, a simple blanket statement to this fact is sufficient to satisfy this review standard.
4. If you use student work as an example, be sure to obtain the student’s permission to do so.

1. Similar to III.1, but just applied to learning activities (i.e. assignments).
2. For example, if you want your students to be able to identify symptoms and recommend first-aid treatment, having them write an essay on the history of first aid does not achieve the stated objective.
3. Provide a variety of learning activities such as class discussions, case studies, simulation exercises, practice quizzes, exams, writing exercises. Be sure that you have your learning activities align with your course objectives and assessments.

1. Research by the developers of the QM rubric shows that engaging the student in an online course is key to them achieving success in the course; ergo, it is essential that you are engaged with your students and that your content lends itself similarly to be engaging to the students. Simple ways to achieve this are:
   1. Self-introductions either in the discussion area or through the use of student homepages.
   2. Using the discussions to pose questions for your students and then responding to them.
   3. Providing individual feedback on their participation in discussions or their performance on assignments.
   4. Communication via email.
2. Student-student interaction is another important—though not essential—element to engage students in your course. This too can be simply achieved by:
   1. Posting discussion questions in your modules and then having your students respond to those questions—and others posed by other students—in the discussion board.
   2. Create group assignments so your students can work together on tasks or projects.
   3. Utilize peer reviews—having your students post their papers to a review group before submitting them—which has a twofold benefit: it engages the students and gives the poster feedback on their assignment so they can fix issues before their paper is graded.
3. All courses should provide for interaction between the student, instructor and content.

1. You need to explicitly state when the students will receive feedback, when you are available to help them, and the anticipated turn-around time on returning graded assignments back to them.
2. In terms of feedback, simply stating, "Email me questions and I will reply back to you," is not a sufficient statement to satisfy this standard. That said, there are many ways to satisfy this standard:
   1. Setup "virtual" office hours using the chat room, discussions or email. In that way students will know when you are available for quick feedback.
   2. Outside of these office hours, state your general turn-around time on feedback: "I check my email daily and will respond to your inquiries within twenty-four hours."
   3. For assignments, stating something to the effect of, "All papers will be graded and returned to you two weeks after the posted deadline, if not beforehand."
3. Provide information that clearly indicates how quickly you will respond to communication and when feedback will be provided on assignments and assessments.
4. Information should be provided for email turnaround time, time required for grade postings, discussion posting responses, how you are available for online office hours. These should be appropriate to your time frames for grading, etc.
5. Providing this information will lessen the amount of inquiries you get on assignments and assessments.

1. Similar to III.2, it is helpful to list guidelines or a rubric concerning how a student's interaction with the course will be graded or evaluated.
2. If your students are required to discuss questions or review articles in the discussion boards, it is helpful to list what is an appropriate response. For example, most instructors will agree that a student simply stating, "I agree with her," will not suffice unless the student provides arguments or statements to back up that statement. To avoid this, it is best to articulate exactly what you expect in terms of participation (e.g. student posted before deadline, posts articulated their viewpoint, etc.).
3. On a more global level, simply state the expected participation level for the course. For example:
   1. "As this is a three-credit course, you should log into the course at least three times per week in order to keep up with discussions postings and other course activities."
   2. "Discussion times are listed in the course calendar. You are expected to be present and active in the discussions at that time. Failure to do so without prior instructor approval will result in being given no points for the assignment."
4. Be sure to provide students a clear statement on the requirements for interaction, such as discussion board instructions. Instructions should appear at the appropriate area of the course site, assignments, discussion board, etc.
5. Instructions for a discussion should state how often to post, how many times to respond to others’ postings, how long postings should be, the quality of comments, how they are graded, and so on.

1. It can be tempting to utilize multimedia (video, audio, etc.) and other tools (interactive Flash) in order to add more "bells and whistles" to your course. Just keep in mind that in order to beneficial to your students--and to satisfy the review standard--all multimedia and other tools need to relate to the module objectives or the overall course objectives.
2. Additional, instead of placing all media files in on location, they instead should be integrated into modules or lessons to better illustrate how they relate to the content.

1. As one of the primary goals of an online course should be to engage the student--studies have shown that an engaged student is a successful one (see Quality Matters Research Literature: Roblyer & Wiencke (2003))--your tools and media should be interactive (see Examples below)
2. Utilizing the student-tracking tool to make sure a student is active in the course.
3. Games that reinforce module or course objectives.

1. If your course uses additional software other than a standard web browser, you should be easy for your students to access. For example, Adobe Acrobat PDFs are a common document format, so if you utilize these, you should direct your students to download the viewer from Adobe's website.
2. It is recommended that you save office documents as PDFs; however, if you choose not to do so, you will need to make the students aware of what office suite and version you use and that it will be required for them to use as well. Additionally, you may want to direct them to download the free Open Office (http://www.openoffice.org/) as it can open, print, edit, save and create MS Office-compatible documents, except for Microsoft Access.
3. When utilizing multimedia stick to formats that are widely utilized and cross-platform and cross-browser supported. (see Examples below for a list of recommended media formats)
4. When using any of these technologies, if they are not built into the students’ browser and/or platform (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, etc.) you will need to provide them with a download link to the appropriate viewer.
5. If the software is included with your textbook, simply direct the students to installation instructions or include them in your course.
6. Again, when utilizing technologies in your courses, make sure to keep your students' experiences in mind. A video may work well for a student on campus or one with a high-speed/broadband Internet connection; however, a user with a modem may have difficulties accessing or viewing the video in an acceptable amount of time.

Recommended players

Windows

• Winamp (http://www.winamp.com)
• Windows Media Player (built-in)
• iTunes (http://www.apple.com)

Apple

• iTunes (built-in)

Linux

• XMMS (www.xmms.org)

• The Ogg format is open-source, so no royalties need to be paid for its use.
• It is supported on all platforms and by all browsers.
• The audio quality has been tested to be better than that of MP3s.
• It is becoming an increasing-popular alternative to MP3.

• MS Office documents are not in forward-compatible formats. In other words, if you have the latest version of MS Word, and your students have an older version, they may not be able to open the files. If you cannot use the pdf format, make sure you specify what version of MS Office you and require your students to use the same version.
• Even though MS Office is available for the Mac, transferring files from Macs to PCs, and vice-versa, can cause formatting problems.
• MS Office documents have been known to contain malicious macros, which could damage a user's computer.
• There is no version of MS Office for Linux, though OpenOffice can read most MS Office documents with little loss in formatting.

• The JPG (or JPEG) image format is best for pictures
• The GIF image format is best for drawings, diagrams, etc. (anything with large blocks of color)
• The PNG image format is an open-source format designed to replace the closed-source GIF format. That being the case, it should be used in the same fashion as the GIF image format.
• The PNG image format can also be used instead of the JPG format; however, it tends to produce larger file sizes, though the image quality may be better depending on the content of the image (PNGs display text more clearly than JPGs^[1]

  
  

As QuickTime support is only built into the Mac OS, please make sure you instruct your students to download the appropriate player (http://quicktime.apple.com/) if you use such videos in your course.

(Windows Media Player is currently on version 11)[3]
.  Furthermore, there is only limited support for the format on the Linux platform.

1. In general, using D2L to facilitate an online course satisfies this standard.
2. When using tools outside of D2L or instructional media, utilize only those that have widespread availability to your students.
3. Technology should be used in a way to preserve student confidentiality with regard to grades and communication with the instructor.

1. Any course-specific technologies or resources (streaming audio/video, web conferencing services, etc.) should be detailed, as well as information on how to access and obtain support for those resources.
2. Additionally, provide instructions for any downloads or plug-ins that may be used in the course that are easy to understand.
3. If your course requires research, instruct students as to how they can access resources database and other resources from your library. Ideally, this should be done from within the module that requires such resources.
4. Note: this review standard also complements those found under the Learner Support general review standard.

1. Most courses at this point tend to be traditional text-based endeavors, but there are many other avenues for you to explore: video conferencing, audio conferencing, video lectures, simulations, interactive animations, interviews, video streaming, audio streaming, utilizing new technologies, etc.

1. Clear instructions should be provided to your students on how to access your campus' technical support services. These should include (if available):
   • a link to your technical support website
   • the email address of your Helpdesk (or equivalent service)
   • a phone number--preferably a toll-free number--to your Helpdesk (or equivalent service)
   • the location of your Helpdesk (or equivalent service)
2. If you utilize technologies outside the realm of D2L—perhaps ones provided by a textbook publisher—you should make not of how a student should seek support for those technologies (e.g. contact instructor, contact the publisher, etc.).

1. Because the instructor is can be the only regular contact an online student has with a university, it is vital that they convey to the students the types of academic services available to them, as well as how the student can take advantage of those service.
2. In terms of this review standard, academic services include:
   • access to library resources
   • readiness assessment
   • testing services
   • tutoring
   • a writing center
   • a math center
   • supplemental instruction programs
   • teaching assistants.
3. Note: simply including a link to an academic services page does not satisfy this standard. The link needs to be included with a basic description of the types of services the student will find on the page.

1. Because the instructor is can be the only regular contact an online student has with a university, it is vital that they convey to the students the types of student services available to them, as well as how the student can take advantage of those service.
2. In terms of this review standard, student services include:
   • advising
   • registration
   • financial aid
   • student life
   • counseling
3. Note: simply including a link to a student services page does not satisfy this standard. The link needs to be included with a basic description of the types of services the student will find on the page.

1. Your course should include tutorials and/resources to assist your students with the basics of the course. For example, if you require your students to write a research paper in your course, and you want them to use the MLA, APA, Turabian, Chicago, AMA, etc. styles, you should include a link to those styles from, or cite examples of the style within, your course.
2. If your course utilizes development applications (e.g. Adobe Photoshop, Excel, Visual Basic, or Flash, to name a few) links to tutorials on how to use those applications would be helpful to your students.

1. In order to satisfy this standard, there must be an ADA statement provided to the students in the syllabus and/or in the course itself.

For information contact:

Ernetta L. Fox, Director
Disability Services
Room 119 Service Center
(605) 677-6389
http://www.usd.edu/ds/ | dservices&usd.edu