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[amlithist]

As many of you know, I've moved into a quasi-admin position after teaching both F2F and online for a number of years:  I've become involved in improving our distance learning program.  One of the first things we need to get systematized is a training/quality control program for our online instructors. 

Like many of my colleagues, my introduction to teaching online was seeing two online classes next to my name on a fall course schedule.  When I went to my chair to inquire about training, he said, "You know how to log in to Blackboard, right?"  and that was it.  Needless to say, those first few classes weren't pretty, and what I've learned, I've learned both in the trenches and via a ton of my own research.

What kind of faculty training does your school do?  Is it mandatory?  Is anyone using the Quality Matters program, and if so, what feedback can you offer?  Are there other programs you've used and could recommend?

Also, if there are any distance ed directors reading, feel free to PM me, as I'm compiling a group of folks who are interested in sharing not only best practices but "best practicalities" of effective online education programs.

Many thanks!

[marigolds]

Bookmarking but have nothing useful to add.

[caesura]

I'm teaching online for a couple of schools.  When I first started, my training was about like yours.  But now it's become pretty standard to require an online training course prior to the first teaching assignment.  Typically, this is unpaid, but if you don't mess it up, you're hired.  Training courses I know about tend to be anywhere from 2-4 weeks and are set up on the CMS just like a regular course at the school.  So there are discussions, assignments, quizzes, etc. so you get to know the CMS from the students' side.  Topics covered tend to fall into three categories:  using the CMS, the school's "best practices" requirements for instructors, and online pedagogy.

I was pretty peeved the first time I was required to take one of these courses, since I had already been teaching for the school for a year.  But it turned out to be a good experience.  The discussions about how to adapt your pedagogy to the online format were especially helpful, and I enjoyed having colleagues to share ideas with.

I hope you can avoid establishing too many arbitrary "measures" of online teaching quality.  For example, one place I have taught for requires instructors to post to the discussions on 5 different days each week.  Sounds reasonable.  BUT: The way the students' discussion assignments are structured means that students basically post twice a week, pretty much within a 24 hour period each time.  So I was forced 1) to post on days before the students had posted anything and 2) to parcel out my comments over several days rather than respond quickly to the students' posts.  Stupid.  But it's a quick-and-dirty way for supervisors to count *something* that can pass (if you squint really hard) as a quality measure.   
 
I have really appreciated anything a school has done to help me feel connected to the department and my colleagues—faculty blogs and discussion forums, ongoing faculty development (webinars, etc.), being on the mailing list for department announcements, Skype group meetings (small program), etc.  As much as anything, these efforts help keep me motivated. 

[amlithist]

Caesura, I agree that we don't want to do the "check the boxes" kind of training.  Rather, we're envisioning this mandatory training as something that requires all online instructors to complete an online course in which best practices of online teaching are presented; then, participants are presented with several mock online courses and asked to discuss, in small groups, how well these classes exhibit best practices, wh/not, and what should be done to improve their incorporation of best practices.

[ceejay]

To teach online at my uni, we have to be certified, which means we take a four-part training, either f2f (2 hours per session for 8 hours total) or online, and then complete a final exam of some sort. If we don't score at least a 90% on the exam, we have to build out a section more extensively to demonstrate competence. The training includes "best practices" like content chunking and makes everyone set up topics, different discussions, different assignments, mess with the grade book, etc. I've been through it three times now, since I have to recertify every time we upgrade the CMS version.

[proftowanda]

Caesura, I agree that we don't want to do the "check the boxes" kind of training.  Rather, we're envisioning this mandatory training as something that requires all online instructors to complete an online course in which best practices of online teaching are presented; then, participants are presented with several mock online courses and asked to discuss, in small groups, how well these classes exhibit best practices, wh/not, and what should be done to improve their incorporation of best practices.

I find our campus training plan useful in a balance of lots of choices of workshops on specific tasks and tools, two to three hours and done in a day -- but also longer-term training, such as a very useful online course development program along the lines of what you suggest, but it's hybrid.  We met for several hours on one day, developed and shared and discussed and refined our work online for a month, and then met again f2f.

A key for me is that all of our campus trainers began as teachers and then pioneered online for us -- but remain teachers, too.  Previously, training was done by techies and was almost useless, as they had no conception of the classroom, student abilities, etc.

[melba_frilkins]

We have two kinds of training:

1) General online teaching strategies. Faculty complete this training one time only.

2) How to use the specific CMS. This is required of new online faculty AND everyone has to re-train when the CMS is changed (e.g., from Blackboard to Moodle).

Both of these are required and are offered only as online courses. Optional open-lab time is offered on campus a few times per semester (one or two trainers are present and faculty can drop in with specific questions or projects). The trainers also closely monitor and respond to online discussion boards, where instructors post a lot of questions.

[_touchedbyanoodle_]

We don't have any required training to teach online, which is a major weakness on our campus, but we do offer optional courses on the LMS that will provide credit toward advancement as well as random, poorly attended, hour-long professional development sessions on various topics by request and perceived need. Basically, we're failing to support online instructors. (I'm in a dual role, btw, to give some context for my angle of vision: 60% English instructor/40% instructional designer.)

So, in response to that problem, I am currently the founding chair for a pilot group of online faculty peer reviewers. There's a trend toward establishing peer review groups among online instructors, inspired by Quality Matters, so there are a ton of resources available online if you are so inclined. While Quality Matters is certainly on the table for my college, I argued strongly against adopting it, simply because A) we can create our own stinkin' rubric, thank you very much and B) the QM rubric is points-based and faculty are put in the position of "grading" one another, which is not conducive to a spirit of collegiality and trust. I wanted to create a peer review group that faculty felt would not be punitive in any way, shape, or form.

PM me if you want to know more about what I designed for my college.

[_touchedbyanoodle_]

P.S. At my previous institution, where I taught online for the first time, I was required to take a 1-credit course in online pedagogy before I was allowed to teach online. I think this should be the case everywhere. Heck,  when I became an instructional designer, I was required to become certified in instructional design, and I'm starting to think everybody in higher ed should be required to have an ID certificate. But, I keep that opinion to myself in meetings.

[erikjensen]

I took a class on preparing courses for Quality Matters certification. I also went through the formal certification process for one of my courses.

I highly recommend using their rubric and taking a class on using it to improve one's online courses. The rubric provides enough flexibility that I didn't feel like I was turning my course into something that was no longer mine. It also appears to be based on sound research on what works. Every change I made appeared to be at least somewhat useful to students. One limitation is that it focuses on course design, not the day to day teaching. For example, the rubric says that there should be a statement in the syllabus regarding how much time the instructor will take to respond to e-mail. It doesn't say how long this should be or provide a mechanism to check if instructors are actually abiding by their word.

I'm not sure that the formal certification process is worth the effort and expense. The reviewers spent many long hours looking over my course, checking boxes, and communicating with one another. Their efforts were commendable, but their efforts ultimately led to fairly small changes in my course.