Fresno State Online Course Services (OCS)

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Summer 2022 - Spring 2023

Our Commitment: Leveraging the valuable experiences of our team, we have continued to effectively serve our students, staff, and faculty by integrating both in-person and remote modalities. We have expanded our focus on diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and anti-racism as crucial aspects in all of our professional development offerings. These efforts have had a profound impact on our interactions with our campus and throughout the CSU system. We aim to create a transformative educational experience that values and respects the unique perspectives and backgrounds of all individuals within our university community. Through these efforts, we provide faculty with the necessary tools and knowledge to deliver exceptional education while actively addressing social issues and promoting equality. Looking ahead, our commitment to excellence remains unwavering as we continuously explore innovative approaches, collaborate with all campus stakeholders, and adapt to the numerous challenges we face in education. We are dedicated to fostering an inclusive environment that embraces change, celebrates diversity, and prepares our students for success. Together, we will continue to shape a brighter future for our students, university, and our community.

Our Commitment: Fresno State continues to be committed to our ongoing partnership with the OCS team. Over the past academic year, our faculty have participated in a number of activities that align with our student success plan as outline by the 2022-2023 Successes below.. All of these efforts align with our Office of Instruction Effectiveness (OIE) and our collaborative efforts to align our campus GI 2025 efforts.

MERLOT
MERLOT is a collection of free and open online teaching, learning and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community. The MERLOT collection of open resources spans across a wide variety of disciplines and education levels. What sets MERLOT apart is a combination of peer reviews, member comments, learning exercises and other valuable information and metadata associated with the materials.

2022-2023 Successes

Our campus continues to develop strategies to find a clear direction for online and blended learning with the temporary suspension of the policy requiring online course reviews (APM 206). Over the past year we have been focusing on individual faculty who have previously completed on campus reviews. We provided the infrastructure with our instructional design team for our QLT Summer Bootcamp and our Quality Assurance Team. Additionally, this past spring we were able select Dr. Nichole Walsh is currently in the data collection phase of her SQuAIR research. She is looking at current and in progress online learning policies across the CSU. Dr. Christina Luna as our QLT faculty champion. We have recently completed a brief video of the first of our eight faculty champions across our colleges and schools that highlights the value of QLT.



Below are some additional examples of our efforts:

  • 29 faculty completed our Equity Minded
    Pedagogy

  • 16 faculty completed the ACUE
    Designing Learner Centered and
    Equitable courses microcredental

  • 11 faculty completed DISCOVERe

  • 29 faculty completed the Q1 course

  • 8 faculty completed the Q2 course

  • 9 faculty completed the Q3 course

  • UDL was an important component of all
    programming listed above. Additionally, for
    any Fresno State professional development
    we included ALLY. The impact can be seen
    by our ranking of #32 out of 85 participating
    international campuses on the international
    Fix Your Content Day. 


Challenges

The Academic Senate OCS committee was stagnant over the past academic year. The committee did not meet regularly, and several members have not completed the Reviewing Courses Using the QLT Rubric. This is why, in part, we have changed our strategy to reach out to faculty who have previously completed an on campus QLT review.

Next Steps for Quality Assurance for 2023-2024

Multiple and diverse hands connecting puzzle pieces


Goal 1: Initiate an application process and selection for a OCS faculty champion from each of the eight colleges. An MOU has been created that explicitly outlines the activities, assessments, and outcomes the champion is responsible for in collaboration with an our QLT team.


Goal 2: Collaborating with our campus brand strategy and marketing we will develop, implement, and evaluate a communication plan targeted to specific stakeholders (deans, chairs, academic senators, faculty, student affairs, and various committees)

Goal 3: Provide faculty in each college support by providing QLT reviews, course creation support, and curriculum development. We will leverage Airtable as our project management tool and an OCS committee. 

Quality Assurance Team

  • Mary Bennett, Instructional Designer, CSU QLT Course Manager
  • Jolynne Blake, Instructional Designer
  • William Hardiway, Instructional Designer
  • Jason McGensy, Instructional Designer
  • Yet Chen Fong, Academic Technology
  • Diahann Gutierrez, Office Support
  • Dr. Christina Luna, QLT Faculty Champion
  • Dr. Nicole Walsh, SQuAIR Researcher
  • Dr. Natalie Munoz, Director Center for Faculty Excellence
  • Dr. Bryan Berrett, Director Office of IDEAS, Quality Assurance Coordinator
    bryanberrett@csufresno.edu


Image of our Office of IDEAS team

We are committed to providing professional development opportunities for all faculty members as indicated by the 2022-2023 graphs below.