Fresno State Online Course Services (OCS)

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Summer 2023 - Spring 2024

Our Commitment: Our team in the office of Innovation and Digital Excellence for Academic Success (IDEAS) continues to focus on priority five and empowering our faculty to support student success. Our university strategic plan was unveiled earlier this year and our team has been mapping all of our GI 2025 efforts to the strategic plan, including Goal Three A, Strategy 4: While online learning is not suited for every student, nor is every program suited for online delivery, Fresno State aims to offer more online graduate programs to remain competitive and serve the workforce in the Valley and beyond, who may need flexibility in their schooling. Our intent is to continue expanding the number of faculty who participate in QLT training while communicating the value of choice and flexibility in learning modalities for our students. 

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 2023-2024 challenges and 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.

2023-2024 Challenges and Successes

Our campus is very proud of the efforts of four faculty members who have been teaching online for many years. The following courses were approved at the Chancellors Office level as QLT certified courses:

The primary unit on campus leading our Quality Learning and Teaching efforts will continue to be our office of Innovation and Digital Excellence for Academic Success (IDEAS) and Center for Faculty Excellence (CFE). We collaborate directly with our Provost and other campus stakeholders. One of primary goals is to provide infastructure for ongoing support, resources, and training for students and employees across our campus and into our community. This includes Quality Learning and Teaching (QLT), Affordable Learning Solutions, and DISCOVERe device lending.



While online learning is not suited for every student or faculty, not every academic program is suited for online delivery, Fresno State aims to offer more online graduate programs to remain competitive and serve the workforce in the Valley and beyond, who may need flexibility in their schooling. Additionally, 54 faculty members completed OCS QLT trainings in the past academic year and 1,752 trainings overall, the highest in the CSU.

We frequently ask faculty for their reflections on their participation and growth in professional development offerings. Dr. Lindsay Meeker shared:

"I learned so much more than I expected about myself as an educator. The program really enlighted me on how access, especially through online courses, can be improved". 


Dr. Amber Hammon's also shared her reflections and review of her QLT certified course "Happiness Across the Lifespan" 


Challenges

Our Academic Policy & Planning committee in our academic senate has spent the last academic year revising and asking for feedback from various campus stakeholders on our online course review and faculty professional development required for online teaching and learning (APM 206). There continues to be uncertainty regarding the policy and strong opinions about the value of online learning.

Next Steps for Quality Assurance for 2024-2025


Goal 1: 27 faculty participated and successfully completed the humanizing stem grant and 20 of those same faculty hold QLT certification(s). We will identify two faculty members to work directly with instructional designers to revise, recycle, and reuse Humanizing STEM for online learning content into two distinct asynchronous courses. The first will be Humanizing STEM for online learning and the second will be Humanizing online learning. Both courses will be available to Fresno State faculty in 2024-25. Successful completion will include a digital badge and letter for their personnel file. They will act as facilitators for a fall 2024 and spring 2025 cohort.

Goal 2: There has been a campus wide communication regarding the increase of the number of online graduate courses and graduate degree programs. Our team will collectively support the development of five online courses in one or more graduate programs. Ideally, it will occur in a single degree program. Financial support and incentives will be provided by our Provost. Our team will support the development of the online courses and the self reviews to support the submission to our campus curriculum committees.

Goal 3: To have a minimum of five internal course reviews submitted and approved by the CO level review.

Quality Assurance Team

  • Jolynne Blake, Instructional Designer
  • William Hardiway, Instructional Designer
  • Jason McGensy, Instructional Designer
  • Yet Chen Fong, Academic Technology
  • Diahann Gutierrez, Office Support
  • 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 our 2023-2024 IDEAS Annual Report.