So you want to teach an online or hybrid course at Bowie State University? Great! We'd love to have you join our team. First...

1. Complete the Intent to Teach an Online/Hybrid Course form and obtain signatures from your Department Chair and College Dean. Download the form here as a PDF or a Word DOCX .
  • Part 1 of the form requests information about the course and the instructor / developer.
  • Part 2 of the form focuses on required training.
  • Part 3 outlines the content development needs for the course, should the instructor require/request any from Academic Computing.
  • Part 4 confirms whether or not the course is ready for deployment. This requires the Quality Matters peer review, which is described below.
Although the Intent to Teach Online/Hybrid form is kept on file in Academic Computing, the instructor is provided with a copy for his/her records.

2. Obtain training and/or BSU Online Certification.

There are five workshops you need to verify including LMS basics, content management, communication & interaction, assessment and Quality Matters. Training is provided throughout the academic year as individual workshops, online workshops or an intensive institute during the summer.

On a case by case basis, you may substitute some training with documentation from another institution. However, not all will be accepted due to BSU's specific requirements.

3. Begin course development.

Quality course development takes time, so we encourage faculty to take an entire semester to develop an online or hybrid course. The Intent to Teach an Online/Hybrid Course form includes a section that allows you/us to define goals for the instructor, for the instructional designer and for both parties to accomplish during the semester of development. We also define a timeline for meeting these goals.

4. Recruit your Quality Matters peer review team.

Courses must undergo an initial review to meet Quality Matters, the designated online standards accepted by the University System of Maryland to ensure quality and consistency in design, organization, presentation and pedagogy. The purpose of the review is to determine the quality and effectiveness of the online course design in the pre-delivery phase.

The reviewing team consists of the instructor, a content expert from the department and at least one peer instructor. The peer reviewer should meet the following qualifications:
  • Non-departmental
  • Within the College
  • From a complementary discipline
For example, an ENGL course seeking review could request an external peer reviewer from the Department of History or the Department of Communications, which are both within the College of Arts & Sciences.

Additionally, the review team should include an instructional designer to address technical issues. In special cases, the corresponding Academic Department may request presence of an external content expert and will pay their review fees.

5. Complete the self-reporting worksheet. Download the form here as a PDF or a Word DOCX .

After you recruit your team, you'll need to complete the self-reporting worksheet. This worksheet gives you an opportunity to reflect on the course design process and highlights any concerns you may have for the review team to consider.

6. Review the course.

According to Quality Matters, because the review team will be reviewing the course from the student perspective, they should be provided student-level access. Teacher-level or design-level access is usually not necessary and is inappropriate and strongly discouraged in a live course. If it is necessary to provide teacher-level access, Quality Matters recommends using a course shell rather than a live course. The most recent archive of the course under review, with steps taken to ensure student privacy rights, is a common way to provide access to the review team.

The review is scheduled for a 4-6 week review period, which includes approximately 3 weeks of actual review time in addition to pre- and post-review meetings / conference calls.

Once the final report is drafted, the team chair will submit the final report and the instructor of the course will be notifed of the outcome.

7. Revise your course.

Depending on the outcomes of the final report, the instructor will have up to 6 weeks to revise the course. NOTE: The course may not be offered online or hybrid until it meets Quality Matters so the sooner the revisions are in place and approved, the better.

8. Pilot your course.

Once the course is approved, instructors are advised to take one semester to pilot the course in the designated format.

9. Revise your course.

Following the pilot, we recommend that instructors revise the course after the first semester of instruction to accommodate unanticipated technical errors or curricular/instructional needs that present themselves after the course begins.

There are two other times when revision of a course should occur:
  • At least every other year to accommodate changes in curriculum, textbook, technology, among other influential factors. On a case by case basis, a department and/or course author may opt to revise every year, depending on the discipline.
  • When major changes to the curriculum occur.