Academic Computing & Online Course Support

The Academic Computing and Online Course Support department helps BSU faculty and students in supporting instruction and learning through various delivery methods. Utilizing the rich tradition and quality instructional portfolio developed by Bowie State University faculty, we aim to support development and growth of a plethora of instructional media and information delivery to our students.

We aim to support faculty and students through:

  • Traditional instruction: face-to-face or web-enhanced courses in which the bulk of teaching occurs through scheduled meetings. The web component is used for creating a basic presence online and some activities can be supplemented with the tools offered by the learning management system.
  • Electronically delivered: courses intentionally designed to be offered entirely online, in which the online activities must supply equivalent or better forms of engaging students in learning than their traditional counterparts.
  • Online blended or hybrid: includes courses in which 50% or more of the instruction and learning activities are carried out online, while the remainder occurs through scheduled meetings. A criterion for these courses is that the "sit time" of the student is reduced by at least 50% with respect to their traditional instruction counterparts.

Academic Computing offers the following main services to faculty, students and staff year-round:

  • Training on Online Learning and Instructional Technology, especially during Faculty Institutes and two-hour workshops scheduled for each academic period; these appear in Training Schedule of this page.
  • Instructional Design Support in Course Development and Revision, by request of faculty or departments through the "Intent to Teach Online or Hybrid Course" form.
  • Walk-in and remote assistance of faculty in any aspect of their online and hybrid courses.
  • Administration of major systems dedicated to support teaching and learning, such as course management system, student success monitoring system, online tutoring and mobile learning.
  • Help desk for students, faculty and staff on the above systems -administered through the centralized helpdesk system of the Division of Information Technology.