Commonly Used Terms
Figure 1MTSU Logo
MTSU Online and Hybrid Course Development
Distance Education Faculty Services
http://www.mtsu.edu/university-college/faculty/index.php
615/904-8276
Accelerated Online Course
Add A User Request Form
Approved Distance Courses
Asynchronous Learning
Chair Review and Course
Approval
Content Archiving
Content Review
Course Access
Courses offered online in an 8-week schedule each Fall and
Spring semester. “D” section number and distance learning
fees apply. Course development through University
College and development fees apply.
Complete and submit this form to add Online Faculty
Mentor (OFM) and department chair/school director to
D2L course development shell in order for peer and chair
reviews to be conducted.
Online and hybrid courses which have been through the
University College peer review and approval process. Only
new and existing online courses which have been through
this process are eligible to be listed on a semester schedule.
Students cannot be required to be on campus or online at
specified dates/times, but may be given the opportunity to
attend optional meetings.
Department chairs/school directors are responsible for the
content review and delivery approval of new and
redesigned online and hybrid courses. New courses may
not be added to the semester schedule until courses receive
delivery approval.
Desire2Learn stores course content (documents,
assignments, due dates, etc.) and activity for future
reference and instructor use.
Department chairs/school directors are responsible for
review and approval of online course content following the
peer review of new and redesigned online and hybrid
courses.
Students may access their MTSU online and hybrid courses
two ways: 1) through PipelineMT
http://lum4prod.mtsu.edu/cp/home/loginf; 2) or using a
direct link https://elearn.mtsu.edu/.
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Course Approval Form
Course Completion Deadlines
Course Completion/Approval
Course Delivery
Course Development Resources
D2L Course Shells
Desire2Learn (D2L)
Desire2Learn Training
Development Agreement
Development Approval
Development fees
Distance Course Definitions
Distance Education Faculty
Services
This form is used by department chairs/school directors to
approve delivery of new and redesigned online and hybrid
courses.
Course completion deadlines for new and redesigned online
courses:
March 1 – Summer and Fall delivery
October 1 – Spring delivery
Instructions provided to guide course designers through the
peer review/course approval process when course
development is complete.
Scheduling and teaching online and hybrid courses.
Websites, equipment, ITD staff assistance, software,
tutorials, libraries, etc. available to assist MTSU faculty as
they develop new online and hybrid courses.
Desire2Learn (D2L) learning management system is a
complete web-based suite of easy-to-use teaching and
learning tools for course development, delivery and
management. D2L provides the flexibility to control the
environment and provides tools to help facilitate
communication, collaboration and community building.
Requests may be made for development shells, faculty
receive development shells when they register for D2L
workshops, and shells are created when faculty schedule
one-on-one training sessions with FITC staff.
The learning management system supported by MTSU and
used for delivery of online and hybrid courses.
D2L training is required of all faculty new to online and
hybrid course development. Workshops and one-on-one
training sessions are offered by the FITC staff.
The contract signed by MTSU faculty who develop or
redesign online and hybrid courses. D.E. Faculty Services
provides this document upon receipt of a completed and
approved Course Development Proposal.
Approval by the department chair/school director (on the
Online/Hybrid Course Proposal Form) granting permission
for development of online or hybrid courses.
The fees paid (based on number of credit hours developed)
to faculty for online and hybrid course development.
MTSU definitions of the types of alternative delivery
courses it offers in an effort to assist students in the
registration process.
Distance Education Faculty Services in University College
works with and supports faculty as they develop and offer
distance courses.
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Distance Education Student
Services
Distance Education Courses
External, Third Party Vendor
Websites
Faculty Instructional
Technology Center (FITC)
Family Educational Rights and
Privacy Act (FERPA)
Hybrid Course
Incomplete Courses
Information Technology
Resources Policy
Instructional Design Specialist
Distance Education Student Services in University College
supports MTSU students taking distance courses, including
TN eCampus courses.
MTSU offers the following types of distance education, or
alternative delivery, courses: online, hybrid, accelerated
online, synchronous online, and videoconferencing.
Contact Distance Education Faculty Services for a
complete list of approved online and hybrid courses.
Instructional resources not provided nor supported by
MTSU.
ITD's Faculty Instructional Technology Center (FITC),
located in the Telecommunications Building, assists MTSU
faculty with the creation of technology-based instructional
materials for their courses.
Per the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
(FERPA), MTSU faculty must communicate with and
provide course feedback (including grades) to their distance
education students only within D2L. Faculty may respond
to student emails received via the MTMail account, but
educational data must never be sent to or from a noninstitutional assigned email account
A significant portion of instruction and activities takes
place online. Faculty may require students to attend oncampus or online meetings up to 15 hours per semeser. A
“D” section number is attached, and students pay a distance
learning fee to take the course. Faculty earn fees for course
development and redesign.
Online and hybrid courses missing content and/or critical,
required elements listed on Peer Review Form.
“The Information Technology Resources Policy identifies
appropriate use of the Information Technology Resources
(as defined in Section III.A) to support the University's
goals and objectives. This document informs all Users (as
defined in Section III:F) of the policies set forth by Middle
Tennessee State University (MTSU), the Tennessee Board
of Regents (TBR) Policy 1:08:00:00 Information
Technology Resources and the laws of the State of
Tennessee and the Federal government.”
Located in the Learning, Teaching, and Innovative
Technology Center http://www.mtsu.edu/ltanditc/ in
Walker Library room 348, the IDS is responsible for
assisting faculty as they prepare to develop new online and
hybrid courses or redesign existing courses as well as
coordinate workshops and create new teaching/learning
resources.
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Instructional Technology
Division (ITD)
Lead Designer
Learning, Teaching and
Innovative Technology Center
(LT&ITC)
Mandatory Meetings
Non-participating Students
Online Course
Online Course Development
(MTSU)
Online Course Redesign
Online Faculty Mentor (OFM)
Online Faculty Mentor (OFM)
Assignment
Online and Hybrid Course
Guidelines
Optional Meetings
ITD supports products and services students, faculty and
staff use every day to complete tasks related to their studies
and jobs.
Lead designers are MTSU faculty who have developed
distance courses. Because department chairs/school
directors may ask other faculty to teach sections of distance
courses, lead designers are responsible for the maintenance
of their courses and for assisting those sectional faculty.
The LT&ITC offers practical and informative workshops,
webinars and events on a range of topics to unite the
resources of academe with those of technology, in effect,
modeling the latest advances in teaching and learning
methods in the 21st century.
On-campus or virtual meetings distance students are
required to attend. Online students cannot be required to
attend mandatory meetings.
Students who have not participated during the first week of
class will be contacted by Distance Education Faculty
Services to offer assistance and/or to assist with course
access. Distance faculty will receive an email requesting
names of those students within the first week of class.
All instruction takes place in an online environment which
is Desire2Learn (D2L) at MTSU. Optional meetings and
proctored exams may be included, but faculty cannot
require students to attend meetings on campus or virtually
at specific dates/times. A “D” section number is attached,
and students pay a distance learning fee to take the course.
Faculty receive course development and redesign fees.
Creation of and posting course content into Desire2Learn
(D2L) by faculty course developers.
Substantial (50% or more of the content) redesign of an
existing online or hybrid course.
OFMs are MTSU faculty who serve as resources for online
and hybrid faculty course designers and conduct peer
reviews of new and redesigned courses.
OFMs are assigned to online and hybrid course developers
by Distance Education Faculty Services when the Course
Proposal Form is received.
MTSU’s Online and Hybrid Course Guidelines were
developed to satisfy SACSCOC accreditation requirements
that “An institution must formulate clear and explicit goals
for its distance learning programs and demonstrate that
they are consistent with the institution's stated purpose.”
Meetings which may be offered by faculty but for which
distance students are not required to attend and may not be
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Original Content
Peer Review
Peer Review Form
Proposal Form
Publisher Content
Redesign Fees
Scheduling Center
Scheduling Request Form
Self-evaluation
Semester of Delivery
penalized for non- attendance. Only this type of meeting
may be scheduled for online students.
Course content developed by the faculty online course
designer.
Peer reviews are conducted on all complete new and
redesigned online and hybrid courses. Online Faculty
Mentors (OFMs) conduct the reviews using the Peer
Review Form http://www.mtsu.edu/universitycollege/faculty/docs/faculty_peer_review_form.pdf.
Department chairs/school directors are responsible for the
final review (including course content) and delivery
approval.
The form used by the Online Faculty Mentors (OFMs) to
conduct peer reviews of completed, new and redesigned
online and hybrid courses. Course designers also use this
form to conduct self-evaluations of their new and
redesigned courses.
To begin the course development or redesign process,
course designers complete and submit the online Course
Proposal Form. The information from this form is posted
into the Distance Education Faculty Services database.
(The Online Course Development Agreement is sent and
assignment of an Online Faculty Mentor (OFM) is made
upon receipt of the Course Proposal Form.)
Pre-packaged course content developed by publishers for
use with textbook adoption.
The fee for substantial online and hybrid course redesign
(50% or more of the course content) is determined based on
the number of course credit hours.
The Scheduling Center provides student registration
services including drop/add forms and late registration.
The Center also addresses RaiderNet questions and
provides the Registration Guide. The Scheduling Center
works with Distance Education Faculty Services to list
approved distance courses on the semester schedules.
The form used by faculty and/or departments to reserve
classrooms for meetings with online (optional meetings)
and hybrid (required meetings) students.
Faculty course developers conduct self-evaluations on new
and redesigned online and hybrid courses upon completion.
The Peer Review Form http://www.mtsu.edu/universitycollege/faculty/docs/faculty_peer_review_form.pdf is used
to conduct the review and may also be used as a guide
during development and redesign.
The first semester a new online or hybrid course is taught.
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Student Authentication
Requirements
In compliance with the Higher Education Opportunity Act
and SACSCOC Principles of Accreditation (pg. 40), MTSU
must "demonstrate that the student who registers in a
distance or correspondence education course or program is
the same student who participates in and completes the
course or program and receives the credit by verifying the
identity of a student who participates in class or
coursework.” This verification is accomplished by
requiring the MTSU online student to: 1) use a secure
login and pass code into the MTSU-supported Learning
Management System, currently Desire2Learn (D2L)
and/or; 2) sit for proctored examinations.
Student Engagement
Simply logging into a course no longer constitutes student
participation in an online class. To be in compliance with
new federal regulations regarding student engagement and
participation in online courses, MTSU “must demonstrate
that a student participated in class or was otherwise
engaged in an academically-related activity, such as by
contributing to an online discussion or initiating contact
with a faculty member to ask a course-related question.”
Additional information, including an Attendance Reporting
tutorial, may be found at
http://www.mtsu.edu/resources/faculty/docs/attendance.pdf.
Distance Education Student Services in the University
College handles the distance student evaluation process.
Students taking any type of MTSU distance course receive
an email with a link to the online evaluation form, which is
the standard MTSU evaluation form. Faculty may view the
survey reports in PipelineMT, under the RaiderNet and
Faculty Services tabs under “Evaluation Results Website”.
Student Personally Identifiable Information –Information
that can be used to uniquely identify, contact, or locate a
student or individual, or information that may be used with
other sources to uniquely identify a student.
An MTSU syllabus template that includes resources
specific to distance learning students. Use of this template
is required for online and hybrid course developers and
instructors.
Classes meet online at specific dates/times during the
semester, and proctored exams may be required. A “D”
section number is attached, and students pay a distance
learning fee to take the course. Faculty do not receive a
course development or redesign fee.
All online and hybrid course professors requiring that their
students take proctored exams must schedule on-campus
Student Evaluations
Student Personally Identifiable
Information (PII)
Syllabus Template
Synchronous Online Course
Test Center
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TN eCampus
Training Confirmation Form
Videoconferencing Course
Web-assisted Courses
Web-enhanced Courses
classrooms in which to proctor the exams. Located in room
107 of the Keathley University Center (KUC), the Distance
Education Test Center is available for faculty to
accommodate only those students whose schedules conflict
with posted test dates/times. Due to limited space, staff,
hours of operation, and number of computers, the Test
Center cannot accommodate all students enrolled in
distance courses.
TN eCampus is an educational collaborative initiated by
the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) with the purpose of
providing a central resource for exploration of online
undergraduate and graduate courses and programs
developed by the system’s thirteen two-year community
colleges and six universities.
Form used to confirm completion of D2L, Instructional
Design Specialist and OFM training by course developer.
Taught by MTSU faculty from the main Murfreesboro
campus, videoconferencing courses are transmitted "live"
to one or more distant sites allowing real-time interaction
among the instructor and students through television
cameras, monitors and microphones.
Attendance is required at the MTSU site or at one of
several remote locations. A “D” section number is
attached, and students pay a distance learning fee. Faculty
do not receive a course development fee but must meet with
the Videoconferencing Technician before using the
equipment.
Web-assisted courses are a blend of classroom and online
instruction which reduces the time traditionally spent in the
classroom (in excess of 16 hours per semester spent on
campus). These courses are not considered distance
learning classes: a “D” section number is not attached; and
students do not pay the distance learning fee. Development
and redesign fees do not apply.
Web-enhanced courses are a blend of classroom and online
instruction which does not reduce the time traditionally
spent in the classroom, and classes meet as scheduled.
These courses are not considered distance learning classes:
a “D” section number is not attached; and students do not
pay the distance learning fee. Development and redesign
fees do not apply.
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