Online Course Development and Review
Delve into the process for how online courses are developed and reviewed at Seattle U.
Reinstating Course Review Requirements
The requirement that online and hybrid courses be reviewed and certified by CDLI has been reinstated. All online courses (synchronous, asynchronous and hybrid) must pass CDLI review in order to be offered.
Interested in developing an online class? Here’s how:
All faculty at Seattle University who wish to build an online or hybrid course must secure a course development slot with CDLI regardless of their previous course development experience.- Course development slots are allocated during Fall and Winter quarters.
- Development slots allocated to start developing in Fall quarter will produce courses ready to teach starting Spring quarter.
- Slots allocated for Winter quarter will produce courses ready starting Summer quarter.
- To secure a course development slot, faculty must be nominated to CDLI by their dean during the nomination period in Fall and Winter quarters. Development slots are limited.
- Faculty who successfully secure a course development slot will either be enrolled in a Course Design cohort or be paired with an instructional designer.
Course Review
Per University policy, CDLI reviews all new, and substantially revised, online and hybrid courses before they are taught to ensure that the university maintains legal and accreditation standards related to online courses and programs, as well as the best practices in digital delivery. The criteria used to review online and hybrid courses can be found on the Online Course Standards (PDF).
How Course Review Works
Your assigned instructional designer will conduct your review and communicate all important deadlines to you. When you and your designer are ready to submit a course for review, fill out the CDLI Online Course Checklist (.docx) and email it to your instructional designer. Courses need to be completed* before they are reviewed.
Your instructional designer will present your course to one or more instructional designers — and in some cases someone from your department. The reviewers typically identify some minor revisions that need to be made before the course goes live. If there are significant revisions that need to be made, the reviewers will ask to check the course again before the course is taught.
* A completed course is one in which all of the materials for the course are included (i.e., all of the instructional videos are done and captioned; links are working; copyrighted materials are available via library links or a digital course pack; discussions and assignments are ready; and content pages have been written and proofed).