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Online Course Development

Support Center

 

Online courses can provide a powerful learning experience when education professionals adhere to research-based standards in the construction and facilitation of online courses. Methods that work in traditional classrooms may not work online, and some opportunities that exist online may not exist in the face-to-face classroom. ITT offers services to help individual faculty and academic programs develop online courses that adhere to elearning tenets, such as learner-centered facilitation, personalization, and interactivity. If you are interested in developing an online course, contact us at itt@apu.edu.

Approval Process for Online Courses

The development process typically starts at least 8-12 months prior to when an online course is available for student enrollment. The process below outlines the steps required from initial proposal to enrollment.

  1. Contact the Office of Curricular Support at ocs@apu.edu or (626) 857-2406 to initiate the process.
  2. Over several months, faculty subject matter experts (SMEs) from schools/colleges collaborate with instructional designers from the Office of Innovative Teaching and Technology to design and build the online course. The speed of development depends on SME adherence to deadlines. See the ITT Online Course Development Timeline.
  3. Once the online course is complete, ITT notifies the registrar for listing the course in the catalog. Students can be enrolled only in fully built online courses, not partially completed ones.

Requirements for Teaching Online Courses

It is APU policy that faculty must undergo proper orientation prior to teaching an online course. There are three primary reasons for this policy:

  1. Our accreditation stipulates that all faculty teaching online courses must be qualified and fully trained. We verify faculty qualification by requiring faculty to enroll in relevant online-teaching training.
  2. The online-teaching training orients faculty to APU’s philosophy and approach to online pedagogy. In particular, faculty learn how our Christian values impact online teaching and learning.
  3. The online-teaching training offers faculty technical training on effective use of the learning management system (LMS) and other technology tools. During the training, faculty get practice on these tools.

We understand that some faculty come to APU with some or extensive online teaching experience, and they may think they don’t need the training. We believe, however, that online learning at APU is unique, and we have designed our training with the aim of setting up faculty and students for success.

Typically, the training must be completed prior to teaching online. In some rare cases, we permit the faculty to take part of the training before teaching and then finish the training before their next online teaching assignment. Learn more about online teaching certification.

Resources for Online Teaching