Online Course Design | Colorado Mesa University

Use these resources to aid in online, as well as hybrid, course design and planning.

Course Shell Checklist (PDF): Use this checklist to prepare your course shells in D2L Brightspace before the start of the semester. Depending on your specific course modality and materials, not all these items will apply to you. Schedule a help session with our Distance Ed team or contact us directly with questions or to schedule a meeting. We can walk through the checklist with you to see which items apply to your course.
Quality Course Design Rubric (PDF): Approved by Academic Council in Fall 2018 and updated in Summer 2023 based on Quality Matters' updated Seventh Edition, the rubric outlines specific standards adopted from the QM Higher Education Rubric. This rubric is used to conduct internal reviews of hybrid and online courses.
Master Course Shells: Like your personal (or OTE) sandbox, master course shells are not associated with any live or past Banner course. They may be used for course development by an individual instructor, group of instructors, or department. Please contact us at Distance Education to discuss creating a master course shell.
Choosing the Right Assessment (PDF): This is a helpful tool for aligning the complexity of the assessment to that of the learning outcome.
Bloom's Taxonomy of Action Verbs (PDF): Bloom’s Taxonomy provides a framework for designing instruction and learning outcomes through a hierarchy of knowledge levels.
Best Practices in Distance Education (PDF): This article outlines 10 principles of effective online teaching.
Seat Time Calculator (Excel): A simple spreadsheet that allows an instructor to determine "seat time" equivalents in online and hybrid courses.
Quantifying Online Learning Contact Hours (PDF): This research article highlights the peer-reviewed literature which supports the seat time calculator.
Feedback Options Comparison Chart (PDF): This chart offers a quick guide to the options available for providing feedback for learners on various online assessments.
Collaboration & Groups Comparison Chart (PDF): This chart offers a quick guide to the options available for group creation and collaboration with students.

Check out these resources for designing accessible content.

Guide to Creating Accessible Content in D2L (PDF): This guide walks you through building accessible web (HTML) content within D2L.
D2L Brightspace Accessibility Checklist (PDF): Quick checklist for accessibility tips.
Visual Adjustments for D2L (PDF): This guide walks you through options sizing adjustments in D2L and built-in accessibility options in Windows and Mac OS.
Creating Accessible PDF Documents (PDF): This guide walks you through using Adobe Acrobat DC's Wizards to create more accessible PDF documents, including improved scanned documents.
Creating Captions with YouTube (PDF): This guide walks you through how to create and edit captions with YouTube, as well as some basic information about captions and transcripts.
Using Automatic Subtitles with Office 365 PowerPoint (PDF): This guide walks you through enabling automatic subtitles/captions in an Office 365 PPT presentation.
Check out our Panopto and Video Note guides for additional captioning directions.
Zoom Accessibility (PDF): This guide walks you through live transcription, captioning, and other accessibility features in Zoom.

Check out these resources for guidance on video creation, virtual meetings, and/or storing and sharing videos.

Video Tools (PDF): This guide will help you select a video tool for video creation, virtual meetings, and/or video repository based on features and uses. For a quick comparison, check out our Video Tools Comparison Chart (PDF).

Virtual Meetings

Virtual Meetings (PDF): Use this guide for tips on improving video and audio, screen sharing, scheduling, managing, recording, and captioning virtual meetings.

Zoom

Zoom Account Set Up (PDF): This guide walks you through creating an account.
Zoom Meetings with D2L (PDF): This guide walks you through hosting and participating in Zoom meetings with D2L.
Setting up Office Hours in Zoom: This approximately 6-minute Panopto video walks you through creating virtual office hours with Zoom.
Linking Zoom to a D2L Shell (PDF): This guide walks you through linking previously scheduled meetings with your D2L shell.
Live Proctoring with Zoom and Respondus LDB (PDF): This guide will show how to facilitate live proctoring for remote assessments in D2L using Zoom and Respondus LDB.
Zoom Accessibility (PDF): This guide walks you through live transcription, captioning, and other accessibility features in Zoom.
Zoom Advanced Polling & Quizzing (PDF): This guide shows you how to add and launch polls and quizzes during meetings and view/download results.
Zoom Post Meeting Surveys (PDF): This guide will walk you through setting up a post-meeting survey in scheduled Zoom meetings.

MS Teams

Communicating in Microsoft Teams (PDF): This guide will show you how to communicate using chat and/or video conferencing options in MS Teams.
Microsoft Teams Recordings (PDF): This guide walks you through viewing, sharing, adjusting permissions, and captioning recordings.

Video Tools

Panopto

Check out our Panopto page for guides on this too.

Video Note

Check out our Video Note (PDF) guide for this D2L tool.

Resources for Asynchronous Video from EDUCAUSE