Online Course Development

Faculty interested in developing online courses have a couple of different avenues to pursue for offering your courses online.

Instructional Technologies Support

Instructional Technologies Support (ITS) offers assistance to Texas State faculty interested in developing online courses. For more information on these services, visit the ITS Web site.

For a primer on how to develop an online or hybrid course, refer to the ITS Online Course Development and Hybrid Course Development sites. Both sites are also accessible via the ITS home page.

Correspondence Studies

Correspondences Studies courses are offered through the Office of Distance and Extended Learning. These courses enable faculty to develop online courses with the assistance of Distance and Extended Learning's course development staff and resources. Correspondence courses are offered on an open-enrollment basis to students. This means that courses are not semester-based. Students may enroll at any time during the year, progress through the course work independently according to their own schedule, and are given nine months to complete their enrollment.

Developing and teaching a correspondence course is different in that the instructor prepares the course content to be accessed at will by the student, and all interaction with students is individualized. Correspondence courses aren't necessarily more time intensive to teach than semester-based distance learning courses, but they do require a different approach due to their open-enrollment, independent study nature. If you are interested in learning more about online course development through the Office of Distance and Extended Learning, contact this office by phone or e-mail to set up a meeting.

Faculty Self-Assessment: Preparing for Online Teaching

Penn State offers a self-assessment on its Web site to help instructors assess their readiness to teach online.