Professional & Continuing Studies

Course Management and Development Resources for Distance Learning Courses

With faculty initiative and support, UD Online has grown to encompass 26 degree programs and over 9,000 registrations a year. Our goal is to provide you with the support you need to make online learning work effectively for you and your students.

Professional and Continuing Studies offers support for designing and developing online courses. For more information or a consultation, please contact us.

UD Online has several resources to help instructors get started with online teaching:

  • Getting Started with Online Learning at UD: A Guide for Instructors – This guide provides a brief overview of the considerations, resources and services for developing and teaching online courses at the University of Delaware.
  • Getting Started with Online Teaching – This is a short, four-to-six-hour, self-paced course that tours the competencies required to be successful in teaching online. Participants will understand the scope of skills necessary to create and teach a high-quality online course, including course design, communication, time management and technical competencies. The course is open to both credit and noncredit instructors teaching at UD. Contact us to enroll at any time.
  • Teaching Online Together – The Teaching Online Together program is co-designed and co-facilitated by the Center for Teaching & Assessment of Learning, the UD Library, Museums and Press, and UD Online. The goals of the Teaching Online Together faculty learning community are to catalyze faculty interest in creating engaging online courses at UD, develop a network of peer support for further faculty development in online course design, and create a shared, UD-specific understanding of best-practices in online teaching. Faculty work together, and with CTAL staff, to help each other understand the principles of high-quality asynchronous online learning as described in the literature and to build out online modules of instruction for their classes by using a suite of UD-supported educational technology tools and video platforms. Additionally, support is available to prepare instructors responsible for teaching a course even if they were not a part of the course design and/or building process.
  • Other Faculty Commons Training Opportunities – Faculty Commons partners provide a wide range of comprehensive and just-in-time training opportunities related to the teaching and designing of online courses.

UD Online’s primary mission is to extend University of Delaware credit courses and degree programs to meet the needs of distance learners. We offer more than 200 courses that support online degree and credit certificate programs, in addition to courses that meet the University of Delaware’s breadth requirements and contribute to the defined learning goals of academic departments.

  • Accessibility Guidelines – Some measures you can take to ensure that your course is accessible to all online students.
  • Backward Design – Backward Design is a course design framework that is useful for designing courses, regardless of whether they are delivered online, blended or in person.
  • Canvas Learning Management System (LMS) – Canvas is the primary LMS at UD.
  • Copyright Guidelines – Basic information about copyright to make sure your course complies with copyright law.
  • Course Design Mapping – A useful tool to help instructors align learning outcomes with assessments and instructional activities is a course design map. As a course designer, you can use a map to determine appropriate activities in the online learning environment to support learning goals. We have Google spreadsheet templates for five-week, seven-week and full-semester courses that instructors can copy to create course design maps for their courses.
  • Digital Learning Resources at UD – An overview of digital tools and resources to support online learning at UD.
  • Distance Learning Resources – Best practices and other professional resources.
  • Immersive Learning – This site hosts a collection of tools and resources for augmented reality, virtual reality and 360-degree video, most of which are free for instructors.
  • Library Resources for Online Courses – The Morris Library offers research guides, electronic course reserves, open education resources and librarian support for online courses.
  • Online Course Development Timeline – A schedule from planning and online course development.
  • Textbook Information for Faculty – Information about the process for selecting a textbook and its integration in an online course.
  • UD Online Faculty Resource Center – A compilation of tips and tools for faculty designing and developing online courses, addressing technology, pedagogy, accessibility, eBooks, copyright, immersive learning and more. Contact us to be added to the site.
  • UD Online Student Orientation – This is a public Canvas site that prepares students for taking online courses at UD. The orientation addresses how to get started with online learning, student success, navigating Canvas and taking proctored online exams. The intended audience is students, but in reviewing the orientation instructors can learn more about the student experience. Add this link to your online course to help prepare your students for online learning.

Once faculty have an online course up and running, there are a number of important routine tasks for course upkeep. Below are administrative details for running your UD Online course each semester:

Students are required to complete direct learning assessments, such as exams and assignments, as well as the online course evaluation at the conclusion of the course.

Best Practices for Assessment Development
For guidance on how to develop effective assessments, visit the University of Delaware’s Center for Teaching & Assessment of Learning. CTAL offers a variety of resources and services to support instructors in all aspects of their teaching.

The UD Online Testing Center
The UD Online Testing Center can support proctoring of computer-based and paper exams. Visit Exam Guidelines and Scheduling to learn more about how the testing center can support faculty. Please contact udonline-exams@udel.edu or 302-831-1500 if you are interested in a tour or would like to learn more about the UD Online Testing Center’s proctoring services.

Online Student Identity Verification
The are some simple ways to uphold academic integrity in online programs and courses: