CCCOnline Course Design Philosophy
Online course design is a learner-centered, learner-driven design process. CCCOnline has an in-house Instructional Design team that is committed to building high-quality, engaging, online courses that align with Colorado Community College System Competencies, incorporate Quality Matters Design Standards, and accommodate students and faculty with disabilities using ADA compliance. CCCOnline’s design process also facilitates a consistent page appearance and ease of navigation in the courses we develop. For further accessibility, CCCOnline also uses a style sheet (.css) within courses to maintain font sizes, colors, and readability of content.
IMPORTANT NOTE! CCCOnline instructors should not make changes to course content, other than to update and personalize before the course begins as detailed on the Course Readiness Checklist.
Quality Matters
CCCOnline is a member of the Quality Matters (QM) Program. Quality Matters is a nationally recognized, faculty-centered, peer review process designed to certify the quality of online courses and online components. The Quality Matters Rubric has become the most widely used set of standards for the design of online and blended courses at the college level. CCCOnline’s course design process utilizes the principles of the Quality Matters rubric and ensures that our courses meet the 21 essential standards in eight areas of the rubric.
Core Course Components
As a CCCOnline instructor, your course is pre-designed for you by our Instructional Design team and Subject Matter Experts. Each semester you will receive a course shell that includes the following core course components. (Note that these components are placed into all newly developed courses at CCCOnline, and that some previously developed courses that are in line for redevelopment or revision may not have all of these components.)
Home Page
- Instructor information news announcement – contact information & image (i.e., photo of self or avatar)
- Welcome to course news announcement
Notes for Instructors (Invisible to Students)
- Information about any recent course updates
- Course map
- Important digital content information (if applicable)
Start Here
- First day assignments
- How to participate and succeed in this course
- Communicating with instructors and classmates – contains instructions/policies on how students will communicate with their instructor and classmates.
- Course overview – contains course title, course description, credit hours, prerequisites, and course competencies from CCNS.
- Instructor information and expectations – includes instructor contact information, photo or avatar, CCCS email, bio, and availability of online office hours.
- Course materials – lists required text, software, and how to purchase.
- Course schedule – lists all activities and due dates.
- Grading and participation – contains rubrics for all graded assignments as well as the breakdown of grading for the course
- CCCOnline course policies
- CCCOnline Mutual Respect policy
- Department policies (if applicable)
Student Support
- Navigating D2L
- Desire2Learn (D2L) support
- MyLabsPlus support (if applicable)
- WileyPlus support (if applicable)
- Academic support – contains links to other academic resources
Course Content Modules MUST include the following items:
- Module description
- Module introduction – includes brief statement about the topics introduced in the module, purpose of instructional materials, and list of learning objectives.
- Module assignment list – contains all tasks and assignments in the module.
- Exploration of [topic title] – includes original instructor content functioning much like a lecture.
- Discussion(s)
Course Content Modules MAY include the following items (these are optional):
- Publisher content (if applicable)
- Dropbox assignments
- Quizzes
- Publisher assignments [if applicable]
- Open educational content (if applicable and available)
- Audio, video, learning objects, animations, and hyperlinks to web
Resources