Online Course Development and Online Teaching Guidelines
Middlesex Community College, 100 Training Hill Road, Middletown, CT 06457
To ensure high quality of online learning, offering a new online course needs to go through a proposal process to have it officially approved before it is on schedule. Interested faculty needs to fill out the Online Course Proposal Form (with a tentative syllabus attached) and then obtain the necessary signatures in the order of the program coordinator, academic director, and Director of Distance Learning. Once the three aforementioned signatures are obtained, the proposal will be sent to the Dean of Academic Affairs for a final approval. After the Dean of Academic Affairs approved and signed the proposal, the course is authorized to be on the course schedule.
When a different instructor is assigned to teach an existing online course and the instructor has never taught an online course at MxCC, the instructor will fill out the Part II of the Online Course Proposal and go through the same approval process as the new online course. Exception may be granted if the instructor has successfully taught the same online course with positive evaluation at one of 12 Connecticut community colleges.
The proposal submission dates to the Distance Learning office are January 15 for Fall semester’s courses, August 15 for Spring semester’s courses, and 90 days before the first day of the course for winter or summer courses. Extension will be granted if the proposal needs to go through the program or academic school voting process.
It is required that a first time online professor receives an iTeach Certificate before assigned to teach an online course at MxCC. Receiving an iTeach Certificate requires two aspects: (1) completing Best Practices of Online Pedagogy (6-week facilitated online course) and (2) obtaining Technology Competency badges (going through self-paced modules in Blackboard or attending Blackboard training workshops). More information can be found at https://www.ct.edu/iTeach. The Best Practices of Online Pedagogy course runs during Fall, Spring, and Summer. To obtain Technology Competency badges, please contact Yi Guan-Raczkowski, Director of Distance Learning/Educational Technology.
A waiver of iTeach Certificate may be granted if the instructor has received an equivalent training to Best Practices of Online Pedagogy course and have used Blackboard extensively or has comparable online teaching experiences. To get a waiver of iTeach Certificate, please contact Yi Guan-Raczkowski, Director of Distance Learning/Educational Technology.
The detailed information on the process of online course proposal development and online course development can be found from the following guideline with appendixes. Appendix C indicates online course evaluation criteria that can be served as general guidelines in online teaching.
Online_Class_Development_Guidelines (.pdf)
AppendixA_online_class_proposal_form (.doc)
Appendix B Proposal Evaluation (.pdf)
Appendix C Course Evaluation (.pdf)
Appendix D Effective Teaching (.pdf)
For questions about online course proposal process, online course development guidelines, and online teaching guidelines, contact Yi Guan-Raczkowski, Director of Distance Learning, at yguan@mxcc.commnet.edu or (860) – 343 -5783.
Back to Faculty Online Teaching.
Disclaimer: The above guidelines and related documentations are created by Distance Learning department at Middlesex Community College. Use of any document without permission is strictly prohibited.
