Course Design

Initial Student Engagement

All credit-bearing university courses are to include a required assignment submission, quiz submission, or discussion post in My Courses, the university’s LMS, by 11:59 PM the first Wednesday of each term. Instructors will also ensure this activity is available on the first day of the course. Surveys, self-assessments, checklists, or other activities in My Courses do not meet the requirement. The university requires courses delivered in all modalities to include the submission requirement.
 
This requirement enables the university to meet U.S. Department of Education requirements to verify course engagement. Utilization of the LMS in this process enables instructors and advisors to monitor initial course engagement by each student. Advisors will be in contact with students who do not complete the initial requirement. Faculty should also follow up with students who do not submit as in the normal practice.

This requirement helps advisors encourage students to participate in courses they intend to stay in and withdraw from the ones they do not. It also helps minimize back-and-forth communication between instructors and advisors. Beyond the academic implications, engagement decisions made by students early in the term have substantive financial implications.
 
While the requirement may be low-stakes, it does not need to be "extra" on the part of instructors and students. It should not be labeled as a "Student Engagement Requirement." For example, if the course requires discussion boards, make the first post of the Week 1 Discussion due by 11:59 PM the first Wednesday of the course. Another way is to make a syllabus quiz or quiz acknowledging course policies due by the Wednesday deadline. Students could also submit a practice assignment or take a sample quiz with fun icebreaker questions to help familiarize themselves with My Courses.

The Curriculum and Instruction Center supports this policy with examples and other resources for both CSP and CSP Global courses:

• Example Assignments, Quizzes, and Discussion Prompts

• Creating Discussions

• How to Edit a Discussion Forum and Topic

• How to Edit a Quiz

Questions on LMS implementation? Please reach out to cic@csp.edu.

The terms Primary, Development, Live, and Archived describe different stages in a course’s lifecycle. Understanding these stages helps clarify how courses are created, delivered, and maintained within My Courses. The graphic below illustrates this lifecycle and how each phase connects to the next.

For additional information on these courses and what you can do if you are working with any of these types of courses, please see the tabs below the graphic. 

Since accessibility, consistent formatting, and a smooth user experience is essential for effective online learning, CIC recommends avoiding the use of dynamic documents like Google Docs in course content.

Accessibility 

Build content in My Courses to ensure students can use screen readers and other assistive technologies effectively. Google Docs lacks some key accessibility functions that may interfere with these. Use CSP branded templates and the html accessibility checker to help ensure course content is accessible for students. 

User Experience

Many students use the My Courses app (Pulse). Clicking on a Google Doc in the app forces them out of Pulse and creates unnecessary complexities like having to download and login to Google Drive and Google Docs on their device. 

Access 

When the owner of a Google Doc is unavailable, the maintenance of (and access to) the doc can become difficult. If the doc is deleted by the owner, the content can be permanently lost. Additionally, if students need to be given access to a document that isn’t owned by the instructor, it can become difficult to reach the document owner to resolve the issue in a timely manner.

If permissions are not set correctly when the primary course is copied, a Google Doc may not work in the section it was copied into, causing confusion for students and instructors.

General tips

• Keep video lectures short, about 15 min maximum (larger lectures should ideally be split into smaller sections of 6-15 minutes)
• Use narrative and story telling if possible, providing real-world examples
• Minimize text in slides- use bullet points rather than complete sentences/paragraphs
• Utilize arrows, highlight or bold text to emphasize key moments
• Learning is improved when you use a mix of text & images
• Only include text & images that support the learning objectives of the lecture
• Address graphics/visuals as soon as they are introduced
• When getting started, use CSP slide templates rather than a blank presentation
• Offer complex graphics or other moments of lecture as handouts

Recording tips

• Use your real voice or voiceover professional - avoid obvious AI or robotic voices
• Provide an image or video of the faculty member to make lectures more engaging
• Keep the background simple
• Be prepared to speak to a camera with no audience and no non-verbal cues
• Extend the longevity of your recording- avoid references to specific classes, campus dates, events or the year
• External microphones greatly increase the quality of your audio (CSP Library has microphones to check out)
• The camera should be just below eye level - use books or computer stand under your laptop if necessary

Benefits of Rubrics

• Rubrics provide students with clearly articulated grading standards and expectations, which allows them to identify what is expected of them in order to achieve their desired outcome. In addition, students are presented with the opportunity to use rubrics to self-assess their own work and review for improvements.
• Rubrics act as a guide for helping instructors create a consistent grading experience in their courses with opportunities for informative and focused feedback. Instructors may also use rubrics as an evaluation tool when reviewing a course or assessment for effectiveness or success in objectives.

Benefits of Rubrics Tool in My Courses

Using the Rubrics tool in My Courses transforms rubrics from a static reference into an interactive assessment instrument. It saves time, standardizes grading, provides actionable data for continuous improvement, and helps get students real-time, transparent feedback.

Other Benefits:

• Students must look at the rubric before submitting
• Fully screen-reader accessible and mobile-friendly
• Use rubrics to grade and automatically total scores
• When used to grade, rubrics feed directly into assessment data and reports
• Need to be used with assignments and discussions associated with the outcomes tool

Types of Rubrics in My Courses