This session showcases a faculty-centered "course refresh process" for online programs. Revisions target alignment with industry standards, accessibility, and best practices. To address resource limitations, we leverage instructional designers to support faculty in evaluating and revising courses. Initial findings suggest a collaborative approach fosters improved online courses and faculty-administration relationships.

Industry standards for online learning recommend a regular and consistent review and revision process for online courses (NSQOL). At minimum, full refreshes that go above and beyond minor edits and fixes should occur at least once every three years. However, given the reality of small online management teams and increased responsibilities and demands on their time, this process of review and revision can get stalled. Using a framework of continuous improvement practice, our team instituted a “course refresh process” whereby faculty developers, with support from the online team, undergo an intentional evaluation of their courses and a period of light, moderate, or deeper revisions as needed. By initiating a refresh process, we embrace a continuous improvement practice and ensure that courses: meet industry-established quality online learning standards; reflect the latest research and best practices in online learning; include the latest content; updated materials in accordance with proper accessibility standards; and align to the University’s, school’s, and program’s mission-driven goals. In our institution, we began delivering online programs through a partnership with an Online Program Management (OPM) company. During our partnership with the OPM, the OPM undertook the semesterly process of asking teaching faculty for any needed edits to courses. Once this partnership was dissolved, our team shrank significantly, and we did not continue the semesterly process for a year and a half while we were migrating content from the OPM’s LMS to our own University LMS. While the OPM did take the lead on performing small edits to courses, they did not initiate a process of deeper evaluation of courses. As such, beyond minor revisions, online courses for our two fully online degree programs (MST and EdD) have not undergone a thorough course review or significant refresh since their initial launch. This means that the majority of these online learning experiences have been unchanged for the last three to six years. In an effort to rectify this issue, and due to limitations of personnel and faculty time, we proposed a “course refresh process” whereby faculty developers, with support from the GSE Online team, undergo an intentional evaluation of their courses and a period of light, moderate, or deeper revisions as needed. This process is already ongoing with two online EdD Courses and two online MST courses. First, we review the most recent version of the course or its template course (whichever the course developer indicates is most accurate) against industry standards for quality online courses, accessibility, DEI-aligned best practices, and online learning best practices. We determine the areas of strength and improvement of the learning experience. This review may not capture all necessary improvements, but it provides a foundational start for the refresh process. We initiated this process by presenting our goals and vision for this work at division meetings. We identified the sequence of course development and decided to tackle the oldest courses first. We then met with the original course developer if available or an otherwise appointed course lead. We debrief the faculty to the process and note that our recommendations are suggestions only. It is up to the faculty instructor as subject matter experts to implement the recommendations they see fit according to their professional judgment. So far, this collaboration has proven to be a highly effective process between faculty and admin/instructional designers. Our overall goals for this process are as follows: to (1) update content; (2) update the structure of courses and modules, keeping consistency with program and division level expectations; (3) align module and course objectives; (4) adhere to accessibility standards; (5) add rubrics, signature assignments, and other criteria necessary for accreditation bodies; (6) experiment with AI design features; and (7) empower faculty to take leadership, ownership, and pride of their courses. Additionally, faculty working on implementing changes to their courses become familiar with new tools in the LMS. While this process is still in its initial stages and has been well-received by division chairs and most faculty, there are some challenges to contend with. These challenges include, but are not limited to: (1) faculty intellectual property concerns; (2) some faculty reticence to dive into the process and work in collaboration with administrators; (3) faculty time constraints; and (4) the time constraints and limitations of our small team. We have received positive feedback since we instituted the course refresh. It is improving working relations between the online management team and the faculty. It is also guiding faculty in reflection and improvement practices to bolster engaging learning experiences for students. The topic of our discovery session is planning and initiating a course refresh (revision) process. Authentic and intentional revision of online courses is necessary for the health of online programs. Refreshing coursework ensures content accuracy, upholds industry-standard best practices, implements accessibility standards, and reimagines teaching and learning for meaningful engagement with students. This discovery session will be interactive insofar as we will review our course refresh process, demonstrate key templates and artifacts that we have created to enhance the workflow of the process, and converse with participants about their own processes in their institutions. This presentation is a conversation with attendees in that we can learn from them as much as they can learn from us; it is in sharing knowledge that everyone’s practice improves. We will also share our artifacts so that attendees have a starting point from which to initiate their own course refresh processes. Attendees should walk away from our session with three main takeaways: (1) the “what”: what a course refresh/revision is and what the process could look like; (2) the “why”: why embedding a continuous course refresh process is important for the health of online programs; and (3) the “how”: how a course refresh process can be initiated and executed at any institution.