With the advent in online technologies and the procurement of a FIPSE education grant, the College was able to transition its Masters of Public Health in Public Health Practice program and several other graduate certificate programs into an online medium. A team of skilled instructional designers worked individually with each faculty member and enabled them to transition their course materials to an online format. Instructional designers worked with faculty from conception to completion helping them not only add the technology elements but also improve course design and ultimately the course’s instructional integrity. In these past few units, we have tried to explain the very steps our instructional designers go through with faculty in redesigning course content. Now we take you inside to show you how we assist faculty in developing the content materials and implementing the course in Blackboard.

As ETA is notified of a course offering, the ETA director assigns an instructional designer to that course. The instructional designer initiates a meeting with the faculty member to start the instructional design process. As with all things, past experience with the course enables the instructional designer and faculty member to get to the very areas that need revisions. New courses are more labor intensive but finally more rewarding. Once the instructional designer and faculty member decide on the structure and content of a course or in this case a lesson, raw files are created and sent to the instructional designer. These materials are worked upon by the designer and the multimedia team in ETA to get them ready for the web and ultimately Blackboard.

Having expertise in course management tools such as Blackboard enables instructional designers to post the developed content in formats that allow for easy access to students. The ETA office works closely with Academic Computing to ensure that the students and faculty have a positive experience using Blackboard and its many tools. During the entire length of the semester, the instructional designer becomes a point of contact for students and faculty in technology matters and course support issues. Live exam support is provided by the designer if requested by faculty.

The ETA office in addition to the instructional designers and Director employs a webmaster and training specialist. The office maintains two studios that are used routinely for course development and delivery.

1. Multimedia Studio
2. Distance Learning Studio

The Multimedia studio is a sound recording station that allows faculty to record their audio lectures for courses. In addition, this room serves the instructional designer in developing the content materials once they are received in raw format. The Multimedia studio has a well-equipped work station that has the necessary software and hardware configurations that enable the materials to be optimized for web delivery.

The second facility that is used for course development and delivery is the Distance Learning Studio. This studio has been in existence since 1995 and has enabled satellite transmission and videoconferencing. Today this studio is used for video recording, course meetings and technology workshops for faculty.

Today the ETA oversees online enrollments of 5000 and more students each year. To learn more we invite you to review the ETA website.