Online Courses
Most courses on campus are offered in traditional face-to-face formats, but increasingly colleges are using other modes of delivery to give students wider access to their programs. Consistent with guidance from the Higher Learning Commission and the Illinois Board of Higher Education, the learning goals, content, and expectations for students must be consistent regardless of the instructional delivery method. Thus, when designing online or blended courses, colleges must ensure that quality is consistent wherever and however courses and programs are delivered.
Courses and programs designed specifically for online delivery are approved through the same processes as those required for courses and programs delivered in the traditional face-to-face format and are entered in CRS.
View the resources below related to online delivery.
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- Refer to your college for any policies or guidance related to online courses that are specific to your college.
- Use external accreditation and other professional standards to help you ensure consistency between instructional delivery methods, particularly when an entire certificate or degree program is offered in two different modes.
- Read this guide, which will help you design online courses at UIC and then determine the appropriate number of credit hours for the course.
- Review a glossary of terms related to online and blended courses at UIC.
- Reach out to experts in online education.
- Technical assistance with learning technology solutions and instructional design is available through ACCC’s Learning Technology Solutions Team.
- UIC Extended Campus is also a valuable resource. Extended Campus partners with a number of programs in several colleges to design and launch blended or online degree programs. Services offered include conducting environmental scans that evaluate the demand for the proposed program; analyzing the financial feasibility of the proposed program; developing marketing strategies; offering instructional design services for faculty to ensure that the curriculum and assessments are aligned with best practices in distance education; and providing students with technical assistance on evenings and weekends, when they are most likely to engage with the course material.