Faculty Succeed at DELTA's Online Course Creation Studios

It can be daunting putting together a new online course all on your own. But luckily, with the help of the people in the Office of Distance Education and eLearning (ODEE), you don’t always have to. The Distance Education Learning and Teaching Academy (DELTA) provides faculty and staff with the training opportunities and resources they need to be successful in an online classroom. One example of opportunities provided is the Online Course Creation Studio, which the DELTA team offers monthly.

During the Online Course Creation Studio, participants bring courses they are working on, along with any questions they have and get help from the experts in ODEE. The creation studio is seen as a makerspace for online course development, where participants have access to state-of-the-art software available through the Digital Union on-campus. The studio time is unstructured to allow participants to get what they need from ODEE team members.

During this semester, over 20 faculty and staff members registered for these events where they received one-on-one help from the ODEE experts. Participants include members of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, the Center for the Study of Student Life, and the College of Medicine.

Stacey Fineran, Assistance Clinical Professor in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences attended the event to find more resources to assist her in transitioning her courses to Carmen (Canvas) and create online versions of the courses she currently teaches.

“My hope was that attending this event would help further me along in converting these courses,” Fineran said. “I wanted to make a connection with someone who could guide me to the resources and skills I needed and attending this workshop gave that to me.”

Cheryl Ray, Administrative Secretary in the College of Medicine, attended the studio time because of her desire to learn how to create a virtual space for her work with the medical education team in emergency medicine.

“The Course Creation Studio taught me how to create this virtual space in a way that is designed for productivity, clarity, ease of use, creativity and collaboration,” Ray said, “It was a productive use of my time and the structure really helped to encourage learning in a dynamic and collaborative fashion.”

For Tawana Washington, Research Analyst in the Center for the Study of Student Life, her goal for attending the workshop was to learn more about the new learning management system and see how it could impact her office.

“The team was so knowledgeable of Carmen and how it could work for both academic and non-academic situations,” Washington said. “No matter what your experience level was, there was someone there to help you.”

All three agree that the Online Course Creation Studio gave them the help they needed to move forward and succeed with their projects.

“I attend a lot of the workshops and webinars Ohio State has to offer, but by far the Online Course Creation Studio was one of the best I have attended to date,” Fineran said.

Like what you've heard and want to attend a studio event for yourself? Register for the upcoming Online Course Creation Studio.