What is an Online Course at RIT?

Online Learning is recognized for its innovative use of learning and teaching technologies to support high quality, interactive course development. Whether you teach online, blended or a technology-enhanced face-to-face course, the Instructional Design team will work closely with you to deliver effective learning solutions. We offer guidance, consultations and training for a broad range of instructional design strategies and technologies.

Course Development and Support

The Instructional Designers will meet with you to help you acquire the skills that are necessary to successfully teach your fully online or blended course. They can recommend media and teaching methods, coordinate the production of new materials and the revision of existing resources, and guide you in developing and building your course.

Work with Instructional Design Team to:

  • obtain copyright approval
  • coordinate your media production and distribution needs
  • identify quality web-based content designed for your curriculum
  • ensure media is captioned and meets ADA standards or is Section 504 compliant
  • offer proctored examination coordination and support to students
  • administer online course evaluations

Instructional Technology

Online Learning helps faculty integrate instructional technologies in ways that produce more effective teaching and learning in fully online, blended or technology-enhanced courses. Online Learning collaborates with RIT faculty in exploring trends in instructional technologies, new applications, and their usefulness for enhancing teaching and learning.

Online Learning can support faculty with any of the technologies listed in the Support and Documentation section. This page will provide background information on each of the tools as well as documentation, tutorials, examples of the tool in use, research related to the tool and its use in education, and any accessibility information that faculty need to be aware of when using this technology.

Online Learning's Teaching and Learning Technology (TLT) Lab is a resource for faculty and staff developing their skills in online instruction or creating instructional materials. Use the TLT Lab to create a range of course materials from simple handouts and PowerPoint presentations to multimedia audio/video streaming projects.

myCourses (Course Management System)

Online courses at RIT are offered through the course management system, myCourses. This system provides faculty with a wide variety of tools at their disposal to aid the communication and sharing of information that needs to take place in the course.

The following is a list of the basic tools available in all course shells within myCourses:

  • News: a tool that allows faculty to make important course announcements on the course homepage.
  • Content: a tool that allows faculty to post files, links, and other material to be accessed by their students.
  • Calendar: a tool that provides faculty with a course specific calendar where they can post all important course dates, like assignment due dates or special events.
  • Email: a course specific email tool so faculty can send messages to their students easily without leaving the course shell and without having to find their contact information.
  • Classlist: a tool for faculty to keep track of who is enrolled in the class, as well as a tool to create groups in the course for projects.
  • Dropbox: a tool for students to post files and assignment to be accessed by the instructor for grading purposes.
  • Discussion: an asynchronous discussion board area where faculty can post discussion questions and students can communicate with each other as well as the faculty. This tool is a major source of communication and collaboration in RIT's online and blended courses.
  • Chat: a tool to allow synchronous communication between all members of the class. Chats can be made public to the entire class or restricted to certain students within the course.
  • Quizzes: a tool that allows instructors to create online quizzes and exams that their students can also take online. There are many advanced features of the online quizzing tool, including automatic grading of questions and instantaneous feedback to students.
  • Surveys: a tool where faculty can create course specific surveys that are either anonymously answered by students or non-anonymously submitted based on the setup decided by the instructor.
  • Grades: a course specific grade book that takes all the work out of keeping track of student grades. It is also a great tool that can easily share the information in the grade book with students so they know where they stand in the course at all times.

Please take a look at the myCourses Tour created by Online Learning staff members. It is a short video that will give you a good idea of how an online course looks in myCourses by showing you some exemplar faculty and their online courses.