OFCC - Online Faculty Certification Course

The Online Faculty Certification Course (OFCC) is designed for faculty members at City Tech who want to become certified to teach online. This certification focuses on target areas such as course overview and information, design layout and accessibility, content and activities, interaction course technologies and tools, and assessment and feedback. The certification rubric is based on the SUNY OSQR Rubric.

Certification Process

1. Prerequisite: Faculty members must be competent in using the basic functions in Brightspace i.e. announcements, assignments, discussions, and the grade book. Visit the self-paced Brightspace Basics for Faculty course if you need fine-tune your Brightspace skills. Brightspace Basics for Faculty
2. OFCC Course: Participate in a 4-week asynchronous course that includes one synchronous Zoom session.
3. Content Creation: Develop four weeks of online course content.
4. Evaluation: Your course content will be evaluated using the OFCC rubric. The Certification Rubric gets shared with the Department Chair, Course Evaluator, and Faculty Member.
5. Badging: Upon successful completion, you will be awarded a badge.

Faculty members who have taught an online course at City Tech are eligible for the Fast Track. The Fast Track skips to step 4.

Compliance with the US DoE regulations

New federal US Department of Education (DoE) regulatory definitions of distance education require that institutions ensure regular and substantive interaction (RSI) between a student and an instructor(s).

Definitions

An instructor is an individual responsible for delivering course content and who meets the qualifications for instruction established by an institution's accrediting agency. Eligible programs can be taught by "the instructor or instructors.

A distance education course is one in which instruction is delivered by one or more types of technology, including the internet, various wired and wireless media, or audio conference to students who are separated from the instructor(s). These technologies "support regular and substantive interaction between the students and the instructor or instructors, either synchronously or asynchronously.

Predictable and Scheduled Interaction: Regular interaction requires an institution to ensure, prior to the student's completion of a course or competency, that there is the opportunity for substantive interactions with the student on a predictable and scheduled basis commensurate with the length of time and the amount of content in the course or competency.

The institution also is responsible for monitoring the student's academic engagement and success and ensuring that an instructor is responsible for promptly and proactively engaging in substantive interaction with the student when needed on the basis of such monitoring, or upon request by the student.

Academic engagement requires active participation by a student in an instructional activity related to the student in an instructional activity related to the student's course of study as defined by the institution consistent with any requirements imposed by its state approval or accrediting agency. Academic engagement can include such activities as attending a class where the students and instructor can interact, turning in an academic assignment or taking a test, participating in an interactive computer-assisted instruction, participating in an institutional-directed group activity or online discussion, or interacting with the instructor regarding academic matters.

Regular and Substantive Interaction An emphasis on regular and substantive interaction is entirely consistent with well-documented research-based effective practices in online course design and delivery. In online teaching and learning environments of any kind, (asynchronous, synchronous, blended/hybrid), regular and substantive interactions must:

• Be with an instructor as defined by the institution's accreditor.
• Be initiated by the instructor.
• Be scheduled and predictable.
• Be academic in nature and relevant to the course.
• Be a substantive interaction, which (assumes instructor-initiated academic interaction that is scheduled and predictable, and) engages learners in teaching, learning, and assessment, consistent with the content under discussion, and also includes at least two of the following:
  • Providing direct instruction (i.e., live synchronous online interactions where instructor and learners are present online at the same time);
  • Assessing or providing feedback on a student's coursework;
  • Providing information or responding to questions about the content of a course or competency;
  • Facilitating a group discussion regarding the content of a course or competency;
  • Other instructional activities approved by the institution's or program's accrediting agency.

RSI References and Resources

Resources

• Faculty Brightspace Basic Course
• Pulse App
• 1-on-1 Faculty Support
• CUNY Brightspace Phone Support: 1-888-895-2511