• Complete a self-review of the course using the OSCQR rubric. 
• Submit your course to be reviewed, along with the complete OSCQR file. 
• A copy of the course is made for archive purposes 
• The self-review is reviewed by a CTL instructional designer or authorized peer reviewer. 
• For experienced online faculty, the course is either approved or suspended pending recommendations. The review process can be considered complete at this point. 
• CTL instructional designers perform a quick pre-review of the course for issues that may prohibit the completion of the review. 
• A peer reviewer evaluates course elements using the OSCQR rubric, provides feedback, and either approves the course or suspends it pending revision. 
• In situations where the faculty member disagrees with the peer reviewer, an instructional designer makes the final decision on approval or revision. 
• Once approved, the course will then be cleared to enter Banner. 
• Unreviewed courses will be listed in Banner as in-reserve.  
• If a course doesn’t meet standards during the initial review, the faculty member and an instructional designer will work to make changes to the course. The process is intended to be iterative and recursive. 

A course peer review and LDI training is mandated for new Southeast faculty for their first online course and for existing Southeast faculty designing and online course for the first time. Faculty using a course that meets standards and was designed by another faculty member will be allowed to use that course, provided no more than 15% of the course structure is changed.  

The lifespan of a course certification is five years. All courses must be submitted for review again once the initial certification expires. Major changes to a previously reviewed course, such as being offered in a different learning management system, requires a new course review. 

Chairs and deans can require course peer review for faculty as a means of remediation. 

The CTL will apply the OSCQR rubric in two ways: 

• Experienced Online Faculty 
  If you have already taught an online course at Southeast, you are experienced online faculty. You can perform a self-review with the OSCQR rubric. Your review is then approved by a CTL instructional designer or by an authorized peer reviewer. This will expedite course re-reviews. You may also request a full peer review if so inclined. 
• Faculty new to online teaching/new to teaching online at Southeast 
  If you have never taught online for Southeast before, you belong to this group. You participate in a Learning Design Institute (LDI) cohort which details the OSCQR review process and provides pedagogical training for teaching in the online environment. Upon completion, you will submit a course for review. Once that course meets the OSCQR standards, you can teach the course for five years and will be considered experienced online faculty from that point forward. 

The OSCQR rubric is licensed as Creative Commons, meaning it can be edited and revised to mee the needs of the Southeast online learning environment. The Center for Teaching and Learning will form an ad hoc committee of various stakeholders to revisit the rubric in use and recommend any amendments.

The purpose of SCOT is to provide you with a student-level perspective of your teaching. Most faculty haven’t taken an undergraduate-level course in several years, and they design their teaching of undergraduate courses based on their own experiences as students. This disconnect can sometimes lead to misunderstandings of how your teaching comes across to modern students. 

"Students participating in SCOT are trained to provide honest, practical, and clinical feedback. Using eight criteria, students observe and report on the classroom experience. These students are available to collaborate with the faculty member, as they provide targeted observations and specific recommendations if necessary."

Teaching is exceptionally difficult. The role of a SCOT is to provide insight, to highlight the practices working best, to confirm your suspicions about your own teaching practice, and to help you construct or fill in your own roadmap to becoming the instructor you want to be.  

Register for SCOT 

Note-taking 

The SCOT takes notes in class and they are given to the instructor. 

Observation 

• The SCOT sits through the entire class. 
• General observations and impressions of events during the class are recorded. 
• Observations are compiled in a report for you. 
• Either the SCOT or an instructional designer will then review the observations with you. 

Targeted Observation 

• You provide specific aspects of your teaching for a SCOT to observe. 
• The SCOT observes the class. 
• The SCOT compiles a report for you on the requested aspects of the class. 

When requesting a SCOT, please provide a range of possible observation times and any preparation the observers may need to make sense of for the class they are observing. Make sure you aren’t providing the date of a test day. Provide any specific elements you would like the SCOT to observe.  

Two SCOTs will be assigned to establish interrater reliability. They will appear unannounced in one of the class meetings in the range of dates listed in your request. They will sit in the class as regular students. You may either ignore them or treat them as regular participants; they will be prepared for either. 

Each will take their own notes. After the session, those notes are compiled for you. These observations largely involve recording in writing what happens during the class (e.g., chronology of classroom activities, time spent in questioning, board work, small group discussion, and so on). SCOTs are trained to describe rather than evaluate. The objective is to provide a record of significant and impactful moments in a given class. 

A report will be written that includes the SCOTs’ observations notes, specific points on teaching components, and a summary. That report will be emailed to you. You may also request a meeting with the SCOTs to discuss the results further and ask follow-up questions and for recommendations. 

Once complete, the results belong to the instructor. These reports and observations are treated as confidential and are not shared with anyone other than the instructor. If you would like advice on building upon and use of these reports, they can be discussed with an instructional designer. 

Register for SCOT