DIL Eligibility: Implementation Roadmap

The DIL eligibility framework establishes criteria for eligibility and a review structure for applying those criteria and the standards we establish for DIL. This resource is a discussion of implementation of this framework in LAHC.

The basic approach built into the framework is the same as eStaffing eligibility: It’s based on specific courses. For instance, an individual professor is eligible to teach a specific list of courses, say, PHIL1301 and PHIL2321. If you’re eligible to teach a particular course, then you can teach it; if not, you can’t.

We’re applying this approach to DIL eligibility. An individual professor may meet the criteria for a course or a list of courses, but not for others. As is the case with eligibility in eStaffing, eligibility to teach one course does not mean you’re eligible to teach anything you want. So, we’ll approach eligibility on a professor-course pair basis. I, for instance, might be eligible to teach PHIL1301 and PHIL2321 as DIL courses, but that doesn’t mean I can teach other courses as DIL. Eligibility to teach DIL also applies to full-time faculty. The idea is that every DIL section is taught by a professor with the requisite skills using a course designed for distance learning and instruction.

We need to maintain an up-to-date list of who is eligible to teach which DIL courses. I’d like to maintain that information in a shared spreadsheet for the whole division, more or less like our Schedule Edit Administration process. I also encourage you to use eStaffing “Telecom Methods” for adjunct faculty — and incidentally, you can select more than one method in the drop-down. (I’d be delighted to use eStaffing as our eligibility repository, but eStaffing doesn’t maintain records for FT faculty, so we would need an additional information repository anyway.) There’s a value in having all the DIL eligibility in one place, since we need to document that we are implementing AR 5.0201.1 in our division.

Concerning the criteria for eligibility, this framework means that a professor is eligible to teach a specific course as DIL if they meet two conditions:

1. The professor must have completed one of these types of training:
   1. QM training
   2. a departmental DIL instruction training approved by the dean
2. The course is one of these:
   1. a QM-certified course
   2. a course that uses a Blackboard QM model course
   3. a course that uses a Blackboard template approved for DIL courses by the department and the dean

Implicit in these two criteria is that each DIL course will meet a set of standards determined by the department and division.

Now let’s turn to the review process, which will also explain how the criteria and standards will be developed. Each department (or discipline) needs to set up a DIL Review Workgroup, which will be responsible for reviewing each professor-course combination to ensure that it meets these criteria and the department/discipline’s expectations for DIL teaching. This is where discipline-specific considerations come into play. 

Consider, for instance, accessibility: Teaching a language requires a different approach to basic accessibility issues like captioning of videos than, say, Intro to Philosophy. Departments should form a workgroup that defines best practices as standards for the discipline and applies those standards to professor-course pairs in the review process.

Department DIL workgroups are responsible for ensuring that every professor teaching a DIL section has been reviewed and is eligible, according to the criteria in this framework. The Department workgroup also needs to document the review, using a matrix with rubrics or standards.

The division also needs a DIL Review Workgroup, which will have a different focus. First, the division-level workgroup is responsible for overseeing the review of professor-course pairs at the department level, to ensure that the review process meets the requirements of the AR 5.0201.1. This means verifying that the criteria of this framework and DIL standards are applied in the decision-making, as well as department/discipline standards and best practices.

The division workgroup will not be concerned with the specifics of discipline-specific standards except to ensure that departments have documented those standards and applied them in the review process. To this end, the division workgroup will make recommendations to department workgroups concerning the department-level review and implementation of standards. The division workgroup will also be responsible for maintaining the DIL eligibility list.

The division workgroup is also charged with maintaining a set of generic standards that will apply to DIL courses across the division. These are general expectations of every distance learning course.

Both the department- and division-level DIL workgroups must include professors with experience and training in distance  instruction. Professors who have redesigned a course to receive QM certification and QM Certified Peer Reviewers would make valuable workgroup members, but the workgroup is not limited to QM-trained professors.

This fall (222F), we will focus on two main tasks:

First, we need to establish the workgroups and the rubric/standards we will use for review. The general standards that apply to all professor-course pairs will be the first responsibility of the division workgroup. Department workgroups will begin by establishing discipline-specific standards and best practices. I think we should be able to finalize the general standards and discipline-specific best practices in the next month or so.

Second, we need to begin work on a generic DIL Blackboard template that instantiates these general standards. (Adopting a template to instantiate the standards is the reason a course that uses a template is considered DIL eligible.) Departments are free to customize this generic template as long as the implementation if DIL standards remains intact. This will give departments flexibility to incorporate best practices for DIL specific to their disciplines.

Fortunately, our division has considerable expertise to facilitate this work. We have over 35 professors who have designed QM-certified courses, and we have half a dozen people who are QM Certified Peer Reviewers. This expertise gives us a head-start on establishing the general standards for our review process.

I will also designate some of our experienced and knowledgeable faculty as DIL consultants, who will be available to help departments define best practices and establish standards and the review process. These DIL consultants will be given a stipend for their work. 

I know that many of you already have functional distance learning committees, and we don’t want to “reinvent the wheel.” I would recommend keeping your existing faculty committee, but realigning the mission and portfolio of the committee to accommodate this review process and the criteria for eligibility. I’ll be happy to discuss this transition with you or with the members of the committee as we proceed. 

Implementation Plan Summary

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• September
  • Establish division- and department-level workgroups
  • Establish DIL Consultants
  • Establish LAHC eligibility list
• October – November
  • Division Workgroup
    • Establish General DIL Standards and documentation matrix
    • Create generic DIL Bb template
  • Department Workgroups
    • Establish discipline-specific DIL Standards
    • Customize generic Bb template
• November – December
  • Begin reviews