Design Notes

This document is intended to provide (hopefully) useful information about the course design (pedagogy, set up tips, context) that will help you adopt this OER at your institution.

{throughout the course, when we want to draw your attention to something you need to change we will make it look like this - red font, squiggly brackets....}

Notes from an Instructional Designer

• Here's what's cool about this course as an OER: everyone could benefit from having a bridging program (all of you have students who need to start somewhere). Your "bridge" could focus on the institutional philosophy/teaching and learning model, specific content, community building, technical/resource orientation (or, as in our case with this course, a bit of all of the above). You could have a "bridge" to any program (long or short) or even an individual course.
• This bridge/course is largely about building community - students are asked to reflect and share their experiences often and in different ways.
• In the RRU context, this course is the first experience students have after registration, so it's a great opportunity to connect with them and make them feel supported. This is roughly how their whole Program goes:
• Register (get emails from program office)
• Bridge to BCom (this course)
• On Campus Residency (1 week)
• Online Course Term(s)
• On Campus Residency (1 week)
• Online Course Term(s)
• Graduate

Notes about Course Design & Delivery

Delivery Method: Online Blend (synchronous + asynchronous. no f2f)

• This course's blend involves 2 types of ONLINE delivery: synchronous and asynchronous.
• This course prepares learners for their first f2f residency, where they meet on campus for a week before their blended online degree program begins.

This course uses:

1. Moodle - forums, drop boxes, web pages
   • we use groups & groupings (which, at RRU, we have changed the language pack so they appear as teams/teamsets) to support the dinner & a movie activity in weeks 2 and 3. We recommend teams of 4-6 for team discussions (smaller fine, but no larger)
   • Q & A Weekend Getaway Forum - make sure you use the Q & A format, seed it with the first post/instructions, and override the permissions at the forum level so students can't start their own topics.
   • glossary of BCOM terms

   If you are using a Learning Management System besides Moodle, you may find it easier to copy and paste from our web version of this course (in other words, it won't work if you want to "unzip" this into Blackboard, etc)

2. web conferencing - we use Collaborate and we like it because it supports multi-media presentations (video, audio, powerpoint on whiteboard, inter-activities, etc). If you don't have Collaborate, here are some options you might try:
   • change your team size to 3 (instead of 4-6) and use Collaborate V-rooms (3 for free)>
   • try fee-for-service with Adobe Connect ($20/month)
   • Big Blue Button - an open source tool
   • Skype - though you miss the "presentation" support offered by Collaborate
   • the main thing is (for us), the value of bringing people together in real time to connect with each other.
3. Other media
   • videos
   • audio (e.g., a Welcome from the Dean of Business) - in this we used the default Moodle player and admit it's a bit clunky (need to click to start the audio) - suggest: substitute with a youtube video and just use their embed player.
   • commercial videos