The Basic Online Teaching Certificate is designed to provide faculty with a fundamental understanding of the role of the effective online instructor in creating a student-centered and engaging online learning experience. Faculty will experience from the students’ perspective, how online courses can be designed to be easy to navigate, engaging, and make use of technologies and activities that foster social learning.
This page will teach you about the certificate requirements, how to enroll in the certificate and associated offerings, how to track your progress, and how your successful completion of the certificate is recognized.
Certificate Requirements
The Basic Online Teaching Certificate requires the completion of the following:
- The Effective Online Teaching Course
- The Student Engagement in the Online Classroom Course
- Five credits of elective activities
Continue reading to learn more about each of the requirements.
The Effective Online Teaching Course
Effective Online Teaching is an asynchronous course that introduces participants to the basics of effectively teaching an online course. This includes strategies related to reaching the adult learner, building an online community, creating teacher presence and fostering reflective teaching practices.
The time commitment for this 2-week asynchronous course is approximately 5-6 hours per week. Participants will experience an online course from the student perspective while interacting with other faculty participants. The course will be facilitated by eCampus Online Faculty Associates. Participants may be eligible for a $250 stipend upon completion.
Student Engagement in the Online Classroom Course
The Student Engagement in the Online Classroom course focuses on ways to actively engage students in online courses. With a foundation of evidence-based instructional practices, participants will focus on how to create an online learning community that is welcoming of all and provide multiple ways for students to demonstrate their learning.
The time commitment for this 2-week asynchronous course is approximately 5-6 hours per week. This course, facilitated by eCampus Online Faculty Associates, models an engaging online learning experience for faculty allowing them to experience online learning from the student perspective. Participants may be eligible for a $250 stipend upon completion.
Five credits of elective activities
The final requirement for this certificate is to complete five credits of elective activities. Elective activities include the following:
- Webinars (1-credit) – These are one-hour live sessions in Zoom facilitated by a variety of faculty associates and experts in specific areas from across campus. Webinars are recorded and participants who attended the session have access to the recording, slidedeck, and additional resources after the sessions via a Canvas site that holds the webinar.
- Seminars (2-credits) – These are week-long asynchronous mini-courses that provide participants an opportunity to learn how to improve a specific aspect of their online course and teaching. Seminars challenge participants to apply what they learn to improve one of their online courses. Lessons, resources and activities are accessed through the seminar’s Canvas site.
- Communities of Practices (3-credits) – Communities of practice (CoP) allow a small group of faculty to meet every-other week throughout a semester (for about 8 meetings) to discuss a specific area of online teaching. Facilitators and guest speakers provide insightful materials to help center the discussions while faculty share their insights and experiences with each other.
Enrolling, Tracking, and Completing Certificates
Enroll in a Certificate
To enroll in this certificate, go to the eCampus group page in CampusGroups (be sure to log in) and locate the Join Sub-Groups area at the bottom-right corner of the page. Click the relevant checkbox for this certificate to enroll in it. You can then view the requirements for the certificate (as previously described) by clicking on Home, then My Activity, then My Checklists.
Register for Requirements
You can enroll in currently scheduled offerings for this certificate, as described above, on our eCampus Faculty Development Event page in CampusGroups. Go to the Event Page, locate the required offerings, and click register. Make sure you are logged in to CampusGroups to see all events.
If a required course for the certificate is not listed, that means it has already been offered this semester. You can contact onlinefacultydevelopment@boisestate.edu to learn when the next offering will be. In the meantime, you are encouraged to participate in elective activities to begin working towards the certificate.
Track Progress
After you complete a course or elective activities for a certificate, your progress will be reflected in CampusGroups. You can view your progress by clicking on the Home button in CampusGroups, and then in the left-side menu selecting My Activity, then My Checklists.
Updates to the progress can take up to one week to be reflected after completing an activity. If you have a question about your progress, please reach out to onlinefacultydevelopment@boisestate.edu.
Certificate Completion
Once you complete the final activity for a certificate, you will be notified by the eCampus Faculty Development team. You will then receive an email with a certificate of completion as an attachment. Your achievement of the certificate will then be announced in an upcoming eCampus Update Newsletter. Prior to announcing it in the newsletter, you will be offered the opportunity to opt-out of the announcement.
In addition to your achievement being recognized with a certificate and the announcement in the eCampus Update newsletter, your completion of courses and activities will also be reported to Faculty 180, where appropriate, a tool at Boise State for faculty to collect, organize, and display their research, teaching and service data for the purposes of annual reviews, promotion and tenure.
Continue Your Learning
Once you complete the Basic Online Teaching Certificate, you will be qualified to continue on to the Intermediate Online Teaching Certificate.
Learn more about the Intermediate Online Teaching Certificate