From CCCOnline Faculty Wiki

Contents 1 Course Appearance 2 Course Menu 3 Course Homepage: 4 Course Content 4.1 The following items are to be included in all courses: 5 Unit Content 5.1 Course units MUST include the following items: 5.2 Course units MAY include these items: 6 Files and Graphics 6.1 Recommendations:

Course Appearance

CCCOnline has incorporated certain design standards to accommodate students and faculty under the ADA/section 508 compliance; to manage a consistent page appearance, and ease of navigation in the courses we develop. The overall look of CCCOnline courses has been preset in the course that you are teaching. Please consult with your discipline chair for any changes that you would like to make to the Course appearance.

CCCOnline also uses a style sheet (.CSS) within courses to maintain font sizes, colors, and readability of content within the courses for further accessibility in the courses. (See CCCOnline Principles of Design: Usability Standards and Accessibility Standards for further information on appearance.)

To help us maintain our compliance responsibility with our students and faculty in general, we ask that you request assistance with any of the content that essentially changes the course-design standards. Requests can be made with the approval of your program chairs and/or instructional design team.

Course Menu

In order to provide students with consistent, structured, and easily used navigation methods within all online courses taken in the CCCS system, the sequence of content and of items on the Course Homepage need to comply with CCCOnline design standards. The use of this structure also assures CCCOnline’s conformity with ADA/Section 508 recommendations to provide consistent and easily-understood navigation methods.

Course Homepage:

• Header
  • Course Banner
  • Role Switch (optional)
• Left Panel
  • Instructor Widget
  • Helpful Links
  • Updates
  • Events
• Middle Panel
  • News
• Right Panel
  • User Links
  • Bookmarks
  • Calendar
• Additional widgets may be added below the widgets listed above when appropriate for an individual course. Do Not put the "My Courses" or "My Settings" widgets on your Course Homepage.  Designers will help make such decisions in concert with faculty who are developing courses.

Course Content

The following items are to be included in all courses:

• Course Title page (a.k.a. Homepage of course):
• Course number & name at top, plus faculty name (and perhaps a banner).
• Welcome note to students with information about the course, directions on course procedures, and how to proceed (next steps).
• Getting Started page, as link (Start Here) from the Homepage. (A designer can provide the template for this page, which delineates suggested content.)
• Unit/Module pages
• The Unit Learning Module (LM) will contain at least the following:
  • Unit Introduction/Overview,
  • Listing of Unit Outcomes/Objectives keyed to CCCNS competencies for the course.
  • Links to course content such as lectures/topic review notes, assignments, discussions, and quizzes or exams,
    • Content/Lecture pages should generally be no longer than 2-3 screens.
• Syllabus – must use the required CCCOnline syllabus template
• Schedule – must use the required CCCOnline schedule template and may also appear on the course homepage and somewhere within each unit
• Resources page - required link in Course Materials LM; may also appear somewhere within units.

If you have questions or need assistance with updating pages in your course, please contact ProfHelp@cccs.edu and someone will be assigned to assist and/or teach you how to make content updates.

Unit Content

Course units MUST include the following items:

• Faculty Comments on Topics presented -- in each unit (may be called Lectures, Instructor's Remarks, or Notes, or whatever is deemed an appropriate title by the faculty)
• Assignments -- reading, homework, projects, etc.
  • Readings (included in Assignments page)
  • Discussions – links to and/or topics
  • Animation features such as Flash are an option to consider using to increase understanding of both higher and lower-level outcomes. (Please adhere to three-loop rule.)
• Assessments -- tests, quizzes, projects, group work, labs, discussions, etc.

Course units MAY include these items:

• PowerPoint slides (usually change to web pages, not slides)
• Flash or other animated/interactive devices
• Links to web/publisher content
• Learning objects
• Audio and/or video components
• Other items as appropriate

NOTE: Additional information on course and unit guidelines may be found in the Template Design Lounge, under Adopted Guidelines on the Course Menu. You may also contact a designer for assistance and ideas on how to create content using media in your courses.

Files and Graphics

File formats that work best:

• Graphics - .jpg or.gif
• Text formatted documents (inc., Word, Wordperfect, WordPad and Notepad).doc,.rtf, or .txt
• HTML documents - .htm or .html

Recommendations:

• Graphics – reduced file sizes are best before uploading into the course (25k or less is recommended). All graphics must include an ALT tag for identification for screen :readers. (ALT = Alternative Text)
  • This is especially important for Math and Science courses, or use of Graphs of any kind.
• Animations – used appropriately and have a maximum of 3 loops or rotations in their presentation.
• Filenames and extensions - using 8.3 character names in the filename.ext format, typed using letters and/or numbers without spaces, period or any special characters other than a dash (-) or underscore ( _ ). The naming conventions stated meet the standard formats allowable in the current CCCS LMS.

For assistance with graphics files or for any other questions about files in general, please contact a design team member at id@ccconline.org.

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