The design of this course has many goals and many constraints. Some of the constraints are embodied within the goals. The goals are:

1. Get CIS 123 online for Spring 2005 as part of another department's effort to get all courses required for one of their degrees online.
2. Provide a learning experience at least equivalent to the traditional face-to-face CIS 123 course.
3. Provide a highly usable and accessible web site.
4. Provide assignments and resources that address the needs of students with varying learning styles.
5. Provide a mechanism for student feedback regarding the course.
6. Provide a mechanism for checking to see if the instructor is properly managing the course.
7. Fulfill the learning objectives of CIS 123 as approved by the CIS department, CIS Advisory Committee, and Kishwaukee Curriculum Committee.
8. Create a course which meets the CIS 123 course description as approved by the CIS department, CIS Advisory Committee, Kishwaukee Curriculum Committee, and Illinois Community College Board, and which has been accepted as BUS 902 under the Illinois Articulation Initiative.
9. Create a course which uses the same textbooks as the current CIS 123 course as required by the Career Technologies Division of Kishwaukee College.
10. Give the course the same "look-and-feel" as other Kishwaukee College online courses. This is an unwritten (to the best of my knowledge), but verbally expressed rule that Kishwaukee has of its online courses.
11. Provide course information such as:
    1. syllabus
    2. schedule/calendar
    3. resources
    4. links to external resources
    5. assignments
    6. rubrics
    7. grades
    8. news
    9. instructor information (phone, office, hours, email, web site)
12. Provide functional elements such as:
    1. assignment hand in facility
    2. discussion forums
    3. private mail
    4. password protection for confidential information
13. Provide access to other Kishwaukee College resources such as:
    1. Kishwaukee College home page
    2. Kishwaukee College online course information
    3. Kishwaukee online course coordinator contact information
    4. Kishwaukee College CIS department home page
    5. Kishwaukee College Library (LRC) home page

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The evaluation of how well the goals have been met can function as one indicator of success or failure. Since there were many identified goals, the evaluation methodology will be broken down into how each individual goal will be evaluated.

1. Get CIS 123 online for Spring 2005 as part of another department's effort to get all courses required for one of their degrees online.
   Evaluation: This will be determined by whether the course development is able to satisfy the deadlines as specified by Kishwaukee College for online course development (see Appendix D). In addition to those deadlines, the initial development of this course is also subject to the deadlines of a practicum (see Appendix E) being pursued to complete a certificate.



2. Provide a learning experience at least equivalent to the traditional face-to-face CIS 123 course.
   Evaluation: The online course and traditional course will use equivalent assessments for a substantial portion of the topics covered. The scores on those assessments (assuming they are valid) should indicate whether or not the students are learning equivalent information. There will also be mechanisms provided for student feedback (reflection exercises and/or student surveys) which should provide another indicator from the student's point of view. One potential problem is that some of the student surveys will be managed by the school and will be considered confidential between the school administration and the instructor. Some agreement will have to be worked out to make general course-related feedback from those surveys available to the CIS department for review and possible action.



3. Provide a highly usable and accessible web site.
   Evaluation: There are some constraints on this goal due to the college's insistence upon certain online course "look-and-feel" guidelines. A set of usability criteria (Appendix F) will be developed to try to reasonably make the course as usable as possible within the college guidelines. The college guidelines are not directly available since they are primarily unwritten and subject to change. The main college guideline is to fit the style of other online college courses so the students have a familiar environment shared by all of their online courses.



4. Provide assignments and resources that address the needs of students with varying learning styles.
   Evaluation: This will be evaluated by members of the CIS department as the design of the online course nears completion and then periodically as part of the ongoing curriculum review process. The review will consist of full-time and part-time CIS faculty who have an interest in online courses and the MIS course in particular.



5. Provide a mechanism for student feedback regarding the course.
   Evaluation: This will be done using a combination of reflection exercises, feedback discussion areas, feedback forms, and online student surveys. The CIS department will have to work out an agreement with the school to get access to course-related feedback on the online student surveys since the school manages the surveys and they are considered confidential between the instructor and the school administration.



6. Provide a mechanism for checking to see if the instructor is properly managing the course.
   Evaluation: The instructor must meet the College's minimal online instructor requirements (Appendix G). In addition, the instructor will be externally evaluated by online student surveys managed by the school administration. It is expected that the instructor will also do some self-evaluation based on student feedback, student assessment scores, and student reflection exercises.



7. Fulfill the learning objectives of CIS 123 as approved by the CIS department, CIS Advisory Committee, and Kishwaukee Curriculum Committee.
   Evaluation: This can be evaluated by simply comparing the CIS 123 learning objectives (Appendix H) with what is posted in the CIS 123 online course syllabus.



8. Create a course which meets the CIS 123 course description as approved by the CIS department, CIS Advisory Committee, Kishwaukee Curriculum Committee, and Illinois Community College Board, and which has been accepted as BUS 902 under the Illinois Articulation Initiative.
   Evaluation: This can be evaluated by simply comparing the CIS 123 course description (Appendix I) with what is posted in the CIS 123 online course syllabus. The course description must match the description given in the college catalog.



9. Create a course which uses the same textbooks as the current CIS 123 course as required by the Career Technologies Division of Kishwaukee College.
   Evaluation: The bookstore records will be checked to make sure the online course is using the same textbooks. The required textbook section of the CIS 123 online course syllabus will also be compared to the required textbook section of the traditional face-to-face course.



10. Give the course the same "look-and-feel" as other Kishwaukee College online courses. This is an unwritten (to the best of my knowledge), but verbally expressed rule that Kishwaukee has of its online courses.
    Evaluation: The CIS department has little interest in spending much time evaluating a goal this subjective which is likely to change frequently. Since this goal is important to the college and the CIS department has little (if any) control over how the decision is made whether or not the course meets this goal, the CIS department will leave this evaluation up to the school. The CIS department could pursue clarification of this goal from the school, but past experience has shown that this is likely to lead to more restrictive rules and possibly complaints from the administration that the department is interfering with some ambiguous administrative "right".



11. Provide course information such as:
    1. syllabus
    2. schedule/calendar
    3. resources
    4. links to external resources
    5. assignments
    6. rubrics
    7. grades
    8. news
    9. instructor information (phone, office, hours, email, web site)
    Evaluation: This goal can be easily evaluated by checking the online course to see if it contains the items in the list above.



12. Provide functional elements such as:
    1. assignment hand in facility
    2. discussion forums
    3. private mail
    4. password protection for confidential information
    Evaluation: This goal can be evaluated by checking the online course to see if it contains the items in the list above. It should be noted that functionality of each item should also be checked.



13. Provide access to other Kishwaukee College resources such as:
    1. Kishwaukee College home page
    2. Kishwaukee College online course information
    3. Kishwaukee online course coordinator contact information
    4. Kishwaukee College CIS department home page
    5. Kishwaukee College Library (LRC) home page
    Evaluation: This goal can be easily evaluated by checking the online course to see if it contains the items in the list above.