Compensation for creation of online courses

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I absolutely echo Kimber’s notion that a team approach to course development can actually take longer, even when one of the team members is an instructional designer. Perhaps because faculty members are used to controlling all aspects of their course development and delivery, the division of labor concept may feel too foreign to them. An issue that is similar in nature and referred to as ‘unbundling the faculty role’ is discussed at length in the development of competency-based education (CBE) courses and it is not typically a concept that faculty embrace.

Robin

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I will also confirm that the team approach to course development can take longer.  Indeed it does in my experience.  It requires much more “back and forth”, negotiating of who is doing what, ensuring that the overall approach is congruent, etc.  That’s not to say that it’s not a worthwhile endeavor in some cases where it makes pedagogical sense (in our case we are designing courses for 18-22 year-old campus-based learners and 22+ year-old fully online learners at the same time), but if time/cost savings is the goal, you will be sorely disappointed, in my experience.  The “divide and conquer” approach requires a LOT of coordination and oversight.  Without that you will likely have a cobbled together, hodgepodge of a course that doesn’t meet expectations.

Best, Carine  Director, Office of Instructional Design & Academic Technology Ottawa University 1001 S. Cedar St. * Ottawa, KS 66067 carine.ullom@ottawa.edu * 785-248-2510

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Breaking up a course and coming up with a cohesive design and approach, could make the design process longer. At SSC, we generally work with our faculty over the course of a semester for each course. When we’ve worked with teams, we have not seen a shortened timeline.
The length of time it takes to develop a course depends on the content. Are there videos? If so, they have to be created, which is time-consuming, plus they either need to have a transcript created or they need subtitles. Both of those can be time-consuming. PowerPoint slides take time, plus, they need more content to make them relevant. We are working with our faculty to use the Universal Design for Learning model, which means we’re challenging them to create the content to benefit the most learners
I have a very small team whose sole focus is course design and it takes us 3-4 weeks to design a course and it’s our full-time job!

Linda
Linda C. Morosko, MA Director, eStarkState Division of Student Success 330-494-6170 ext. 4973 lmorosko@starkstate.edu

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Kelvin, we also use the 8-week development cycle, but do occasionally have to lengthen that cycle for particularly complex courses or in rare cases when the SME has had medical emergencies or other major life disruptions.  I would be surprised if multiple faculty working on a course could develop it any more quickly than a single faculty member, though, because of the additional time required for them to agree and the dispersed sense of responsibility. Interesting idea.

-Kimber

Dr. Kimberly D. Barnett Gibson, Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs and Online Learning Our Lady of the Lake University 411 SW 24th Street San Antonio, TX 78207 Kgibson@ollusa.edu 210.431.5574 BlackBoard IM kimberly.gibson  https://www.pinterest.com/drkdbgavpol/ @drkimberTweets

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Hello everyone. As a follow-up to the current thread, how long do you typically give hey course developer to develop a master course for your institution? We currently use an eight week model but some faculty have indicated that that is not enough time for them although we have teams of 2 to 4 faculty developing such content. Our current assumption is that with teams, there can be divisions of labor that can reduce the total amount time needed during the course development process.

Kelvin Bentley, PhD Vice President of Academic Affairs, TCC Connect Campus Tarrant County College District

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At Berkeley College, full-time faculty may develop online courses in conjunction with an instructional designer.   The course is used as a master template for other sections to be assigned from. Once the course has been scheduled and taught, the faculty member receives a stipend.  The faculty member would receive their normal pay to teach the developed course as part of their semester course load, with no additional royalties assigned for it or any additional sections that may be provided to students.

Regards, Gina   Gina Okun Assistant Dean, Online Berkeley College  64 East Midland Avenue, Suite 2, Paramus, NJ 07652 (973)405-2111  x6309 gina-okun@berkeleycollege.edu

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We operate with nearly all adjunct faculty where >70% of enrollment credits are onlinez
With one exception that I can recall, the development contract includes the college’s outright ownership, with no royalty rights. One of the issues with a royalty based arrangement would be what to do when the course is revised (which happens nearly every term, to one degree or another). At what point does the course begin to take on the character of another person’s input?
What do you do if the course is adapted for a shorter summer term, or a between-term intensive? What if new media tools or a different LMS are used? Is the royalty arrangement based on the syllabus or the course content itself? What happens if the textbook goes out of print, or an Open resource becomes available? What happens if students evaluate the course poorly?
I’m not in position to set this policy — I’m only reporting it. I like the idea of a royalty arrangement but it seems like it could get pretty messy. It isn’t as if you are licensing a song or an image where the original product doesn’t change. Courses, the modes of delivery, and the means of communication change all the time. Seems like it would be hard to define what constitutes “the course” after a certain amount of time.

Steve Covello Rich Media Specialist/Instructional Designer/Online Instructor Chalk & Wire e-Portfolio Administrator Granite State College 603-513-1346 Video chat: https://appear.in/id.team  Scheduling: http://meetme.so/stevecovello

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I’ve worked with many institutions that have used Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to develop or provide the online course content. Most often, the institutions also provide a resource in the form of an Instructional Designer (ID) to take the content and create the actual course environment.

The SME is paid on a contract basis for provision of the content. This is a one-time payment, and the institution then owns the course content (other than integrated published materials such as text books, licensed online lab products, etc.). The SME may be an existing faculty member at the institution or not, or the SME may go on to teach the course at the institution. In any event, whoever teaches the course would be paid the standard faculty rate for the course. If the course requires revisions to the extent that a person will need to be engaged for content updates, then that can be a negotiated contract. Typically it is some fraction of the original development cost. No royalties are involved.

Hap Aziz, Ed.D. @digitalhap http:hapaziz.wordpress.com

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Within SUNY, there is some variance regarding whether a stipend is paid for development or not. In either case, since we are unionized there is policy regarding IP. IP resides with the faculty developer unless both parties agree in writing in the form of a contract to assign or share rights.

Policy statement: http://uupinfo.org/reports/reportpdf/IntellectualPropertyUpdated2016.pdf

Thank you for your feedback on this issue. Our institution does does not provide a royalty as we consider course development as a fee-for-service arrangement. We pay teams of 2-4 faculty $1000 each to develop master course shells for our high-enrollment courses.  Instead of a royalty fee, I think an institution can simply provide course developers the perk of first right of refusal to teach the course when it offered as well as providing course developers with the first option to make revisions to the course shell over time.

Kelvin

Kelvin Bentley, Ph.D. Vice President of Academic Affairs, TCC Connect Campus Tarrant County College District

Once upon a time, and several positions ago, we set up a google doc for capturing all kinds of data points across institutions, like this. I’m sure it’s far out of date, but may still have some ideas or info in there – and could possibly be dusted off and oiled up for re-use… I present the Blend-Online Data Collector. This tab is for course development payment.

Kind regards,

Clark

Clark Shah-Nelson

Assistant Dean, Instructional Design and Technology
University of Maryland School of Social Work—Twitter … LinkedIn —voice/SMS: (646) 535-7272fax: 270.514.0112

Hi Jenn,

Just want to clarify…you say faculty “sign over all intellectual property rights of the course to the college.” but later in the email say “Faculty own all intellectual property and can take it with them to teach at another institution”, so is your policy changing to the former? Or, is it the later and that is what you are asking about?

I’ll send details on our policy directly to your email account.

Best,

Ellen

On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 9:43 AM, Jennifer Stevens <jennifer_stevens@emerson.edu> wrote:

Hello all,

I am tasked with finding out what the going rate is for the following model:
We pay an adjunct faculty member (“teaching faculty”) a set amount in order to develop an online course and sign over all intellectual property rights of the course to the college.
Is anyone doing this? I’ve heard of models that include royalties, but I personally don’t know of any that offer straight payment for IP. I know this can be a touchy subject, so feel free to respond directly to me and I will return and post a range of payment rates with no other identifying data.
For some comparison, we are currently paying full time faculty a $5000 stipend to spend a semester developing their very first online class, and then they get paid to teach the class. Subsequent online class developments are unpaid. Emerson owns the course description and course shell and is allowed to show the course to future faculty who will teach the online course. Faculty own all intellectual property and can take it with them to teach at another institution. More info: http://www.emerson.edu/itg/online-emerson/frequently-asked-questions
I asked this on another list, but wanted to get Blend_Online’s opinion as well. Thanks for any pointers!
Jenn Stevens
Director | Instructional Technology Group | 403A Walker Building  |  Emerson College  |  120 Boylston St  |  Boston MA 02116  |  (617) 824-3093

Ellen M. Murphy

Director of Program Development
Graduate Professional Studies

Brandeis University Rabb School

781-736-8737

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more on compensation for online courses in this IMS blog:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=online+compensation