Technical Competencies for Online Instruction

Teaching online courses is more than knowing the content. We offer this rubric for self-assessment of your technical competency.

1. Create learning materials as needed.

Core competencies for materials design include the ability to create and manipulate documents, manage files and folders, and work with multiple windows or monitors.

Create, edit, and upload audio files and video presentations.
Be able to create and manipulate files and folders.

2. Build the course in the learning management system.

The IT Solutions team is available to help you learn how to use D2L Brightspace, our learning management system. For the sake of student privacy and information security, we recommend using only technologies that require students to log in with their StarID and password.

Successfully log into D2L Brightspace and access the course.
Navigate the course space to locate critical course elements, such as syllabus, lessons, grade book, and e-mail.
Upload files, add descriptions, and link to activities.
Organize learning materials and activities into modules within Content.
Set-up and manage student grades.
Create assignment folders to collect student work.
Create rubrics to help you evaluate student work.
Set deadlines for assignments and other activities to appear in the calendar.

3. Effectively use course communications systems.

Become comfortable conversing with your students via email, chat, web conferencing, discussion forums, and announcements as needed.

Know how to set-up and manage teams/groups within a course.
Contact the D2L Brightspace administrator to add instructors, teaching assistants, and outside guests with the appropriate permissions.
Know how to upload and download submissions via LMS dropbox, GoogleDocs, or other student submission tools.

Teaching Competencies for 100% Online Courses by the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Minnesota State University, Mankato is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. It is a derivative of the original work, Faculty Competencies for Online Teaching, developed by the Penn State Online Faculty Engagement Subcommittee