Required Faculty Trainings to Build Online Courses

To ensure that all Mines courses meet the same high standards, faculty must successfully complete either the Trefny Center’s Engineering and Facilitating Online Learning (EFOL) or Foundations of Curriculum Design (FoCD) prior to developing and/or teaching an online course. Effective July 2022 EFOL will no longer be offered. Click here for the Spring 2023 FoCD application if you are new to Mines and anticipate teaching an online course.

All other required online trainings beyond FoCD are embedded into a Canvas course called Mines Online Design Labs (MODL pronounced “model”) that is facilitated by an Online Learning Experience Designer (OLED). MODLs and the OLED guide instructors in learning about how courses are built for Mines Online during the 16-week course development and review period, while concurrently developing content for the course. This embedded training will not only provide documentation of online development competencies for each faculty member, but also deliver ongoing training that is required for accreditation purposes and “best practices”.

All course builds begin by submitting an Online Course Design Guide (a shortened course map) for approval before being assigned an OLED to begin the course building process.  Take some time to learn about our online course approval and development process by visiting our Forms and Procedures page if you would like to know more.

Also, we host monthly office hours to help faculty develop and/or refine their course guide along with other topics relevant to online course development and facilitation. The schedule is under the Mines Online Engage/Events section of this website. Please drop-in whenever possible and get to know the Mines Online team!

NOTE: Training is provided by Mines Online and the Trefny Center at no additional cost to Departments or Faculty. Click here for a summary of offerings by the Trefny Center.