Depending on your prior experience with teaching a course and the course modality, the timeline for developing a face-to-face, hybrid, or online course can vary. Generally, the lead time for developing an asynchronous online course is most significant as it requires the entire course to be completed before it goes live, allowing students to work through it at their own pace. Synchronous online courses may also require more upfront design and development time than face-to-face courses, especially when consultation and assistance from an instructional designer is desired. While there may be more flexibility to gradually develop face-to-face courses over the course of the semester, it is important to remember that the use of Canvas allows an instructor to do much more than use it as an electronic filing cabinet for a syllabus and course materials. Canvas allows you to extend the physical classroom into an online space, providing a learning environment for rich interaction and more varied active learning approaches throughout the course. To the extent that you need assistance with maximizing Canvas capabilities in your course delivery, this will impact your preparation time. Hybrid courses add a significant level of complexity to your face-to-face course that should also be accounted for in your timeline.
Lastly, regardless of the course and course modality, RSPH seeks to establish a community of instructors who are committed to an ongoing, iterative assessment of their courses through the lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion and to make course upgrades as needed using the DEI Curriculum Assessment Tool, described more fully on the Inclusive Teaching page. It is not unusual for instructors to begin preparing for courses they have not taught before a year in advance. Consider the interactive timelines below as guides to help pace your course preparation.
Course Design Timeline for Online Courses
Adapted from the JHU, Bloomberg School of Public Health, CTL Toolkit Shelf
Course Design Timeline for Face-to-Face or Hybrid Courses
Adapted from the JHU, Bloomberg School of Public Health, CTL Toolkit Shelf