Introduction 

This document provides guidelines for the management of information relating to teaching and learning. The guidelines include best practices and recommendations based on sound management principles for learning materials for the College of Medicine teaching community. Included are: course management tasks such as scheduling, student communications and course delivery (creation, publishing and delivery of electronic course materials), that are best suited to meet the learning needs of medical undergraduates.  

Background

These guidelines were prepared based on research and input from student and faculty groups in the College of Medicine. Student feedback centered on receiving a consistent experience across courses with regards to communication and course materials design and handling. Three core areas identified in delivering course materials were: Creation, Publishing and Delivery.

This document seeks to provide the following:

• Establish principles and practices around Creation, Publication and Delivery of course materials
• Coordinating information flow within the course(s) and the program.

Course Management

Information Systems

 One45 shall be used for managing the curriculum for all courses in the Undergraduate Medical program. Blackboard is the only other officially support learning management system. 

 System of Record

Curriculum Information Management System (CIMS), better known as One45 is the “system of record” (SOR) for all academic and curricular information in the College of Medicine. The College’s SOR is One45 and is the system that represents the authoritative source for accurate, up to date and truthful information regarding all curricular and academic information relating to its educational programs. This includes, course objectives, assigned instructors, time tables and locations for course, lecture and small break-out sessions as well as course materials. The above information may exist elsewhere and in different forms, such as Black Board or PAWS, but in in the event of conflicting information, One45 is  be regarded as the authoritative source.

Rules of Engagement

• Discuss and identify a consistent communication strategy with your students.
• Adopt the following guidelines and ensure students are aware of these guidelines.
• Familiarize yourself with academic and technical support services both within the College (http://medicine.usask.itu/ttc) and on campus. 
• Inform students about your approach to course delivery at the beginning of your session and announce any future changes in advance.
• Familiarize yourself with one45 and its role in distributing your lecture materials and curriculum schedule to students. (See http://medicine.usask.ca/one45 )

Objectives

Course objectives should be uploaded and available for students well in advance of the commencement of the course.

• Declare Objectives for each lecture at the commencement of class.
• Quizzing. Recommend that lecturers prepare 3-5 short answer or multiple choice questions for each lecture to address the stated objectives. This means less time to teach, but it will help focus the learners to see if they have understood the lecture. As well, it will provide a bank of questions for future evaluations.
• Important information to communicate to your students includes; lecture updates, class announcements.

Communication

• Send all non course-related announcements to the UGME office for large scale dissemination.
• Use the email feature provided through one45 to ensure that all students within the class or college receive your communiqué.
• Ensure that your teaching schedule is complete and accurate before the start of the upcoming term. This schedule should be submitted in advance to the UGME office.

Schedules

• The one45 schedule should always contain up to date information for; date, time, location, student group, and lecturer.
• All schedule changes should be reflected within the one45 curriculum schedule.
• Any last minute schedule updates such as the date/time or location should be immediately sent to the UGME office (medicine.ugme@usask.ca). Last minute schedule updates are those which occur within 24 hours of the scheduled session.

Course Delivery

Creation

This section covers the steps involved in preparing and formatting content.

• Provide references/ sources of images, videos and additional content whenever possible to assist students in referring to and using content for learning.
• Provide separate files for images, videos and other media where necessary/possible to facilitate annotation and learning.
• Follow copyright guidelines when using content (media/text) created by other authors. Visit the University copyright management page at http://www.usask.ca/copyright/ or contact the TTC (http://medicine.usask.ca/ITU/TTC).
• Leave ample margin space for students to make notes and annotations.
• Indicate missing slides or pages with blank placeholders when omitting slides to promote student participation. This will give students space to fill in the additional notes in their printed material.
• Use WHITE backgrounds in documents to ensure clarity and readability when printed in black and white or with multiple pages on a sheet.
• Optimize image sizes for clarity when printing.

Facilitate Note-Taking:

• Leave ample margin space for students to make notes and annotations.
• Indicate missing slides or pages with blank placeholders when omitting slides to promote student participation. This will give students space to fill in the additional notes in their printed material.
• Use WHITE backgrounds in documents to ensure clarity and readability when printed in black and white or with multiple pages on a sheet.
• Optimize image sizes for clarity when printing.

Printer Friendly Presentation:

• Use WHITE backgrounds in documents to ensure clarity and readability when printed in black and white or with multiple pages on a sheet.
• Optimize image sizes for clarity when printing.

Publishing

This section covers the steps involved in publishing course content.

• Use modifiable file formats like PowerPoint – ppt, MS Word – doc, Excel – xls as opposed to Acrobat – pdf. This will support students who primarily rely on personal computers to annotate documents.
• Maintain consistency in file formats within the same Course/Module.

Delivery

• Standardize handout naming to indicate module/session type/date or other relevant information. This is will help students in identifying, organizing and managing course materials.
• Limit corrections and updates to files which have been previously published. If possible provide corrections or additions as a separate addendum document. This will save students the additional cost of re-printing the entire notes file.
• Inform students about primary (One45) and secondary course material delivery methods for the course. For instance remind students that One45 is the primary delivery method and for those that may wish to augment or enhance course delivery, inform students of your use of Blackboard or PAWS as required.
• Links to external systems outside One45, such as Blackboard, PAWS etc…) are to be made available from within One45 when referenced.
• Establish and inform students about your policy regarding course material delivery – posting time, pre-class preparation etc. Lecturers are strongly encouraged to post all lecture materials at least 48 hours in advance of a session.
• Select and inform students about your primary and secondary methods of announcing when materials are posted.


 NOTE: Responsibility for this document and the guidelines enclosed and the responsibility if the Curriculum Delivery Subcommittee (CDSC). Any and all changes must be vetted through the CDSC.

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