Instructions for Course QA Editing
Last updated by christopher.phillips 4 years agoProject and Criteria Links
Basic and Advanced Services
Each item from the QA checklist is listed below along with guidelines and instructions for fixing a QA issue. Fixes generally fall under a basic or advanced level, depending on whether the instructor should be consulted before the fix is made. Understanding the difference is important.
About Basic Services
Any task listed under the Basic heading is assumed to be a minor correction. It addresses a problem that is:
If either of the two scenarios seems likely, you can fix the issue quickly without obtaining instructor approval, unless the instructor has been flagged in the Faculty board of Monday.com as needing to be asked before receiving basic services.
Use your judgment with basic services. Ask the instructor before fixing if:
Fixing it could have material impact on the design, content, or delivery of a course.
About Advanced Services
A service listed under the Advanced heading is one that will materially change any of the following:
Course content . Revising, creating, or selecting new content; removing content that isn’t obviously redundant; or choosing which content should and shouldn’t be visible, etc.
Course design . Changing the look and feel of the course, the organization of content, or the methods required by the instructor to maintain the course, etc.
Course delivery . Changing due dates and pacing, changing assessments, adjusting proctoring settings, and grading, etc.
Issues that fall in these categories require guidance from the instructor and approval before fixes are made. In some cases the instructor has already pre-allowed CIDI to perform advanced services. This will be marked in the Faculty board of Monday.com. If in doubt, check with the instructor or the instructional designer.
Regardless of the service, let the instructor know what has been done once it has been completed.
Projects
When a course fails to meet QA criteria and the issues are deemed sufficient to need fixing, the course is added to one of several projects. Procedures for each project are described below, along with basic and advanced service tips for each of the associated QA criteria.
Project: Presentation and Content Readiness (P/C) Fixes
Proceed as follows:
Look up the instructor in the Faculty and Staff board . See if the instructor requests that you ask before performing basic and advanced services.
Set the Service Status column to either “Working on it” or “Approving Fixes” if permission is required.
Perform basic services as needed on the flagged items, following the directions below. Be sure to email or call the instructor for permission where the instructor has requested it.
Perform advanced services on the flagged items, following the directions below. Be sure to email or call the instructor for permission unless the instructor has given it in advance.
P1: Broken or missing links (Including Zoom, where applicable)
Ideally, the QA evaluator has already done the work of identifying if the broken links are in active use and has made notes about whether the content is available. Check the notes left by the evaluator.
Basic:
The content the link is meant to point to exists either in the current course, a prior copy of the course, or in a new web location.
If there appears to be redundant content, such as two or more copies of the same file or page, where only one is needed, remove the redundant items that are not being linked to. Use TidyUp as necessary.
Advanced:
Check with the instructor or instructional designer if:
There are multiple versions of the same content that do not match and it is unclear which should be linked to.
The content containing broken links doesn’t appear to be in use at the moment, but it is uncertain whether it could be intended for later use.
P2: Visual layout issues
Basic:
Common layout issues and simple fixes may include:
Overly large image dimensions: resize the image to a smaller size. Perhaps align/float left or right with some padding around the image.
Incomplete removal of buttons, tabs, or links: View the content source and remove empty <a> tags, <p> tags, etc.
Module list issues on the home page: Open Design Tools and either refresh the modules list or remove and re-add it.
Advanced
HTML tables are used for page layout (not just data tables): Get permission from the instructor or instructional designer to redesign page layout using non-table methods.
Page layout is ugly but it appears that may have been intentional: Check with the instructor about making improvements.
P3: Font issues
Basic:
Common font issues and simple fixes may include:
Unintended-looking differences in font size/color/weight between elements: For best results, switch to HTML view and remove the <span> tags and inline styles creating the varying font stylings.
Font sizes seem unreadably small or distractingly large. Often this is a copy/paste issue. If it’s inconsistent with the rest of the course and seems unintentional, adjust the font size and/or remove extraneous <span> tags and inline styles in the HTML.
Font sizing and bolding being used to set apart text headings rather than heading tags. In this case, highlight the text intended as a heading and add an H2, H3, or H4 tag. Be careful to always start with an H2 tag if it’s the first heading on the page (rather than H3 or lower). Then, the next lower level of heading should always be an H3 (rather than H4 or lower). Remember that heading tags describe the structure of the document for the browser and for accessibility screen readers. You can always change the size of the font after you apply a tag, if the default font size for an H2, H3, etc., doesn’t work for the page.
If you see headings used in the wrong order (i.e. an H3 used as the first header, or an H4 following an H2, etc.), re-tag headers in the proper order, adjusting font size as needed.
If you see heading tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) used to make text larger when the text isn’t intended to be a header, remove the heading tag and replace it with a standard tag, like a <p> tag, and use font sizing and bolding to achieve the desired effect.
Advanced:
If any font style is commonly used throughout the course and/or seems intentional, check with the instructor or instructional designer before making changes.
P4: Color scheme issues
Basic:
You may need to check with the instructor before making changes in this section, depending on the extent of the changes you decide should be made.
Color contrast issues: If two overlapping colors are too close to each other in contrast, use Design Tools to see if you can darken or lighten one of the colors to make the content more readable. Design Tools will indicate whether the color contrast passes WCAG AA and AAA standards.
If colors, such as red or green, are all that is used to differentiate items, such as a correct or incorrect example, add an additional differentiating element, such as text.
Advanced:
Be careful and follow-up with the instructor and instructional designer when dealing with excessive and distracting use of bright colors and highlights, or ugly color clashes in general . It may look ugly, but the instructor is probably trying to achieve emphasis. We need to check to see if we can help provide emphasis in more professional looking ways. Alternatives may include using alert boxes, headings, indentation, or images.
P5: Video display or playback problems
Basic:
If an embedded video is showing an error (such as unauthorized access, content that is unavailable or still processing, or an altogether blank box), first try re-embedding the video. You will probably need to “Act As” the instructor to do so in order to have access to the instructor’s My Media list.
If the video as it appears in the Kaltura library is having problems, work as needed with an instructional designer or design reviewer to re-convert, re-upload, or otherwise troubleshoot the video on Kaltura.
Advanced:
If there are more than two embedded videos on the page, combine them into a Kaltura playlist if it makes sense. Be sure the instructor approves before doing so.
Check with the instructor if a video appears to be loading but the video itself appears to have quality issues. With luck, the video can be edited and/or re-encoded to improve its quality. Otherwise re-recording may be the best option.
P6: Content is not organized in a logical way for students.
Advanced:
Addressing this issue should involve instructor coordination whether “Allow” is set for advanced features or not.
Ideally (with instructor permission), i mport the USU course template or set up template elements (such as a styled homepage with links to content) using Design Tools .
With permission, organize content into modules by topic or week or unit, using the syllabus as a reference as much as possible. Use pages where necessary to add more organization.
Move the syllabus to the Syllabus tool. If it is a file-based syllabus, ask about converting it to an HTML syllabus.
If content is provided in a running list, add headings to indicate breaks in the week, module or unit.
P7: Untidy. Extraneous items are visible to students
Advanced:
Run the Tidy Up tool (available as an inactive navigation item that can be activated in the course) to identify old files, assignments, and pages that aren’t being used. Verify with the instructor that you are safe to delete unused files or pages. To use TidyUp,
Go to the Canvas Content tab. Use your discretion, as guided by the instructor, to delete pages that are unpublished or lacking in content. Be careful about deleting pages that don’t appear in modules unless you are certain the page isn’t otherwise linked to.
Remove empty, unused, and inexplicable placeholder items. These may appear as text headers with no meaningful text, empty assignment groups, empty assignments and quizzes, etc.
Also be on the lookout for duplicate assignments or quizzes. These are sometimes created to deal with contingencies in prior semesters, but become unnecessary clutter later.
Hide unused items in the course navigation. Common items to check include Discussions, Conferences, Collaborations, and Chat. If students aren’t being directed to the Files link to access course material, check with the instructor about hiding it.
P8: Content that appears important and complete is unpublished.
Advanced:
Check with the instructor about what to do with content that looks complete and current but is unavailable to students by virtue of being unpublished or listed in unpublished modules.
C1: Outdated. Content (syllabus, due dates, tools, etc.) reflects a past semester.
Basic:
If content appears to be generally up-to-date, but you find an odd reference to a past semester or year in the syllabus or other instructional text, simply update it to the current semester/year.
Look in the files for a current syllabus and provide a link in the “Syllabus” section if there is a current syllabus in the “Files” section.
If assignment settings show current due dates, but you find some hard-coded dates in the course syllabus, pages, assignments, module titles, or other content that are past-dated, update the dates to match the assignment settings. With the instructor’s permission, you might also delete the dates.
Advanced: 
Check with the instructor if the new semester is close at hand or underway and assignment due dates have not been updated. Provide help, as needed, setting dates using the syllabus as your reference or working directly with the instructor. This can be done quickly using the option to “Edit Assignment Dates” under the three-dot menu at the top right of the Assignments page.
As due dates are updated in the settings, also check the text of the syllabus, assignment instructions, module titles, and overview pages for references to due dates that might be out of date. Update the references (or remove them) as needed and approved by the instructor.
You may also see text or special instructions in various places that seem specific to a past term. Check with the instructor about removing these.
C2: Grading methods and key student and teacher expectations are not posted.
Advanced:
The instructor should be asked, usually by the instructional designer, for additional information on grading procedures that can be listed in the course. Once these are provided, place them in the appropriate location--usually the syllabus.
C3: Assignments do not have detailed instructions on requirements and expectations.
Advanced:
This category typically applies to online courses, although it can provide benefit to other course types as well, especially blended. The instructor should be asked, usually by the instructional designer or a delegated advanced course editor, for additional instructions and requirements that can be listed in the course. Once these are provided, place them in the appropriate location--usually the assignment description and/or syllabus.
Often it is best to have abridged assignment descriptions in the syllabus, where students are looking to gain a broad overview of the class, and more detailed instructions in the assignment itself, where students are preparing to complete the assignment.
C4: Many weeks do not contain a homework assignment.
Advanced:
The instructor should be approached by the instructional designer or a delegated advanced course editor about providing additional checkpoints for performance feedback (aka homework). Once these are provided, place them in the appropriate location--usually as assignments that appear in a module and may also be linked to from a week or unit overview page.
C5: Content/activities/assessments/syllabus appear to be misaligned.
Advanced:
The instructor should be approached by the instructional designer about creating content, activities, and assessments that relate to each other rather than addressing different ideas or competencies. Once changes are provided, place them in the appropriate location. This could include new pages, assignments, quizzes, linked files, or modules. It may also involve importing content from another course and modifying it to match the design and delivery of the new course.
Projects: File Preparation and File Conversion
Issues with QA rubric criterium A1, addressing file accessibility, are addressed in the File Preparation project and the File Conversion project . Procedures for both are documented separately and can be found here:
A1: Readings and other files are inaccessible and not in HTML format.
In general, the steps completed in each project are as follows:
File Preparation Steps:
File Information: Gather information about a file (including finding a cleaner copy if needed) and create a citation in a shared Zotero database
File Conversion Steps
Canvas Page Conversion
Visit the File conversion board
Claim a file to work on: Start at the top and identify the first file that no one has claimed yet (or an easy option if you are new to the process) and do the following:
Add the HTML and images to a Canvas page that has been created for you in the Link to Canvas Page column of the spreadsheet.
Use the Canvas Accessibility Checker to make sure the content is accessible. Fix any mistakes.
First Review and corrections
Within a few days, an accessibility reviewer will review the Canvas page and either mark the Status column as "Done" or "Awaiting Correction".
For the “Awaiting Correction” status, take care of any issues identified. Get clarification and help from the reviewer as needed.
Projects: Captions and Accessible Images
Issues with rubric criteria A2 and A3 are addressed by the Captioning project and the Accessible Images project , respectively. The Captioning project is handled by a special team. Steps for marking the Accessible Images project are marked below.
A2: Videos are not captioned
The DRC has a dedicated captioning team to handle captioning requests, and their process won’t be described here. However, for course videos to be captioned, they should all be placed in Kaltura and listed in a media gallery. This is addressed in the Kaltura Transfer project .
A3: Images are used for instruction without descriptive text
Image accessibility is managed through the Accessible Images project . Procedures are documented separately and can be found here:
Before you start on this project, be sure to review the information at:
Basic:
(Detailed instructions available here )
Go to the Accessible Images project board
Open the Accessibility Report URL associated with the course (add "/external_tools/29768" to the end of the course URL). 
Click on the error, "The image does not have a description." This opens a list of images needing alt text.
A dialogue appears. Enter alt text that adequately describes the link or text. If it’s not an instructional image but is simply used for decoration, then click the button to indicate the image is decorative.
Once you are done, click Add.
Once you are done, click Add.
Advanced:
You may find many additional occurrences of images that aren’t necessarily applicable to the current course. Before you add alt text to any images that are not obviously used for current course instruction, run the TidyUp tool and filter for unused images or pages. Obtain the instructor’s permission to delete unused content.
Project: Kaltura Transfer
Issues identified with Operational Maintenance criteria O1 and O2 are addressed by the Kaltura Transfer project . Putting all course videos in Kaltura can mildly improve the students’ experience by adding consistency to the video playback experience. However, it’s primary purpose is to make the course video easier to caption, maintain, and gather analytics from. Instructor permission should be obtained to transfer videos.
Likewise, listing course videos in the media gallery can provide a one-stop location for students to view all videos. It’s also a necessary step in the captioning process or to place videos in playlists.
To complete the project for a given course:
O1: Videos need to be transferred to Kaltura.
Course videos will need to be transferred to Kaltura if the Transfer Videos status is marked “yes.”
Advanced:
If videos are hosted in YouTube:
Acting as the instructor, re-embed the video from My Media in the Canvas page using the Kaltura embed option in the Canvas rich text editor toolbar.
If videos are hosted in Canvas media:
First, check to see if the video files exist in the Canvas Files area. If they do, you can download them directly from there.
If the videos do not exist in the Canvas files area, you can download them using a browser extension. A decent option is Video Downloader Plus for Chrome.
Upload the video from your computer. Be sure to give the video a title based upon the video content and not necessarily the video filename.
Acting as the instructor, re-embed the video from My Media in the Canvas page using the Kaltura embed option in the Canvas rich text editor toolbar.
O2: Videos need to be listed in a media gallery (Important if captioning is needed).
Course videos will need to be added to a Kaltura Media Gallery if the + Media Gallery status is marked “Yes.”
Advanced:
Go to the course Settings > Navigation tab and activate the “Media Gallery” navigation item. Don’t forget to click Save.
Check the box next to the videos you wish to add to the gallery. Use the search option as necessary.
Project: Bonus Updates
Issues identified with Bonus criteria B1-B6 are addressed by the Bonus Updates project . All tasks associated with this project are advanced and require instructor permission and coordination, unless advanced permission has been given and is noted in the Faculty board . To complete the project for a given course:
Select a course in the list that hasn’t been claimed that you are confident you can complete in a timely manner.
Follow the general guidelines listed below for each criteria item, recognizing that Bonus Update tasks don’t generally come with a one-size-fits-all solution. Thoughtful consideration and coordination with the instructor will be important.
B1: Add a visually styled home page with clear navigation to syllabus and content.
Advanced:
A visually styled home page is usually a Canvas page, set as the front page, and used as the course home page. Usually, it will look like some permutation of the USU Online Template, built using Design Tools:
The quickest way to start the home page is as follows: 
Select the “Front Page” tab and click on one of the available themes. You can switch between themes to find one you or the teacher prefer.
Homepage elements that can vary from the template:
1-2 more navigation items, such as links to an e-text, Zoom meeting, or some other key component of the course.
The addition of a Modules list, contact list, instructor image, and minimal additional explanatory text with links.
Homepage elements that generally shouldn’t vary from the template:
The Modules List:
The Design Tools menu provides an advanced option to put the Modules List on the home page. This is a useful tool for students and is encouraged wherever possible. Please observe the following tips:
Keep the text short displayed on the module tabs short when using tabbed module displays. Use a colon character (:) for longer titles to keep anything that follows the colon from appearing. For example, if a module is titled “Week 1: A brief history of life, the universe, and everything,” only “Week 1” will appear in the Modules list.
Before adding a module list, consider the ability of the instructor to manage it. Module lists require manually refreshing when module changes occur, which can be difficult for some instructors to maintain.
B2: Add USU institutional policies to the syllabus.
Advanced:
You can add USU policies to an HTML-based syllabus via the following steps:
Click to add the syllabus policies relevant to the course OR click to add all syllabus policies as a single block.
If the syllabus isn’t HTML-based in the syllabus tool, see if you can convert it to be such. Otherwise (and sub-optimally), the policies will need to be added to the syllabus file.
B3: Add an introduction and/or orientation.
Advanced:
The instructor is typically responsible for most of the work in this task. A course introduction/orientation usually exists outside of the syllabus and contains
The best orientations will provide a mix of text and video, with the instructor appearing in the video and providing a walkthrough of the course content.
The USU online template has a page titled Start Here , which is meant for the course orientation. A link to Start Here appears on the template homepage. The full template has boilerplate text already included in the Start Here page, which you or the instructor can modify. However, if you are starting from scratch with a blank Start Here page, you can import boilerplate content using Design Tools. To do so:
Choose “Start Here” form the Institutional Templates dropdown menu. The boilerplate text will copy directly to the page.
Edit the text as needed, and then make sure there is a link to the page on the course home page and/or in the opening module of the course.
B4: Apply the USU template.
The full USU template includes:
A Start Here page with boilerplate text, linked to from the course home page (see item B3 for more about the Start Here page specifications)
A placeholder page titled How to be Successful in This Course , which can complement the Start Here page.
A module overview page with a styled title bar and styled headers for Objectives , Learning Resources , and Activities .
An unpublished module containing instructional examples for the typical module overview page, weekly discussion, assignment, and quiz.
Advanced:
To apply the USU template into an existing course:
Course content, schedules, teachers, and teaching methods vary, so use your best judgement about where to begin and what to add and modify. For example, depending on the type and amount of content, it might make more sense to either:
Mark the task as done once conversion is complete and you have checked for the following :
B5: Add course-level and module-level objectives.
Advanced:
A well-designed course should be able to state in the syllabus what the primary performance objectives of the course are. These are broad descriptions of what the students will be able to do after they have successfully completed the course. Similarly, more specific objectives should appear at the beginning of each module.
The following comes from a worksheet developed by Elisa Taylor:
A learning objective has three major components:
Sometimes, one or even two of these elements will be easily implied by a simple statement. Other times, however, it may be necessary to clearly specify in detail each element of the objective.
*Source: Writing Learning Objectives (1998) Raoul A. Arreola. https://www.uwo.ca/tsc/graduate_student_programs/pdf/LearningObjectivesArreola.pdf
Example:
Goal General outcome | Condition How they will be able to do it | Behavior What students will be able to do? | Criterion Degree of accuracy observed | IDEA objective alignment |
Understand the Main Rock Types | Given twenty minutes of instruction and a lab exercise, | identify igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks | with at least 80% accuracy | 1. Gain factual knowledge (classification) |
Write a Business Memo | Given word-processing software and a standard business scenario, | create a standard business memo | with correct spacing, margins, salutations, and grammar. | 4. Develop specific competencies needed by professionals |
Performance Verbs
Good learning objectives are performance focused and should therefore use performance-oriented verbs. It’s common to align these with Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive learning levels.
The table below can provide a good list of performance verbs to draw from, aligned with the cognitive levels of Bloom’s hierarchy:
Bloom’s Taxonomy Learning Objective Verbs
Cognitive Level | Definitions | Illustrative Verbs |
Knowledge | remembering previously learned information | arrange, define, describe, duplicate, identify, label, list, match, memorize, name, order, outline, recognize, relate, recall, repeat, reproduce, select, state |
Comprehension | grasping the meaning of information | classify, convert, defend, discuss, distinguish, estimate, explain, express, extend, generalize, give example(s), identify, indicate, infer, locate, paraphrase, predict, recognize, rewrite, report, restate, review, select, summarize, translate |
Application | applying knowledge to actual situations | apply, change, choose, compute, demonstrate, discover, dramatize, employ, illustrate, interpret, manipulate, modify, operate, practice, predict, prepare, produce, relate schedule, show, sketch, solve, use write |
Analysis | breaking down objects or ideas into simpler parts and seeing how the parts relate and are organized | analyze, appraise, breakdown, calculate, categorize, classify, compare, contrast, criticize, derive, diagram, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, examine, experiment, identify, illustrate, infer, interpret, model, outline, point out, question, relate, select, separate, subdivide, test |
Synthesis | rearranging component ideas into a new whole | arrange, assemble, categorize, collect, combine, comply, compose, construct, create, design, develop, devise, explain, formulate, generate, plan, prepare, propose, rearrange, reconstruct, relate, reorganize, revise, rewrite, set up, summarize, synthesize, tell, write |
Evaluation | making judgments based on internal evidence or external criteria | appraise, argue, assess, attach, choose, compare, conclude, contrast, defend, describe, discriminate, estimate, evaluate, explain, judge, justify, interpret, relate, predict, rate, select, summarize, support, value |
B6: Design a progression of low stakes (formative) to high stakes (summative) assessments.
Advanced:
This update must be done in close coordination with the instructor and instructional designer. Successfully implementing this update generally involves these steps:
Create activities and assessments for each module that specifically assess the module’s objectives at a low-stakes level. For objective quizzes, build in feedback. For teacher-graded assignments, build rubrics that make the provision of feedback easier.
Plan, map, and develop activities and assessments that are more comprehensive in scope and combine the objectives of multiple modules. These can be worth more points and may require more security if they are objective exams. Again, build in feedback and rubrics.
