In a university known for its online degree program, there is no avoiding coming across an Ecampus class on the class scheduler when figuring out what to take winter term. 

Over 1,800 classes are taught via Ecampus across 115 subjects, and many, such as WSE 392 “Bamboolooza: the Fascinating World of Bamboo,” are Ecampus exclusives. 

With over 20 years of experience, Oregon State University has devised a robust online class development program. 

Developing an Ecampus course is a two-term-long process, according to Shannon Riggs, associate vice provost for Ecampus. 

Faculty are assigned an Ecampus instructional designer to aid in the process, and the faculty themselves go through extensive training on online teaching.

“We design it in such a way that there is going to be regular interaction between the student and the content, where there is active learning involved,” Riggs said. 

Ecampus uses research-based online teaching principles that guide instruction for a variety of disciples and levels. Last month, the teaching principles were endorsed by Quality Matters, a nonprofit leader in online university course development.

The instructional designer works with the faculty member around not only the course content and its associated activities, but also around the assessments used to ensure learning outcomes are met. 

Instructional designers then work with faculty to include multimedia elements and other components that bring the course content to life, such as online lectures, videography, custom-programmed interactive elements or animated videos. 

All of this occurs before the class begins.

“We create the entire design up front, before the course starts, so that the faculty can focus on actually interacting with and delivering the material to students during the term,” said Karen Watté, director of course development and training. 

Heavy pre-planning is necessary in an Ecampus class because it’s run asynchronously — “it’s a lot more than just putting your content in a Canvas shell,” Riggs said.

In a typical university class where everyone is together at one time and in the same place, interaction is easy — professors can direct students on how to interact with each other and the content, everyone can ask questions.

But in an Ecampus class, a student could “attend” class at any hour on the clock. 

“People are coming and going in and out of the course, literally around the clock, 24/7,” Riggs said.

While there is heavy involvement with the instructional designer in creating the class, variation in how it’s taught occurs.  

“It’s also customized,” Watté said. “We create a custom course with each faculty member, because each one has their own area of expertise, and we want to make sure that their passion and their knowledge is actually portrayed in the course.”

Scott Heppell, a professor in fisheries and wildlife at OSU, has taught courses via Ecampus since the early 2000s.

On a top shelf in his office sits a box of old VHS tapes of recorded lectures for a salmon management class. Back in the early days of Ecampus, the lectures were mailed to students.

Around 15 years ago when Ecampus began pushing for an online degree program for fisheries and wildlife, there was a lot of resistance in the department — “a lot of them felt that we couldn’t deliver the same quality of education that we were delivering on campus,” Heppell said. 

Many felt the experiential and interactive part of a science-based degree program would be lost to the computer screen.

“There was that original culture, almost of skepticism,” Heppell said. “Effectively, of ‘We’re not going to do this unless we can do it well. Let’s figure out how to do it well.’”

In figuring out how to do it well, Heppell said they realized they were limited much more by the faculty’s creativity than by a reduction in the quality of the content in an online setting. 

“We can create learning opportunities that are really good in virtual space, if we have the creativity to do it, and then, of course, the time,” Heppell said. “But that’s where Ecampus also has been.”

Ecampus has helped develop three-dimensional scanners for biology labs, created virtual microscopes and, for Heppell’s FW 324 “Food from the Sea” honors section, created animations to demonstrate how different types of fishing gear work.   

Academic disciplines have different cultures on how they teach, Heppell said. In STEM disciplines like Heppell’s, the focus is more experiential, such as through labs, and lecture-heavy.  

Many Ecampus classes in the College of Liberal Arts, such as HST 481 “Environmental History of the United States,” lack the recorded lecture videos one finds in Heppell’s FW 324. 

Instead, the classes are largely taught via readings, and the students apply what they learned primarily through discussion boards and papers.

Linda Marie Richards, a senior instructor of history, also began teaching Ecampus classes in the early 2000s. At first, she was apprehensive about teaching online, but has since grown to love it.

“It wasn’t long before I realized, like, ‘Oh, wait, I have real students I can work with,’” Richards said.

Richard’s Ecampus HST 481 class is reading- and writing-based. To ensure interaction with students isn’t lost, she engages with them through providing extensive feedback on discussion board posts and papers.  

“I love to read other people’s writing, and I love to think like, ‘What could they do better?’ or, ‘What did this make me think about?’” Richards said. “I’m often just brainstorming with students, and because it’s so satisfying for me, I’m actually a very good candidate for online teaching.”

A few years ago, her HST 481 class was updated to include short introductory videos for each module. Previously, the class had been entirely text-based. She was provided a stipend incentive to do so. 

All Ecampus classes are periodically formally redesigned at least every three to five years, according to Riggs.

“Throughout the 20 plus years that we’ve been doing online education, we have shown just time and time again that we’re able to meet the same learning outcomes,” Riggs said, “and we’re also reaching students who otherwise would not be able to complete their education.”