Dear Colleagues,

As I stated in my message to you last week, I am proud of the resilience and collaboration demonstrated by our entire faculty in making the transition to virtual course delivery mid-semester to support continuous learning for our students.

The next step before us is to begin preparing for a fully online summer term. Without question, the task of developing complete and high-quality online courses demands additional effort above and beyond what already has been accomplished. Currently, UTSA has approximately 665 courses scheduled for the summer term, and 225 were already built and set to be delivered in the online modality. Furthermore, roughly 20 courses were identified earlier this year for specific, dedicated financial support to be built and delivered this summer. For the remaining courses, and any new ones for summer 2020, Academic Affairs will offer $1,000 to support instructional faculty in building their course(s) in an online format for the summer term. We have an institutional commitment to provide our students with an effective, engaging, high-quality academic experience — no matter the format — and we are so pleased to be able to reward your dedicated work in support of that commitment.

To fully qualify for this one-time compensation, the faculty member must:

Offer their summer term course(s) in an asynchronous modality
Commit to offering the online course for two more iterations in future terms
Complete the Quality Matters Training: Applying the Quality Matter Rubric course and Self-assessment Review.

This asynchronous, online training is designed specifically for higher education and focuses on applying the QM Rubric to the design and improvement of online and blended courses. It is a two-week course and requires a time commitment of 8–10 hours per week. There will be no cost to faculty to participate; UTSA will cover all Quality Matters course fees. More information on how to access the Quality Matters training and self-assessment review will be forthcoming from UTSA’s Office of Digital Learning and your college points of contact.

Faculty who fulfill these criteria will receive the $1,000 award at the end of the summer term.

The QM Training will be supplemental to the Remote Teaching Resources already being offered through Academic Innovation, which include weekly webinars and Q&A sessions, and one-on-on consultations. More resources are in development, too, including a Remote Teaching Checklist to guide faculty in the course design process. Stay tuned for more details.

As always, I thank you for your continued efforts and support of the success of our students. In particular, I thank the college points of contact and departmental faculty champions for their ongoing collaboration to identify the best strategies to help their colleagues in moving their courses online.

With warm regards,