Image

ATLAS and our partners at CITL provide support to instructors who develop and teach LAS Online-certified courses. Such support typically includes assistance with course development, maintenance and updating of course material, and course delivery. 

Intellectual Property Rights in Course Development

The Office of the Provost has provided guidance on the ownership and use of intellectual property rights related to course development. This guidance aligns with the General Rules governing intellectual property within our institution.

In the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS), ATLAS and CITL collaborate to support faculty in developing LAS Online-certified courses. Typically, ATLAS issues Service in Excess (SIE) agreements, while CITL offers project management, instructional design, and compliance services. It's important to note that when faculty receive university resources - whether monetary or through consultation, instructional design services, or the use of university-funded technical resources - the General Rules apply. These rules specify that course materials developed with such support are jointly licensed to the University of Illinois system, including this campus. 

While faculty retain intellectual property rights over the course materials they create and can continue to use them even if they leave the university, the university retains the right to reuse these materials.

ATLAS can provide the following assistance during course development:

Review of courses to ensure compliance with legal and course requirements

To attain certified status, courses should comply with legal requirements (accessibility, copyright, and FERPA), College of LAS policies (student identity verification and scheduling frequency), and standards on online pedagogy, media, copyright, accessibility, and content quality.

Stipends for new fully online course development and for updating existing courses

The monetary support that LAS provides for the development of online courses is for the effort that goes above and beyond what would normally be involved with creating instructional content for an undergraduate course. Examples include

• making accessible instructional videos (e.g., by adding transcripts to them) with high-quality audio;
• producing videos in one of CITL's recording studios;
• making engaging content (e.g., in-video questions, multimodal assessments, optional synchronous sessions);
• creating automatically graded assessments (e.g., quizzes in an LMS such as Canvas or Moodle); and
• making all necessary changes to the syllabus and instructional digital content to be compliant with LAS Online standards on accessibility, copyright, college policies, and quality.

When you fill out our Request for Online Course Development form, you will be asked to provide an estimate of the number of hours the project will entail. The hourly rate is $50, and we typically cap the amount at $2.5K per credit hour (e.g., the maximum pay for a 3-credit-hour course would be $7.5K). The agreed-upon amount is payable to the course developer after we certify the course. In consultation with LAS Leadership, ATLAS changed the per-credit-hour cap from $2K to $2.5K on February 22, 2023.

Assistance with maintenance and updating of course site

ATLAS and CITL can help instructors prepare certified courses for instructional delivery. Please note that this service, known as term prep, is a courtesy; the responsibility for preparing and delivering courses ultimately lies with instructors.

Support during course delivery

• Training in educational technologies such as Canvas, Moodle, and Zoom in workshops or one-on-one consultations.
• Guidance on how to use technology to proctor online exams and verify student identity.
• Help administer the Illinois Online Course Survey (also known as the End-of-Semester Survey), which provides instructors with important feedback from students.
• Finding and implementing solutions to improve teaching and learning.