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Innovation in Online Design and Teaching

Call for nominations!

Innovative Education Presents:
Innovation in Online Design and Teaching Award

Deadline to submit application: Monday, February 24, 2025, 11:59 PM

Innovative Education is pleased to announce a call for nominations for the 3rd Annual Award for Innovation in Online Design and Teaching (IODT). This award recognizes innovative online teaching and significant contributions to the design of student-centered online courses.

The winner will receive $5,000, a commemorative plaque, and will be acknowledged at the ºÚÁÏÍø³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏFaculty Honors and Awards Reception. Additionally, each institution within the SUS will identify one outstanding faculty member each year to receive the SUS President’s Award. The Innovation in Online Design and Teaching Award recipient will also receive recognition as the USF’s President’s Award winner. Two finalists will also receive $1,000 each.

PURPOSE OF AWARD

The Innovation in Online Design and Teaching Award celebrates excellence in online education by recognizing innovative teaching practices and outstanding course design. By honoring excellence in both areas, candidates will need to demonstrate:

• Innovative online teaching practices that support the following:
  • Student engagement: Candidates will provide evidence of innovative strategies that foster active participation, meaningful interaction, and a sense of community, with clear explanations of their impact.
  • Student learning gains: Candidates will provide evidence of deep learning opportunities and showcase measurable student learning gains, with connections to their teaching practices.
  • Student satisfaction: Candidates will highlight student feedback as evidence of course impact and quality instruction, including how this feedback informed improvements to the course.
• Outstanding course design, demonstrating how the online course meets quality design standards, incorporates innovative technology, promotes accessibility and inclusivity, and promotes student-centered learning.

AWARD Eligibility

Candidates for the Innovation in Online Design and Teaching Award must be full-time continuing faculty, or instructors, on any ºÚÁÏÍø³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏcampus who have taught at least one fully online course and must be certified to teach online through any ºÚÁÏÍø³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏonline instructor certification program. Candidates are required to nominate one online course for consideration, which must have been developed within the past five academic years and has met quality design standards. Previous award winners and visiting faculty are not eligible.

Application

Candidates will self-nominate for the award by submitting all required materials. To ensure a complete submission, all materials—including the online teaching statement, annotated artifacts, and supporting documents—should be combined into a single PDF document. Course design can be demonstrated through annotated artifacts included in the PDF or through a video. If a video is submitted, it should be provided as a separate file alongside the PDF.

Submission Requirements 

1.      Online Teaching Statement 
A concise (1,000 words or less) statement outlining the candidate’s online teaching philosophy, approach to innovation, and how their practices support student engagement, satisfaction, and learning gains.

2.      Annotated Artifacts – Exemplary Online Teaching Practices
Submit evidence of teaching practices as annotated artifacts (screenshots or other materials) with brief descriptions explaining their significance to each focus area. Artifacts can be created in a Word document, PowerPoint, or similar format and combined in the PDF.

• • • Student Engagement: Examples may include student discussions with instructor prompts and responses, interactive activities, collaborative projects, and clear evidence of instructor presence. Other examples include live interactive opportunities, meaningful feedback, LMS engagement metrics, student-led activities, multimedia content, real-world problem-based tasks, social presence activities, student reflections, and engagement surveys.
    • Student Learning Gains: Examples may include pre- and post-assessment results, authentic and varied assessments, examples of student work, rubric-scored assignments, objective maps aligning activities and assessments with learning goals, testimonials or reflections from students about their learning progress, and LMS analytics that track improvement over time.
    • Student Satisfaction: Examples may include course evaluation summaries, student testimonials, and examples of feedback from surveys or reflections. Other evidence should include changes made in response to student feedback, along with examples of how these adjustments improved the course experience. Faculty can also highlight high retention and completion rates or metrics showing consistent participation.

3.    Annotated Artifacts or Video - Outstanding Course Design      

Submit evidence of course design as annotated artifacts (screenshots or other materials) with brief descriptions explaining their significance to course design or a video (five minutes or less) showcasing the course design.

• • • Course Design: Examples may include intuitive course navigation/layout, clear instructions for getting started, prominent and aligned learning outcomes, clear guidelines, policies and requirements for learners, descriptive criteria for assignments, a variety of engaging instructional materials, strong alignment between learning outcomes, assessments, and materials, use of varied technology and innovate assessment methods, multiple opportunities for learner support and interaction, and accessible course materials.

4.      Supporting Documents

• • • A letter of support from a student, chair, director, or faculty member that highlights the quality of your online instruction and excellence of the course. 
      Note: The letter of support cannot be provided by Innovative Education.
    • A digital copy of your Online Instructor Certification completed at USF.
    • A digital copy of your quality review.

Optional Submission materials

• Professional development activities or any other work related to online teaching and learning not adequately reflected in this application.

Guidance for creating and submitting a course design video may be downloaded .

Submission Guidelines

All application materials, including the online teaching statement, annotated artifacts, video (optional) and supporting documents, can be submitted using the form provided below. Please note that you will be asked to provide sharable Box link(s) to your PDF and other files.

The Innovation in Online Design and Teaching Evaluation Rubric may be downloaded .

Selection Process & Timeline

Applications are to be submitted by the candidate no later than Monday, February 24th, 2025, at 11:59 PM. For questions, please contact Christie Nicholas, Director of Learning Design & Research at cwnicholas@usf.edu.  

Applications will initially be reviewed by the Learning Design committee, comprised of Learning Designers representing all three ºÚÁÏÍø³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏcampuses of Innovative Education. The committee will recommend five finalists to the Faculty Selection Committee, comprised of CTIR faculty and previous year’s awardees and finalists. No member of the Committee may also be an applicant. The Faculty Selection Committee will determine the two finalists and the winner.

1.      Candidates will submit their online application by February 24, 2025, 11:59 PM.

2.      The Learning Design committee will review the submission materials and identify five faculty finalists to submit to the Faculty Selection committee by March 24th.

3.      The Faculty Selection committee will select the top two finalists and a winner by April 11th.

4.      The top two finalists and the winner will be awarded stipends, and the winner be recognized at the Faculty Honors and Awards Reception next year. The winner will also have the opportunity to create a professional, commercial-style video of their online course with Innovative Education.