Leveraging Smartsheet to Fast-Track the Instructional Design Process
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Presented Sept. 22, 2021, at the first annual HBCU Technology Conference presented by HP. Presentation Summary: What does Project Management have to do with Instructional Design? Albany State University has recently reinvigorated its instructional design program through the benefit of project management ... specifically through leveraging the power of Smartsheet. In this presentation, we will look at the project section of the instructional design life cycle, and how ASU's Distance Learning department has leveraged Smartsheet to simplify and streamline the process of initiating the process, tracking the timelines, and even leveraged dashboards to keep the administration in the loop!
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Leveraging Smartsheet to Fast-Track the Instructional Design Process
- 1. Leveraging Smartsheet To Fast-Track the Instructional Design Process Dr. Dorea M. Hardy Wednesday, September 22, 2021 2 PM – 3 PM EDT
- 2. Leveraging Smartsheet To Fast-Track the Instructional Design Process Dr. Dorea M. Hardy Wednesday, September 22, 2021 2 PM – 3 PM EDT
- 3. Agenda • Introduction • What is Smartsheet? • Instructional Design Life Cycle • Tracking Progress • Receiving Content & • Keeping Administration Updated • Q&A Distance Learning
- 4. About Me I am an Instructional Designer with Albany State University (full-time) and the eMajor Collaborative program (part-time). I have an Ed.D. in Adult & Career Education from VSU, an M.Ed. in Instructional Technology from VSU, and a B.S. in Political Science from Berry College. I have worked within the USG since 2001, with experience as a web designer/developer, face- to-face and online instructor, IT helpdesk, LMS Administrator (WebCT & D2L), instructional design, and project management, and I have taught several online classes in the USG. Distance Learning
- 5. About this Session Paperless System Request for Course Development Form Electronic Approval Process Track Progress & Receive Content Update Administration Distance Learning
- 6. What is Smartsheet? Distance Learning
- 7. Smartsheet in Higher Ed Distance Learning
- 8. Instructional Design Life Cycle Distance Learning Planning Content Development Course Review Post Implementation
- 9. Starting the Process: Part 1 Distance Learning Notification/Alert via Slack Email Content Developer Email Department Chair Email Academic Dean Notify ID to send Questionnaire
- 10. Starting the Process: Part 2 Distance Learning Faculty fills out Content Developer Questionnaire Email to Chair for Approval Email to Academic Dean for Approval
- 11. Starting the Process: Part 3 Distance Learning Faculty fills out Online Course Development Acknowledgement Email to Chair for Approval Email to Academic Dean for Approval
- 12. Setting things up • New Course Shell • Copy Master Design to New Course Shell • Create in Smartsheet • Course Dashboard • Content Submission Form • Course Map Forms • Course Timeline • Link Smartsheet items inside the New Course Shell Distance Learning
- 29. Keeping Administration Updated Updated Distance Learning bit.ly/ASU-CBEPS-DB
- 31. Interested in Smartsheet? • Contact: • Bruna O’Keefe Client Development Manager II bruna.okeefe@smartsheet.com • Request Information: • https://qrco.de/GetSmartsheetInfo Distance Learning
- 32. Contact Me Dr. Dorea Hardy • dorea.hardy@asurams.edu • (229) 500-2915 Connect with me on Social Media @ https://dmhardy.design/about/ Distance Learning
- 33. Presentation Links List • About Smartsheet: https://www.smartsheet.com/ • Request Info: https://qrco.de/GetSmartsheetInfo • Sample Timeline: https://bit.ly/ASUsampletimeline • Sample Dashboard: https://bit.ly/ASU-CBEPS-DB • Connect with me! https://dmhardy.design/about/ Distance Learning
Editor's Notes
- Hello and welcome!
- [Check to make sure everyone can hear] I am so excited to be here with you all today to talk about how we have leveraged Smartsheet to improve and fast-track our Instructional Design Process at Albany State University!
- This is the agenda for today's presentation. I'm going to briefly go over what Smartsheet is for people who may not have heard of this amazing software. Then I'll go over ASU's Instructional Design Life Cycle. Then how we use Smartsheet for Tracking Progress, Receiving Content, and Keeping our Administration Updated.
- A little bit about me... I've been in this particular role for a year, but I've been in Higher Education for 20 years now. I absolutely love this job, and my motto is "My job is to make your [instructors] job easier"
- ASU’s Distance Learning department has reinvigorated its instructional design program over the past year. Using project management and the power of Smartsheet, we have established a paperless system that allows: deans, chairs, or faculty to initiate a Request for Course Development receive all appropriate “signatures” for approval of the process Once the approval is received, the we set up a series of sheets, reports, and dashboards for the course that is being developed. These components allow the team to track the progress of the design project, receive content from the faculty, and keep administration updated on the progress.
- So, what exactly is Smartsheet? At ASU, we like to say that it's "Excel on Steroids." It's a product that was initially built for project management, but it has grown to be so much more than that. Smartsheet an absolutely amazing tool and it makes it very easy to collaborate within and across departments, as well as stop (or diminish) the siloed work.
- This slide shows some information about Smartsheet inside Higher Education. As you can see, there are many institutions that are utilizing the Smartsheet platform. And I am sure they are using it in ways that are beyond even my imagination.
- This is our basic, high-level design life cycle that we present to our faculty during each course design project kick-off meeting. In each of these phases, we are utilizing Smartsheet for some component of the process.
- So, this process gets started by someone initiation a course development request. Once the request is submitted, the system will run several automations as well as use formulas for the next several steps. First, it sends me a notification via Slack. Then it sends the Content Developer (a.k.a. the Faculty Member) an email asking them to accept or decline the request. When they accept, the formula will update the status to “Pending Chair Approval” and the automation will then kick in to send the Chair an email to approve or deny the request. Similarly, when the Chair approves the request, the formula updates the status to “Pending Academic Dean Approval” and the automation sends the Dean an email to approve or deny the request. Once the Dean’s approval is received, the system updates to let me know it is time to send the Content Developer a questionnaire. All of these approvals take the place of physical signatures, speeding up the process and reducing the amount of paper that has to be dealt with.
- Once I have sent off the Content Development Questionnaire, the Faculty member receives an email directing them to this form, which is an “Update Request” in Smartsheet. This form gathers information such as their training level and needs. Once the faculty member fills out the information, another approval request is sent to both their Department Chair and Academic Dean. Again, these approvals are in place of needing signatures from the Faculty member, Department Chairs, and Academic Deans.
- Once all the approvals are received from the Questionnaire, a final form is sent to the Faculty member – the Online Course Development Acknowledgement. This used to be the last “agreement” paperwork that faculty had to fill out and sign in order to get paid for the work they would be doing in developing an online course. As with the previous two items, once the Faculty member fills it out, it goes through a series of emails to receive approvals from the appropriate sources. Again, this is place of their signatures. We just converted three physical forms to electronic and eliminated issues such as the paperwork getting lost in the mail or on top of someone's desk! At this point, its Distance Learning’s turn to do some heavy lifting!
- At this point, the heavy lifting of setting things up falls to me and my team. Send a request a course shell to be created in our LMS to our LMS admin Copy our Master Design into the created shell Create all the Smartsheet forms & reports for the course being developed And Link them inside the development course
- So, I set up a template folder with several of the files needed for the development process. This way I can copy the folder, rename it according to the course I’m working with, and then edit each of the files accordingly.
- We have a template for the course dashboard. This gets updated with the Course Level Objectives, and the tallies of material submitted will be reported in the boxes below. This is to help the faculty see where they are in the process at a glance.
- A Course Content Submission form that faculty can use to submit their material. This is helpful because it means anyone in the instructional design team can help out if someone is out sick. Faculty won't be left waiting for their content to be placed in their development course.
- I also have a form that allows the faculty to document which learning objectives specific assignments or activities are tied to ...as well as which modules those are assignments are located. This is extremely helpful when the courses or programs are going through accreditation ... all the information is already documented for them!
- To make it easy on the faculty, so they aren’t remembering a bunch of links to forms – we embed the Smartsheet material inside the course being developed. We have a module called “Development Resources” where this information can be found and used.
- So let me show you how these map from Smartsheet.
- First is the Course Dashboard.
- Next is the Content Submission Form.
- The Course Map actually has two forms for the faculty. One requires them to enter grade information, the other form is for non-graded activities that they plan to include in the course.
- The other item on the list inside Development Resources is the Timeline document, which I will show you more about in a moment. If you are wondering about the two Smartsheet items with orange icons that aren't listed in the Development Resources ...Those are reports that help make everything else run correctly.
- The Gantt view in Smartsheet really helps us track the progress of a course going through development. This here is the template that we start with, and then edit the dates accordingly. If you are familiar with project management, you'll be familiar with predecessors and duration. Basically, if one task cannot start until the prior one is completed, then the prior one is the predecessor to the one that is waiting. The duration is simply how long we estimate the specific step to take. We edit these as we go, and over time, we will collect data to help us more accurately predict how long it takes to complete an entire course design. If you'd like to look at this in more detail, you can view this sheet using the QR code here, or the Bitly link.
- Faculty use the Course Content Submission form to submit content to the Instructional Design team.
- The sheet to the right displays how we view the content from the back end.
- The paperclip icon on the left allows us to access the files that the faculty submit.
- We use a Status column to let us know where we are in processing the individual row, and the "Processed By" column lets us know who is working on the specific information.
- We also use the Sheet Summary feature to give us information to be reported back on higher level reports.
- To keep the Provost and Academic Deans updated on where we stand in the development process on any given course, I set up dashboards for each of our Academic Colleges. Currently only the College of Business, Education & Professional Studies has developed any courses with us since we established this new process, but more will be on-boarding with us shortly. The dashboard also provides the Deans with two quick links to some of our forms. Just trying to keep it easy for them, so they don't have to have a lot of bookmarks to sort through. And yes, none of the courses have completed the process yet ... because our last phase of our cycle is to review the course after the first semester it's been offered to students - and this Fall semester was the first time for all of these courses to be offered. So, we'll be wrapping these courses up in December.