Partners Frequently Asked Questions
Getting Started in Online Course Delivery
All TN eCampus faculty members are given clear direction and expectations on how they will communicate and interact with their students, how they will manage their courses and how they can provide quality instruction and service to students. Online faculty members tend to have more success when they exhibit the following behaviors:
- Encourage contact between students and faculty
- Develop reciprocity and cooperation among students
- Encourage active learning
- Give prompt feedback
- Emphasize time on task
- Communicate high expectations
- Respect diverse talents and ways of learning
Many faculty members work from home. Therefore, a computer and DSL or cable Internet connection is critical for accessing Desire2Learn, the Learning Management System. Faculty should possess the following knowledge/skill sets:
- Good PC skills
- Familiarity with e-mail since this is the most common means of communication with students
- Familiarity with Internet browsers
- A good understanding of bandwidth and dial-up connections. This will allow faculty members to understand limits on the amount of information (words, pictures, video and sound) that can be transmitted via the Internet and pulled down by students.
Teaching online requires the assistance and support of a number of people throughout the institution. Get to know them so they can help you with your project.
- Department Chair – Faculty should contact their department chair first. They will need to approve the course before it can be offered online.
- Division Dean – The division dean will also have to provide approval for the course.
- Office of Distance Learning – The distance learning staff will need to know that you are planning on going “online” in order to coordinate account and course information, to support you in your endeavor and to market your course through the publications of the college.
Training is required for all new faculty members. Faculty must complete orientation training designed to prepare instructors for teaching in an online learning environment and to use the various tools available in the web-based Learning Management System (LMS). This training must be successfully completed prior to the beginning of the semester in which the instructor will begin teaching.
Faculty members will be enrolled in training after their campus leadership submits their registration information. Questions about faculty training can be emailed to tnecampus@tbr.edu.
Teaching TN eCampus Courses
Seek out one of these professionals:
- Your Faculty Mentor
- Your institution’s TN eCampus Contact
- The department head of the subject you are teaching
- Your distance education dean
All of these individuals can answer questions about assignment and compensation at your institution.
Ask your Faculty Mentor or become familiar with the information on this website.
- Ask your Faculty Mentor
- Email: tnecampus@tbr.edu
- Ask your Faculty Mentor
- Email: tnecampus@tbr.edu
Your mentor is your first point of contact for all issues. If your mentor doesn’t know, he/she will find out or connect you with someone who knows! Your mentor can help you find answers to questions about:
- TN eCampus program policies
- Login issues
- Personalizing your section
- Student issues (difficult students, etc.)
- D2L tools
- Pedagogy of online teaching and learning
- Training sessions
- Maintain profile (keep your personal contact information current)
- Faculty login (see your students’ home institutions , external contact information, withdrawal status)
- Faux student account (allows you to enter your course as a student)
- Course content
- Course policies
- Course developer issues (cloning, dates, access, etc.)
Locate your TN eCampus Student Liaison. Your Student Liaison is your point of contact for most administrative issues. Your Student Liaison can assist you with:
- Instructor contracts and payments
- Section assignments
- Incompletes, transcripts and grade changes
- Exam proctoring
- Other student administrative issues
- Serious student issues (misconduct, plagiarism, threats, etc.) that you cannot resolve
Contact the publisher’s website for a desk copy. If you are not sure how to acquire your textbooks, start with your Mentor.
Students obtain textbooks from the TN eCampus Bookstore. If you are trying to resolve a bookstore issue for a student, contact the TN eCampus bookstore.
Students can select the NetTutor link located under Bookmarks within the Learning Management System.
Visit the Student Services section of this website.
- Ask your Faculty Mentor
- Send an email to tnecampus-support@D2L.com
Follow your institution’s policy for submitting a grade change form when acquiring signatures. Please note that the deadline depends upon the student’s home school rather than the delivery institution. To change a student’s grade, follow the instructions and submit the form found on this page.
Students and instructors should do their best to resolve any difficulties one-on-one. The procedures below apply only if the instructor and student have not been able to reach a resolution.
If an instructor has a complaint regarding a student, the instructor should contact the student for resolution by email. If the problem persists, the instructor should contact his/her home TN eCampus Contact in writing via email. The instructor’s Campus Contact will notify the Campus Contact at the student’s home institution.
If a student has a complaint regarding an instructor, the student should contact the instructor for resolution by email. If the problem persists, the student should contact his/her home TN eCampus Contact in writing via email. The student’s Campus Contact will notify the Campus Contact at the instructor’s home institution.
Course Development Process
TN eCampus works from a Master Course model in which a single course is developed and then taught by multiple instructors from multiple institutions. A course is approved for development by a Curriculum Committee, developed by a subject matter expert, and sent through a Quality Review process for final approval. Once approved, the developed course becomes the Master Course Copy of that specific course. The Master Course Copy is never taught from, nor does it ever have students enrolled into it. It is used simply as an original version of the course which is kept updated as the most recent and relevant copy of the course.
TN eCampus is continuously adding new courses to its inventory of online offerings. Any proposed course must already be an approved course in one of the Tennessee Board of Regents institutions. Proposals are not accepted for courses which have not gone through a local institution’s curriculum committee and approval process. Additionally, courses which have prerequisites will not be approved unless the prerequisite courses are already in the TN eCampus course inventory. When a course is proposed, it is assumed that the program which that course falls into is already an approved program.
Yes. A course proposal must be completed and submitted for each course development. The proposal provides information to the Curriculum Committee which assists them in making decisions regarding your course. Each proposal is reviewed by an appropriate subcommittee of the Curriculum Committee and is then submitted to the full committee for review. The subcommittee or the full committee can return the proposal to you if either has questions or concerns about any part of your proposal.
In order to consider a proposal received, you must:
- Submit the completed proposal with all necessary campus signatures
- Submit a current resume/vita
- Submit a one-page example of what you think a representative module within the course will look like. Example must follow the TN eCampus Sample module format, and list the types of files, content, assessments, etc.
Proposals which are submitted with incomplete information will be returned to the sender. To submit a proposal, use the Course Development Proposal Form (downloadable Word document).
You should answer “yes” to all of the questions below when deciding whether or not to build an online course. If you answer “No” to any of the questions, contact a campus faculty trainer to determine steps you need to take.
- Do I have a computer (preferably a PC) in my office that is at least a Pentium III with a minimum of 64 MB of RAM?
- Am I familiar with basic PC skills (file structure, copying, moving files, keyboard and mouse functions, screen and windows features, etc.)?
- Can I create and manipulate documents (formatting, copying, pasting, attaching and retrieving them)?
- Am I willing to learn new software applications needed to teach on the Web?
- Have I taken an online course?
- Have I looked at online courses of other faculty teaching at the college?
- Am I prepared to invest the effort and time needed to deliver a course online?
- Will using this technology help me reach the students I teach more effectively?
- Updating the course prior to the beginning of each semester to make sure that it is ready to be cloned for sections taught during a specific semester.
- Make continual modifications and improvements to the course through a collaborative process with faculty members who are actually teaching the course and suggestions from students who have taken/are taking the course.
- Continually look for additional content and resources which might be added to the course to further enrich students’ learning experiences.
It may take up to a semester to build a new online course, but course redevelopment may be completed in as little as 8 weeks.
There are numerous considerations that need to taken into account before you begin your course development. These are typically design-related issues that may not relate directly to course content, but can create troublesome issues within an online course if they are not considered during the development of your course.
- Fonts
- Modules
- Consistency of Naming Schemes
- Instructions
- Assessments
- Due Dates
- Grades
- Images
- File Formats
A Quality Review takes place on two different occasions. Initially, your course is reviewed approximately 30-45 days after you begin development. This first review looks at your initial development to make sure you’re on the right path. Your Homepage, Getting Started module and your first module of course content are reviewed to determine if any adjustments are needed early in development process. This review eliminates the need for repetitious rework in future modules.
After you have completed your development, the Quality Review committee looks at the entire course one more time and uses a tool to review it against accepted program standard, guidelines and practices. You receive formal communication concerning any modifications needed prior to formal course approval and acceptance.
Once the development process is completed for a course and the course has passed the Quality Review process, the course is placed into course inventory and is offered through the campus registration systems. Continuing responsibilities for course developers include:
- Updating the course prior to the beginning of each semester to make sure that it is ready to be cloned for sections taught during a specific semester.
- Make continual modifications and improvements to the course through a collaborative process with faculty members who are actually teaching the course and suggestions from students who have taken/are taking the course.
- Continually look for additional content and resources which might be added to the course to further enrich students’ learning experiences.
The TN eCampus course developer training is fully online and is called the Course Developer Program (CDP). The CDP provides direct learning support, instruction and resources, as well as an incremental course development process to keep faculty developers on track and on time with their course development or redevelopment projects.
With the CDP, TN eCampus embraces the performance support model of professional development. This approach has been shown to be more effective in providing the just-in-time support that our elearning professionals need day-to-day in a fast-paced and dynamic teaching and learning environment.
The CDP provides a holistic approach to performance support for course developers and includes:
An asynchronous, fully-online course, focused on the course development process. The course will coincide with the commencement of work on the course development or redevelopment project. This will provide additional support for course developers while they work.
Access to an online community of practice that provides networking, camaraderie, peer learning and support, and a centralized communication hub for TN eCampus and TBR elearning professionals
Student Liaison Resources
Student Liaison Guide and Quick Reference Guide
Partner Portal Tutorial
D2L Audit User Tutorial
- When and how is student attendance reported to the student’s home campus? Student Participation is reported during the first 14 days of class. Students are expected to complete the Student Participation Survey, which is in their course in D2L Brightspace during that 14-day period. The 14th day is the official census date for federal financial aid rules.
- Does attendance reporting occur after the 14-day period? Traditionally, attendance has been reported on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the first two weeks of each term length starting the Wednesday after classes begin. There are also reports for the 50% and 60% census for each term length. Beginning Summer 2026, attendance will be reported daily for the first 14 days, plus 50% and 60%. Attendance is not reported on holidays or weekends.
- What if the student’s home campus starts later than TN eCampus? Attendance reporting adheres to the TN eCampus Academic Calendar instead of individual campus calendars.
- Why is there a delay between Student Participation Survey reporting and student completion of the survey? Extent of delay? There could be a small delay in reporting when a student completes the survey during the evening, but the reports are not updated until the following morning. If the following morning falls on a weekend or holiday, it will be updated on the next working day.
- What happens when students don’t complete the survey on time? Depending on the home campus, students may be purged from the class or possibly lose their financial aid or Promise funding.
- Sometimes reporting is delayed resulting in students being purged or other problems. What steps need to be taken to resolve those problems? Is there anything TNeC can do to help? If reported by the student’s home campus Student Liaison and student has not been purged yet, the Student Liaison can use the portal to determine the Last Date of Attendance and/or the D2L Audit User feature to impersonate the student to view the student’s Class Progress for a specific date of last graded activity. If the student reports an attendance issue directly to TN eCampus, then TN eCampus will review the student’s course for last graded activity and share with the student’s home campus Student Liaison.
- How does the Student Engagement column in the gradebook work? Instructors can report student engagement through their course Gradebook by marking the student as engaged or not engaged. Attendance reports based on the Student Engagement column and faculty reporting are not currently being sent to the campuses. However, a separate report is being considered for the summer. More updates to come.
- What is required to meet federal financial aid rules? Simply logging into an online class is not sufficient. Engagement includes submitting academic assignments, taking quizzes, participating in study groups, or attending required academic meetings.
Grade Change Process
- Why are grade changes needed? If the reported final grade for a student in a class is different from the actual final grade they should have received, a grade change is warranted. If a student is assigned an “I” incomplete for a final grade, a grade change is needed to convert it to a final A-F letter grade. If final grades were not submitted on time for any reason, a grade change is needed for any student without a submitted final grade.
- What is the process for a grade change? Who is responsible for the process? Grade changes must be initiated by the instructor by completing the Grade Change Form posted on the TNeC website. Instructors should fill out the top part of the form with as much detail as they know. Once the top section of the Grade Change Form is completed, the instructor needs to send it to the instructor’s home campus Student Liaison for signature. The instructor’s home campus Student Liaison will send the signed Grade Change Form to the student’s home campus Student Liaison. The student’s home campus Student Liaison will obtain the remaining signatures for their campus and send to their campus Records Office for the final grade to be updated.
Grade Appeals Process
(from TN eCampus website):
- How is a grade appeal initiated? Students wishing to appeal a grade must contact their professor to verify that the grade awarded agrees with the grade on the transcript. If the student wishes to appeal their final awarded grade, concerns must be submitted in writing via email to their home campus Student Liaison. The Student Liaison from the “home campus” and the delivery campus will be involved in notifying and communicating with campus administrators to obtain a decision. The student has the right to appeal the decision following the Student Rights and Appeal Process at the “home campus.” The “home campus” is responsible for the final grade appeal decision.
Communication across institutions typically occurs among Student Liaisons and faculty at other campuses when a student and/or faculty member is at a different institution than the originator of the communication.
A few common scenarios and their workflows are provided below:
Scenario 1: Student reports a problem with an instructor who is not at their home campus.
Student reports the issue to their home campus Student Liaison or TN eCampus. Student Liaison and/or TN eCampus reach out to the instructor regarding the issue and copies the instructor’s Student Liaison.
Scenario 2: Student is having an issue with their engagement or attendance reporting.
Student reports the issue to their home campus Student Liaison or TN eCampus. The Student Liaison reaches out to TN eCampus for verification of attendance (reminder: the portal and the D2L audit user feature can help with this if the student is still enrolled in the class). TN eCampus may need to reach out to the instructor for verification of the student’s attendance if the course uses a 3rd party homework platform such as Pearson MyLabs or MGH Connect. The instructor’s Student Liaison or Distance Ed Director are not typically included in these communications unless the dispute is not resolved.
Scenario 3: Instructor reports a student for academic integrity/honesty issues related to AI usage.
Instructor notifies TN eCampus of a student’s possible violation of the academic integrity/honesty policy (see Academic Honest and Integrity Policy for full description).
According to the policy, “Students guilty of academic misconduct, either directly or indirectly through participation or assistance, are subject to disciplinary action through the regular procedures of the student’s home institution. In addition to other possible disciplinary sanctions that may be imposed, the instructor has the authority to assign an “F” or zero for an activity or to assign an “F” for the course.”
Therefore, TN eCampus will notify the student’s home campus Student Liaison of the situation and copy the instructor. The Student Liaison mediates the issue for resolution, if needed (e.g., instructor has yet to determine a consequence for the violation). The student’s home campus Student Liaison will report the violation as appropriate per their campus’s academic honesty policy.
Scenario 4: Student Liaison has questions about a specific course or getting permission for a student to register late for a class.
If the Student Liaison is requesting a late add for their student to a class from an instructor at another campus or has general questions about a class on behalf of their student (e.g., testing or lab requirements), the Student Liaison contacts the instructor directly.
If the Student Liaison has questions about the course or syllabus before an instructor has been assigned, i.e. before the semester starts, the Student Liaison should contact TN eCampus directly for assistance.
Scenario 5: Instructor is reported by student as not responding or engaging with the class.
Students may report this to their home campus Student Liaison and/or TN eCampus. The Student Liaison and/or TN eCampus will reach out to the instructor with the concern and copy the instructor’s Student Liaison.
Scenario 6: Instructor has submitted an Early Alert about a student.
Instructors submit Early Alerts for students using the Early Alert form linked on the instructor’s D2L course homepage. Upon submission, the Early Alert comes to the TN eCampus staff for processing. TN eCampus copies the student’s home campus Student Liaison on the Early Alert. The instructor will also receive a copy for their records. The Student Liaison can reach out to the student to offer any support or resources that may be helpful.