Skip to Main Content

Instructor Guide: Micro-Courses

Guidance for instructors teaching in the Open Source Technology Management program

Final Evaluation

OSTM program staff send surveys to students at the end of each course to collect final feedback. These surveys are sent directly to the students' Brandeis email addresses at the end of Week 5, they are not routed through LATTE. In your final meeting, please encourage students to complete the survey when they receive it.

To protect student anonymity, instructors do not have access to the raw data. OSTM staff will aggregate and anonymize the data into a report. You will have access to this report.

Course Completion Verification

End of Week 5

Students must complete the micro-course in order to be eligible for badges, graduate credit, and/or the certificate. Some employers require proof of completion to provide learning credits or to refund the cost of the course. Standards for completion also add value and legitimacy to each credential as the bearer will have met our standards. 

OSTM micro-courses have two elements that lead to completion:

  1. Completion of all four knowledge checks, including the instructor's score of the final question.
  2. Manual confirmation by the instructor for each student at the end of Week 5.

The combination of the Knowledge Checks, your manual confirmation, and the date will push a Verification of Course Completion to each student. This verification is required for students to be eligible for badges, graduate credit, and/or the certificate. Verifications will be pushed to students' Brandeis emails as early as, but not before, the Friday of Week 5.

IMPORTANT Students aren't required to pursue course completion verification. While you should encourage them to participate and complete the assignments for their own learning benefit, it's ultimately their choice. However, a student cannot change their mind after the course ends.

Students may complete the Knowledge Checks at any point during the four weeks so they may have submitted after your first round of grading. Students aren't required to pursue course completion verification. If they haven't completed the Knowledge Checks, that's okay!

Return to each weekly quiz to see if you have any still ungraded. Quickly open each quiz by hamburger > Grades > click the title of each KC (recommend opening in new tabs so you don't have to go back)

I'd recommend sending a message to the students reminding them that they need to complete the KCs if they want to earn a badge or the Certificate. I'd also recommend setting a due date for them so you don't have to keep checking in. They don't have to pursue either, of course, which is fine, but they can't really change their mind after this week.

Quizzes do not accept responses after midnight Saturday Week 5

The last thing for you to do in each course as the instructor is to do a final review of student participation then manually confirm that students have completed the course.

  1. In the upper right corner of the main course page, click the Actions menu  icon to expand the menu then  More...
  2. Click the Reports tab then the Course completion link
  3. This page will display a table with each enrolled student sorted alphabetically by surname and their Course Completion Status. Here is a breakdown of each remaining column of the table: 
    1. Activities: Knowledge Checks: If you have graded a student's quiz, it will display as a checked box. An unchecked box indicates either an incomplete or an ungraded quiz.
    2. Date: This is the earliest date that a Completion Verification could be sent to student emails. It does not affect your ability or timing to confirm Course Completion.
    3. Approval: Instructor : You will use this column to confirm each students' completion. See instructions in Step 4 below.
    4. Course complete : Displays the overall course completion status for each student. This is automatically calculated by LATTE based on the above criteria.
  4. Consider the following for each student: Did they participate in the course through the chat, team assignments, and/or weekly meetings? 
    1. Students aren't required to attend each of the the weekly meetings since as working adults they may have conflicting commitments. If a student has missed some/all of the meetings but is still participating in the team assignments and the course chat, that qualifies as participation.
    2. If you have concerns about a student's participation, please contact Ken and Andie before moving forward with this process as verification cannot be undone.
  5. For each student who you answered 'yes' for in Step 4, click the box in the Instructor column. The screen will refresh and the box will appear as a checked box .
    1. There may be a lag before the page refreshes - only click the box once per student!
    2. Misclicks can only be undone within the first minute. If realized later, message Ashley who will wipe all checks from all students. You will then need to re-verify each student.

The combination of the Knowledge Checks, your manual confirmation, and the date will push a Verification of Course Completion to each student. This verification is required for students to be eligible for badges, graduate credit, and/or the certificate.

Faculty Review

Ken and Brittany may reach out to you after each course to have an open discussion about your course, including your teaching and the student evaluation feedback. This is a great opportunity for you to discuss anything on your mind about the course as well.