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It's important to understand how a course is approved for DE offering at MiraCosta, and how to review the Course Outline of Record to ensure development of a course section (especially a DE course section) complies with curriculum specifications for that course. This page also includes a note about DE programs from the curricular perspective.

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Curriculum Approval for DE Classes
Reviewing the Course Outline of Record (COR)
A Note about DE Programs

Curriculum Approval for DE Classes

California Title 5 regulation (§ 55202 and § 55206) specifies a curriculum approval process that enables California Community College courses to be taught via distance education. At MiraCosta, a department must provide an addendum ("Form A") to the Course Outline of Record which affirms the ability to teach the course in compliance with DE requirements, and provides any specifications the department wishes to make if it is restricting DE offering to hybrid only.

If you would like to learn more about curriculum approval in general at MiraCosta, look for the current CPC Handbook on the home page of the Courses and Programs Committee and jump to the section on distance education.

In short: at MiraCosta, in order for a course to be offered as 100% online or hybrid, a department must affirm through the curriculum process (submission of Form A) that the course, when offered via DE, will be taught in accordance with the essential elements required for DE at MiraCosta by AP 4105:

Same standards of course quality for in-person and DE course sections
Instructor preparation to teach DE
Regular and substantive interaction
Academic integrity, attendance tracking, and progress monitoring
Established expectations for frequency & timeliness of instructor-initiated interaction and feedback
Compliance with accessibility regulations
Upholding procedures to authenticate students
Making students aware of online support services
Monitoring students' engagement and initiating interaction as needed.

Further, a department may, through the curriculum process, specify that a course with DE approval may be taught as a hybrid, but not 100% online, and may specify which elements of the course may only be conducted in person (proctored exams and laboratory exercises are two common examples).

When a department submits Form A (MiraCosta's DE addendum) through the curriculum process, the standard review and approval sequence culminating with the Courses & Programs Committee is required prior to the course being offered in a DE format.

Reviewing the Course Outline of Record (COR)

When a faculty member at MiraCosta is interested in teaching an online or hybrid class for the first time, it's vital to review the Course Outline of Record to:

ensure that the class is approved for Distance Education offering
see if Form A (the DE addendum) has any hybrid-only specifications
see if Form A includes a requirement for regular and substantive student-student interaction
and, as with teaching any course for the first time, to review the content outline, outcomes, sample assessments and activities, course texts, and other key information included in the COR.

To access a MiraCosta COR, you can use the Public Access Course Outlines search tool.

Select Course from the Type drop-down at upper right
Select Current from Status drop-down at far right
Either enter the subject and course number in the search field, or select the subject from the Subject drop-down menu
Click Search
Find the course of interest in the search result
Click Public Course Outline from the Reports drop-down at far right

The Form A details may not be visible on the Public Course Outline. If that's the case, please check with your department chair about any particular requirements that may be included in the DE addendum for your course.

For further background on the COR, please see the Academic Senate for the California Community College's publication, The Course Outline of Record: A Curriculum Reference Guide.

A Note about DE Programs

Curricular approval is not required at MiraCosta for a degree or certificate program to be offered via distance education. However, MiraCosta's Office of Instruction tracks how curricular approval of DE courses affects programs. Once half or more of the courses required for program completion are approved for DE offering, the program is considered for accreditation purposes to be a DE program. Such programs must receive approval by the ACCJC once they approach or cross that threshold. The vast majority of programs at MiraCosta have received that approval, since nearly all of our courses have been approved for DE offering.

It is a goal of the Online Education Plan to begin more systematically publicizing, scheduling, and supporting programs that can be completed mostly or entirely online.

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