parties engaged in course development. Some full-time faculty will be appointed as SMEs, and their service in this role is included within the scope of their full-time faculty contracts with Kentucky State University. In some cases, adjunct faculty will serve as SMEs. Full-time and adjunct faculty can serve as SMEs for multiple classes simultaneously, contingent upon other workload. Depending on the nature and extent of the workload represented by a SME assignment, the Director of Online Education can submit a proposal to the Provost to formulate a SME agreement detailing the rationale for additional compensation for a SME's scope of services.
The SME for each course is the primary representative of the Office of Online Education at the course level. As directed, the SME will work with program coordinators, the Director of Online Education, and the Online Advisory Committee to maintain sufficient parity between the online course and other modalities. For example, assessments of learning outcomes may require coordination between faculty teaching residential and online modalities. The academic department and the Director of Online Education should ensure that the SME has appropriate involvement in department meetings and assessment planning to ensure efficient coordination of objectives in online sections. Additionally, if the residential faculty votes to modify a learning outcome shared by multiple courses, they should ensure effective coordination with the Director of Online Education and the Online Advisory Committee, who will involve the program coordinator and SME of the affected online courses as needed. The department administrators must exercise particular care to ensure information-sharing with colleagues who are SMEs and may not be present on campus to participate in administrative meetings.
The SME for each online course is the “keeper” of the syllabus, with a particular focus on the instructional components of the course. As such, the SME must ensure that the information in the syllabus is accurate, current, and sufficiently coordinated with residential counterparts. The SME will work with the program coordinators and the Office of Online Education to ensure that the course syllabus conforms to the standards of KYSU Online.
In addition to contributing to the development and maintenance of online courses, SMEs often teach in the online sections of those courses once the course launches, working separately as the online faculty in assigned sections. Instructional course load is separate from SME involvement in course development, so the Office of Online Education does not require that initial SMEs accept course load as online faculty after course development is complete.
The foundation of the SME Model is the primary course shell in the LMS, which represents the finished work of the SME. When the course is offered online, the primary course shell will be used to create course sections into which students are enrolled. This occurs during the course copy process. The primary course shell is never populated with students. Each section created during the course copy process is populated with students and assigned to an online faculty instructor.
When a SME decides to edit, change, or redevelop the content of the primary course shell, this initiates a course change process. Upon the SME's request, a development course shell is created, which is a copy of the primary course shell. The SME edits, changes, and redevelops the course content within the development course shell. Once the SME is finished and the development shell is reviewed (see the KYSU Online Course Update Procedures for the requirements), the development shell is converted to the primary course shell. Since the course copy process always requires a completed primary course