Since 1996, over five hundred UCF faculty members have completed one of two professional development courses and as a result nearly three thousand seven hundred online courses have been developed and taught. While this data represents fully online and blended courses, the needs of faculty who teach simple, enhanced courses, were not being met.

Traditionally, enhanced courses (accounts) were distributed on a request/needs basis. Over time, this policy created an onslaught of phone calls and e-mails from faculty inquiring about basic procedures. Bi-monthly WebCT labs had poor attendance. Questions flooded in; How do I populate my course? How do I set up a private discussion? Where is the grade book? While these faculty had access to the UCF WebCT manual and the built-in WebCT Help feature, the Instructional Design staff was inundated with questions and requests.

To solve this problem, an online, self-paced, professional development course called Essentials was developed. Essentials is designed to ensure faculty possess the foundational knowledge/skills required to deliver a web-enhanced course. The course teaches fundamental skills and also provides information about online policies and procedures unique to UCF.

Since August, 2003, when Essentials was introduced, two hundred sixty three faculty have been enrolled. To date, 48.6% have successfully completed the course, 25.4% are still in progress and 26% have withdrawn. Faculty who withdrew did not receive a WebCT account.

This presentation will briefly review UCF's distance learning initiative, describe existing resources available to faculty who wish to teach online and focus on the Essentials (http://reach.ucf.edu/~essentials ) process. Participants will be equipped to design an entry-level online professional development course modeled after Essentials.