How the POCR Process Works for Faculty

POCR reviews are completed per instructor per course. Meaning, each course a faculty member teaches online will need to undergo review individually. Currently WCC requires only one class reviewed per faculty member. Faculty submit a course for review at least one semester prior to teaching that course online according to the timetable below.

Submitting a Course:

Instructors will submit fully designed and complete (all learning units complete) course by filling out the two documents in WCC POCR Canvas Course and creating a Canvas sandbox course copy. Faculty submit their course during one of the open submissions windows (defined below).

1. Complete a self-review for your completed course using the CVC Course Design Rubric, sections A-D. The instructor should provide commentary as to how they have met the alignment criteria in their course design by noting where and when each criteria has been considered and applied in the course. This detail assists the POCR Team in their review of the course. The DE Committee uses Section D as evidence of the faculty meeting Title 5 accessibility requirements in their course design and materials.
2. Complete the WCC Regular and Substantive Interaction form to communicate your plan for using a variety of tech tools and strategies to ensure your instructor presence and appropriate levels of communication to the POCR team and Distance Education Committee. The DE Committee keeps this documentation on file as evidence of the instructor's plan to meet regular and substantive interaction requirements of Title 5.
3. Faculty will create a separate POCR Canvas shell to upload the version of their course they want reviewed. There are instructions and video detailing how to complete this.

Within one week of the submission deadline, the DE Coordinator will vet submitted courses for minimal completion and assign two POCR Reviewers to the course. The faculty member and review team will be notified by email of when the review begins. Faculty who submitted courses that do not meet minimum completion requirements will be provided feedback by the DE Coordinator and invited to resubmit during the next POCR submission window.
The POCR reviewers will have 2 weeks to review and norm the course.
The Lead Reviewer will send the normed course review results to the faculty member and meet with them over Zoom to discuss. The faculty member will have 8 weeks to revise the course according to the review team recommendations. See below for level of alignment.

Alignment will meet the following conditions:

CVC Badge Alignment

Courses that meet CVC Badge Alignment standards will be listed on the WCC Course Exchange dashboard as "badged" and will be recognized for course quality on the course exchange when scheduled. Meeting CVC Badge standards means that the faculty member is eligible to e schedule to teach this course online in future semesters. CVC badging standards are as follows:

100% aligned with Section D. Canvas pages, documents, videos, images and technology are section 508 compliant.

100% aligned with Parts A, B, and C of CVC rubric

Meets AP 4105 standards for minimum course contact and instructor-created materials

The CVC Badge is considered the completion of the POCR process at WCC.

Ineligible to Teach Online

Faculty who submit to POCR and do not meet CVC badge alignment standards may not teach that course online in future semesters until reviewer recommended revision work is complete. Courses that are ineligible to teach online are ones that are not 100% aligned with sections A, B, C, and D of the CVC rubric. To be offered, these courses will need to be resubmitted to the POCR Team in a timely manner and meet the 100% alignment criteria described above.

Steps to POCR Alignment

Total Process: 12 weeks from date of submission. See The POCR Progress Chart located in the DE Course Reviews Sharepoint for the updated status of POCR submissions.

Submission to Alignment Timeline
Status	Time in Process	Step and description of process
□	Day 1	Submit Course: Visit the POCR Canvas course. Complete the CVC Course Design Rubric, WCC Regular and Substantive Interaction Rubric, and create sandbox with course to review uploaded. Adding the DE Coordinator to the sandbox starts the POCR timeline.
□	Week 1	DE Coordinator (DEC) will acknowledge receipt of course submission within 3 working days of the submission deadline. The DEC will do a quick check to make sure your course is ready for review. If ready for review, the course will be assigned two peer reviewers. If the course is deemed not yet ready for review, the DEC will contact you by email with suggested resources and contacts to prepare your course to meet course design standards.
□	Weeks 2-3	Peer Review Process: Two peer reviewers will independently review your course to determine alignment with CVC Course design standards. The peers will meet and produce one “normed” review.
□	End Week 3/Early Week 4	Feedback: The Lead Reviewer will contact you by YCCD email with your normed POCR review and a letter inviting you to meet via Zoom to discuss. The Review and Feedback process is a participatory one. We value and listen to you as we determine alignment levels for each design criterion. These one-on-one meetings are vital to the integrity of our peer review process and are required for POCR process completion.
□	Weeks 4-12	Revise: You have 8 weeks to revise your course to meet, at minimum, local alignment standards. Please make your revisions in your self-created course shell to facilitate the process. Please use the WCC CVC rubric you turned in with your original submission (and that your reviewers used to track their recommendations) to make notes for your lead reviewer on where to find the suggested changes in the course.
□	End of Week 12	Resubmit: If you have not already contacted the lead reviewer to resubmit, the lead reviewer will reach out to you to schedule your final check-in. When local or CVC alignment standards have been met, the Lead Reviewer will adjust the normed peer review to reflect the changes and indicate on the front of the review local or CVC alignment. You will receive an updated version of your normed peer review along with alignment level (local or CVC) from the lead reviewer.

POCR Process Timeframes

POCR Process Timeframes
Scheduled semester to teach course	Initial Course Review and Self-Review Submission due by:	Final Course Revisions due by:
Fall and Summer	February 1 of previous spring*	March 1 of previous spring
Spring	August 1 of previous fall*	September 1 of previous fall

Example: An instructor is scheduled to teach BIOL-24 in fall 2022. She must complete the design of her course and submit her completed self-review documents by February 1, 2022. She will then then have to wait 3-4 weeks to get POCR feedback. This will only leave her with a few days to complete any course revisions prior to the March 1 deadline. We recommend completing course design as early as possible to ensure time for review, revision, and scheduling.

*Newly hired online instructors in their first semester of teaching at the college have until the 2/3 point of the term to submit to POCR (the beginning of week 11 for 17 or 18-week terms and week 6 of 9-week terms.

Teaching Previously Aligned or Badged Courses

Any faculty may teach a course that was previously determined to be in alignment with the WCC local or CVC Badge level standards. Instructors are expected to customize courses to ensure their own instructor presence and expertise, meeting AP 4105 requirements for instructor-created materials and minimum contact as well. The instructor may begin teaching this course immediately upon submission of their self-review documents to the POCR Lead. The course will still need to go through POCR, and the instructor will complete any reviewer recommendations prior to being eligible for scheduling online in future terms.

Last updated 04/16/2025, per WCCAS adoption of changes on 04/11/2025.