Credits

Written by: T’Rennek Yuitza

Reviewed and Amended by: Zed Drebin, Cheryl Skinstad, Poison Toocool

Last Revision Stardate: 181029

Intended Audience: UFSA Faculty, Academy Authors

Reviewing Authority: UF Starfleet Academy

Introduction

The Curriculum Development Department is primarily responsible for the development, quality, and standardised processing of all UFSA course material.

Part of that is done by working with and supporting Curriculum Development Experts and members at large in creating new and exciting classes. It is also done by ensuring all existing classes are kept up to date and error free. So, with a current curriculum in excess of 100 classes you can imagine the department has plenty to keep it busy.

This handbook is designed to be a reference manual for all processes and procedures concerned with the department.

Class Development Guidelines

Types of Class

When embarking on developing a class for the academy, the first thing to consider is how you foresee the class being delivered to students. For the most part, UFS Academy classes come in two basic formats:

Online class with exam - Class material is delivered entirely by the online academy. Exams are provided and, if passed, the credit for the class is added to the member's Starfleet Academy Record (CV).

Practical activity with assessment - Minimal class material (if any at all) is delivered by a qualified instructor 'in-world'. The class is practical in nature and assessment is done by instructor observation or via scripted testing.

Choosing a Topic

When choosing a topic try to remember to keep it relevant to UFS. Academy classes are grouped into colleges so for example all Medical classes are grouped together.

You should always speak with the Director of Curriculum Development before you start to do any serious work on the class. This helps to ensure that the class is suitable, required, and most importantly not already being worked on by someone else.

Once you have chosen a topic you MUST follow the Course Submission Guidelines outlined later in this manual.

Writing the class

The most important thing to remember when writing a class is to ensure that any source material that you use or reference in your class is not copyrighted. Plagiarism is not acceptable nor ethical and all source material must therefore be referenced in an accompanying bibliography.

Important things to be aware of:

• Classes must be written ‘In Character’ from the perspective of a 25th Century Starfleet Officer
• References to Second Life, Sims, Lag etc are not permitted unless absolutely necessary to make the point. Be creative, try to avoid it.
• Names of existing UFS Officers and/or Crewmen must be avoided unless being referred to in a historical context
• References to Star Trek or Star Trek films, episodes, and actors including the Roddenberry’s are not permitted. Remember ‘In Character’

You will be expected to have proof-read your work prior to submitting the final draft. This means that spelling and grammar should be checked using appropriate word processing software.

Class Length

Online classes are best with lengths of between 1,200 and 1,800 words. If you have lots of materials, consider a series. Perhaps an 'introduction' to the subject followed by a more advanced class.

Class Submission Guidelines

See [1]

Class Creation Process

The process begins with the author gaining concept approval as set out in the previous section. Once the concept has been approved and the final draft submitted, then the processing stage begins. The following sections show in detail what the processing stage entails, and how the work is carried out.

The person in Curriculum Development prepares the class in Google Docs. As a minimum there should be one document for each of the following:

• Class Manual (including images or pictures)
• Class Exam with Answer Key
• Class Handout(s) (If applicable: the class may well include additional handouts and as such additional documents should be created for each of these as necessary)

Academy Online Portal

Once the Class Manual and Exam have been approved by the Director of Curriculum Development it is passed to the UFSA Superintendent who then:

• ensures a copy of the original manual and exam are saved to the appropriate college & school folders in the Academy Documents Drive.
• uploads the class materials to the Academy Online Portal (Moodle)