An important goal for the Provost was to make available to all University faculty the specialized course development assistance previously provided only to those who taught through the External Studies Program. CIDDE's instructional development function addresses this objective.

At any given time, CIDDE staff are likely to be assisting several dozen faculty members on the design of new courses or the revision of existing ones. Faculty work with CIDDE throughout the year and a growing number is taking advantage of the Summer Instructional Development Institute to work individually with instructional designers in a more intensive time frame. CIDDE's integrated course development capabilities enable faculty to call upon a wide range of staff competencies in order to meet their instructional development goals.

CIDDE works closely with the Provost's Advisory Council on Instructional Excellence (ACIE) to support instructional innovation. This Council administers the Innovation in Education faculty grants program, which provides funding for meritorious instructional projects.

Instructional technology has become an integral part of teaching and learning at Pitt. The adoption of the Blackboard course management system in 1998 enabled Pitt faculty to develop richer Web-enhanced instruction and achieve greater levels of communication in their courses. Other new technologies, such as Janus and Mediasite are continually being assessed and adapted to meet instructional needs of the University.

Traditional technologies, such as video and audio, continue to play a major role in course development, and CIDDE enables faculty to use a wide variety of formats for these media. One video produced by CIDDE, Navigating the Sea of Information, has been distributed to hundreds of users nationwide. Increasingly, faculty are using multimedia to enable them to integrate the presentation modes most appropriate for the goals and content of their courses.

In the area of distance education, CIDDE has continued a course development commitment to the College of General Studies that helps to maintain a PittOnline Program distance education option for nontraditional undergraduate students. CIDDE staff have assisted with the design and the delivery of other distance learning courses and programs, including programs in the Schools of Information Science, Nursing, Public and International Affairs, Social Work, and the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.

CIDDE has become a valued partner to faculty seeking both internal and external funding for instructional development projects. Each year, CIDDE works with applicants to the Provost's Innovation in Education grants program and with some of the grant recipients. Faculty preparing educational proposals for external funding often include collaboration with CIDDE. Staff have collaborated in projects funded by Bell Atlantic, State of Pennsylvania Office of Information Technology, State of Pennsylvania Link to Learn Initiative, the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control, PA Department of Health, National Institutes of Health, InterAmerican Development Bank and others.

Instructional development includes activities related to assessing the effectiveness of instruction as well as developing it. At the request of the College of Arts & Sciences, instructional designers at CIDDE developed peer teaching review materials to help faculty provide useful feedback to their colleagues on classroom teaching (which you can link to if you are connected to the Internet). CIDDE works collaboratively with the Office of Measurement and Evaluation of Teaching to provide faculty with a range of test design and evaluation services.