Graduate Studies Online Course Services Mini-grant

CRJ 201 Course Banner

CRJ 201: Advanced Research Design and Data in Criminal Justice

Course Description

CRJ 201 is the required statistics course for the Master's program in Criminal Justice. This is a lecture/seminar course with activities on statistical software. While there is not a lab component, we have computer lab activities to practice the analyses covered in the course. Typically about 15-18 students enroll in the class. This class is designed for incoming Criminal Justice graduate students in their second semester of the program.

Motivation for Graduate Studies Online Course Services Mini-grant Participation

I applied for the Graduate Studies OCS Mini-grant because I wanted to improve my CRJ 201 - Statistics course. I will be teaching CRJ 201 as a hybrid course in Spring 2025 and wanted to use the opportunity in this FLC to ensure the course design meets the needs of learners. I want to make full use of Canvas in my graduate course while ensuring I adhere to best online practices. This mini-grant helped me accomplish this. I was able to develop course content, improve on existing content, make my course more accessible for all learners, and help improve the navigation of the course. Through this program, I was able to identify areas for improvement and work to make those improvements. Because of this mini-grant, I now have a much improved course shell that is learner friendly and nearly ready for QM certification. The main goal in participating in this FLC is to get the course ready for QM review. While there are still updates that need to be made, I believe I am almost to the point where I can submit for an internal review.

Alignment or Engagement Changes Addressed in Course

Three changes made in the course include redesigning the course home page to meet SRS 1.1., create a course map to meet SRS 2.4, and ensure accessible text and images to meet SRS 8.3 and SRS 8.4.

SRS 1.1- Clear Overall Design- The CRJ 201 course home page was redesigned to meet QM SRS 1.1. The purpose of the course home page is to orient learners to the course and provide ease of navigation and access to course content. I recorded a Welcome video to help introduce learners to the layout of the course. In the video, I included instructions on the course structure, where to find the syllabus, how to navigate to course resources, and where to begin with course content. The course home page also includes buttons that will take learners to the Start Here Module, the course syllabus, and the question cafe. Redesigning the course home page to be learner friendly helps sets the tone for the course. It also informs learners of what to expect and how to succeed in the class.

SRS 2.4- Relationship of Learning Objectives- I developed a course map for my CRJ 201 course that clearly diagrams the alignment of course learning objectives with module learning objectives, assessments, learning activities, and course materials and tools. This improvement to the course will enable learners to quickly see how learning activities and assessments are related to the course. Oftentimes learners may not fully understand why specific activities are necessary in the context of a course. And with a class like statistics, this becomes more of a challenge due to the inherent difficulty of the class. The availability of a course map diagramming the explicit and clear connections among the learning objectives and assigned learning activities and assessments will help demystify statistics and clearly communicate the relevance of course content.

SRS 8.3 & 8.4- Accessible Text (SRS 8.3) and Accessible Images (8.4)- I spent some time ensuring that documents and images were accessible to learners. I was able to get the course at 100% accessible (see the evidence in the table below). I wanted to focus my attention first on accessible text to ensure that PowerPoints accommodated all learners. The course also includes a couple of PDF documents which also needed remediation. By improving the accessibility of the text in the course, learners will be able to access the content and complete work without having to obtain additional accommodations for the course. As to SRS 8.4- I also spent time ensuring that all images in the PowerPoints and posted in course modules were accessible. Some images were for decorative purposes, but most were for educational purposes. For example, including images of tables, charts and graphs from the textbook has educational value and permits me, as the instructor, to emphasize specific concepts in a visual medium. However, those images were not accessible meaning that learners with sight-related challenges had no other means by which to obtain the information displayed. Including alt-text information on all relevant images benefits all learners because the descriptions provided for each image in alt-text gives context to the image.

Evidence of Redesign

Examples of Redesign
SRS 1.1- Clear Overall Design Met by creating a course home page This is a screenshot of the CRJ 201 course home page. This design of the home page is aimed to fulfill QM SRS 1.1. Specific elements on the course home page that meet the expectations of SRS 1.1 include how learners can get started in the course and a video course tour.	SRS 2.4- Relationship of Learning Objectives Met by creating a course map This is a screenshot of the CRJ 201 course map I developed to meet QM SRS 2.4. The image here shows the first couple of weeks but the entire map is available on the page. The map includes alignment information for course learning objectives, module-level learning objectives, course assessments, activities, and materials and tools used in the course.	SRS 8.3 & 8.4 - Accessible Text and Images Met by using accessible materials This is a screenshot of the Ally Course Accessibility Score for CRJ 201. The image is evidence that the course is accessible at 100%. I spent time during the FLC in improving the accessibility of PDFs, PowerPoints, and images throughout the course.

Plan for Pathway toward QM Certification

The steps I plan on taking to prepare for QM Certification include continuing to develop the course with additional tools and interactive course content. Specifically, including additional activities that stress learner-learner interactions (SRS 5.2). Currently the course includes plenty of learner-content and learner-instructor interaction, but additional activities are needed to fully develop the learner-learner interaction. The plan going forward is to use the course shell developed from this FLC, use it for my Spring 2025 CRJ 201 course, and then get feedback from students on what types of content best fits their needs for learner-learner interactions. I will also seek internal review of the course in either Spring or Summer 2025 with an anticipated application for QM review in Spring 2026. One resource that will be helpful is to maintain access to the FLC course for reference as I continue to improve the course.

Faculty Bio
	Abdullah Cihan earned his Ph.D. in Criminal Justice at Sam Houston State University in 2012. He is currently teaching in the Division of Criminal Justice at California State University, Sacramento. Before his current position, Abdullah served as a faculty member in the Criminal Justice Department at East Carolina University and the College of Juvenile Justice at Prairie View A&M University. His primary research focus includes quantitative/statistical methodologies, theory testing, and criminal justice-related issues. During his career, Abdullah garnered experience in collecting, managing, and analyzing large data from major law enforcement and correctional agencies, the results of which have led to publications in top-tier, peer reviewed journals. Additionally, Abdullah developed and taught a variety of criminal justice courses at the undergraduate, master's and Ph.D. levels. He has experience teaching research methods, statistics, criminology/theory, corrections, juvenile justice, and crime analysis.