Instructional Design and Distance Learning (IDDL) paired up with the School of Education to pilot the Peer Review Process within the Course Design Review Process using OSCQR prior to the Instructional Designer Review. Faculty peer reviewers completed a Peer Reviewer Orientation that included sessions on utilizing and understanding OSCQR standards, and accessibility in addition to participating in a course design review for their course with a peer and instructional designer.

The Online and Hybrid Faculty Fellows Program is designed to provide faculty with collaborative opportunities to advance Buffalo State's strategic goals in the areas of online and hybrid teaching, learning, and course design. Online and Hybrid Faculty Fellows are ambassadors for online and hybrid learning at Buffalo State, helping to establish a supportive community around online and hybrid education by consulting with their peers to increase the quality of online and hybrid courses. This program seeks to align faculty expertise as teaching practitioners with the work of the Instructional Design and Distance Learning team, who are trained and experienced in applying instructional design principles and using educational technology. Online and Hybrid Faculty fellows are selected to work with their peers and instructional designers to support their development of a variety of pedagogical techniques while addressing OSCQR best practice standards. Peer review has been advocated for as an intentional strategy to support the knowledge, skill, and disposition development of adult learners preparing for professional practice in design disciplines, including those individuals preparing for instructional design practice (Chapman and van Auken 2001; Lai and Law 2006). Woolf and Quinn (2001) have defined peer review as “the structuring of a process to allow peers to review each other’s professional processes and/or products with the goal of improving such processes or products” (p. 22). ( Brill, J.M. 2016)

In December of 2021, the College Senate passed a policy on IV:07:04 Online and Hybrid Course Offering, which included requirements for online teaching credentials and a review of Online and Hybrid Course Design for courses being offered. Each academic school was asked to identify approaches to meet the new policy. With the School of Education's (SOE) expertise in teaching and learning and the overwhelming number of course design reviews that were now being expected to be completed by instructional designers in Instructional Design and Distance Learning (IDDL), the utilization of a peer review process which was already built into the SUNY OSCQR tool seemed appropriate and created greater collaboration between IDDL & SOE, in addition to faculty within the school/department. In addition, this allowed faculty to talk with faculty about their course design, teaching practices and share ideas and resources, creating a deeper bond between faculty with their departments. “An instructor-friendly peer review process can be effective in increasing faculty interest in peers' courses, an inclination to share experiences, and willingness to invest efforts and time improving teaching (Nordstrom, 1995)”. (Lewis, Emily 2021)

By adding a peer review step to the course design review process, it encourages the pedagogical content area faculty to maintain ownership and responsibility for all courses they offer. This is intended to support a policy of consistent high-quality course design and mirrors the peer review process that faculty engage in for research and publication. Faculty working together as peer reviewers using OSCQR creates a deeper understanding of instructional design, effective online teaching, and learning from their peers. We are hoping that by piloting this process, we can set a course for the faculty in SOE where ownership of course design is as important as evaluation of teaching by one’s peers. We started with two faculty from the Elementary Education, Literacy, and Educational Leadership (EELEL) department and will expand out to one faculty member from the Career, Technical, and Science Education (CTSE) department and two faculty from the Exceptional Education department. Peer-reviewers have shared that this process has inspired them to rethink their own course design and how they can improve their courses by reviewing another colleague's courses. Wanner and Palmer’s study on formative self and peer assessment for improvement of students learning “has shown that students value formative self and peer-assessment as they can see the benefits of being involved in the assessment and feedback process. They learn both from giving and receiving feedback, gain a better understanding of assessment requirements and use the formative self and peer-assessment to improve the quality of their work. Thomas Wanner & Edward Palmer (2018)