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This article describes the design and development of a professional development program based upon research on the competencies necessary for online teaching success conducted at Penn State University in 2009-2010. The article highlights how the results of this research are being aligned with various professional development courses comprising the certificate program for online faculty at Penn State's World Campus. This article describes the process of research design and implementation to the direct application for professional development. (Contains 6 tables and 1 figure.)

This exploratory study examined teaching behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs (referred to as tasks) that reflect potential competencies for online teaching success. In this study, teaching tasks are those tasks performed during course delivery. Based on faculty interviews and a review of relevant research, 64 teaching tasks were identified and included in 7-point Likert scale survey instrument. It was distributed to experienced online faculty and staff asking them to rate the level of importance of a list of teaching tasks and resulted in a sample of 197 responses. Of interest was the fact that over half of the teaching tasks had a rating of 6.0 on the 7-point scale and more than half of the tasks that were rated 6.0 or higher did not load into categories using factor analysis. Further examination of the results is required to determine why highly rated teaching tasks did not fall (load onto) into any factor. Results of the importance of the tasks will form the basis of faculty development efforts aimed at providing faculty with professional development in critical competencies to ensure online teaching success.