Develop Online Courses

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How to Develop an Online Course
By Priya Williams

Lesson 1
Analysis

1.1. Needs Analysis
1.2. Tasks/ user needs
1.3. Technical
1.4. Resource

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1.1. Needs Analysis
Specify why you are developing the online course. List the requirements that the course must fulfill.

Here are a few questions to help you think through this process:

• What is expected of the online course?

• Are there remote students for the course?

• Will it replace or supplement existing training?

• What will the project cost?

• Is an online course the best choice?

• Who will continue maintenance?

• Will there be regular updates and changes? Should it be designed to incorporate changes easily?

• Who will finally approve the course? What are his/ her expectations?

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1.2. User Analysis
An analysis of the student's needs must be done in order to structure the online course to meet those needs.

• Who are the target students?

• Will they be able to access the course site and perform all the necessary interactions?

• How will the student benefit from the online course?

• How can the student's progress be evaluated?

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1.3. Technical Analysis
Define the toolbox of technologies. The purpose is to establish baseline technical capabilities and estimate development cost, effort and implications.

• Establish minimum standards. Constraints of the web like bandwidth, browser software and versions etc. will imply restrictions in choice of media and tools.
• How long is it going to take to develop the online course?
• What technological tools will be needed? How much will they cost? What type of equipment will they require?
• How many people with specific skills will be needed? HTML page creation and cgi script installation to name a few.
• >How much will the development impact the instructor's workload (if the discussion forum is essential for the online course)?
• What will be the software/ hardware requirement for the student's machine?
• What are the software/ hardware requirements for the server?
  If you're planning to use cgi scripts for forums, guestbooks etc. it is advisable to choose a UNIX server running the required version of Perl. The online course should be hosted on a fast, reliable server, with a high bandwidth connection.
• How fancy can the pages be? What is the related hardware/ software/ technology impact (slower transfer, more strict hardware requirements, need for special plug-ins, etc.)?

• What authoring tools should be used? Macromedia Dreamweaver 2 is great for creating and editing HTML pages!
• Which image editing, sound editing and video editing software should be used? Macromedia Fireworks 2 is great for image optimizing!

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1.4. Resource Analysis
Conduct a thorough analysis of the available resources. This will help you project the amount of effort required to generate the remaining resources.

Available resources could include content, graphics, media, books, reference materials etc. Take note of the formats of the existing material as well (e.g. electronic, paper etc.).

• Is the available information pertinent and relevant?
  
• Are there administrative policies and procedures for taking the online course?
  
• What about copyrights?
  
• How much of the total content is already available in electronic format?

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