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How to Develop an Online Course
By Priya Williams

Lesson 2
Instructional Design

2.1. Educational Goals
2.2. Course Map/ Flowchart
2.3. Detailed course content chunking and rewriting
2.4. Duration of course
2.5. Test questions
2.6. Glossary of terms
2.7. Media Planning
2.8. Layout design

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2.1. Educational Goals
Clearly define the objectives of the course. What will the student be able to accomplish after completion? Keep it practical and relevant to real world situations. They should also be measurable so students can evaluate their performance. Some questions you will need to answer are:

• What are the educational goals?
  
• How will these goals be accomplished?
  
• Which goals will possibly not be accomplished and how can we compensate for them?
  
• What approaches could be used to achieve a given goal? Which of them is more viable?
  
• This will help you:
  
• Minimize deviation during the development of the course.
  
• Design your course for compactness.
  
• Design tests/ quizzes effectively.
  
• Give students guidelines by which to evaluate their performance.
  
• Build accurate expectations from the course.

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2.2. Course Map/ Flowchart
How will the HTML pages be structured? Prepare a flowchart showing how the course progresses from start to finish. Include main menu, lessons, pretests, quizzes, course map, help, discussion forums, guest books, events calendar and any other components of the course. The HTML pages containing the course material should be organized in a way that makes navigation easy, simple and consistent and reduces the amount of work necessary for site maintenance.

Finalize this as early as possible in order to avoid rework at a later stage. Remember that rework sometimes involves more time and effort than starting from the beginning again! This will also help you design the navigation for the course.

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2.3. Technical Analysis
Rewrite the course content for the web, keeping in mind your target students all over the world. Organize and present the content in such a way that the end user meets his or her learning goals. Keep the language simple and friendly. If there is no instructor/ teacher to provide the human touch you will need to present the content in a non-threatening, easy -to- understand way. Incorporate motivational elements (e.g. Certificate on completion, discussion boards for interaction with other students etc.). Self study and distance education requires more discipline and has a high dropout rate. Specify the resource demands of the course (in time and effort) up front in order to prepare them and keep their expectations realistic.

According to InterEd, an education-research outfit, students are most likely to succeed in a distance-learning program if-

• They are self-motivated and good at setting and meeting their own deadlines
• They use E-mail frequently and find it a satisfactory way to communicate
• They enjoy spending time by themselves at their computer

Chunk the content (cull it down to the essential and present it in discrete informational units) for each element in the flowchart/ course map. Present the content in small easy-to-digest modules. Allow for easy scanning since a high percentage of web users read that way. Use plenty of subheadings and ensure that the main points are emphasized visually. Decide whether a graphic would aid learning. Keep in mind the constraints of the web and download time while deciding to use media like audio or video. Above all keep it compact. Use the course objectives to eliminate unnecessary information. Alternatively provide links for further information which could be of interest to the student.

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2.4. Duration of course
Determine how long it will take the student to complete the course. Communicate this to the student. He will require this information to plan his learning time effectively.

This is a good time for you to determine whether some modules are highly time consuming and work around it by splitting it up into smaller chunks. You may even decide to combine very small modules in order to distribute the content more evenly. A very heavy module may discourage the student and lead to his/her drop out.

Since a single web page can contain almost any length of information it is important to keep it more or less consistent and provide navigational facilities within the page itself at logical points.

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2.5. Test questions
Design your test questions keeping the course objectives in mind. The idea is to evaluate the student's learning and provide constructive feedback where necessary. It is an aid to learning and not an elimination process. Vague and confusing questions must not be asked. Test items differ from paper due to the constraints of the web and maybe the absence of an instructor. Quiz scripts can be installed, programmed with the correct answers and feedback. Multiple choice and true/false questions are most popular.

At the end of this procedure you should have prepared the:

• Test question
• Possible answer choices
• Correct answer + reinforcement (feedback)
• Wrong answer + remedial feedback

Ensure that these will work with the available web technology (cgi scripts, HTML page only, posting answers on message board, e-mailing instructor)

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2.6 Glossary of terms
Prepare a glossary of terms which can be easily accessed by the student should he/ she require any clarifications. Since you do not know who the student could be, all terms should be explicitly defined without making assumptions.

2.7. Media Planning
Check available media. Clearly describe required media. Generate a storyboard for media and verify it with the SME/ client. This can save rework during the development process.

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2.8. Layout design
Design the basic page layouts. Incorporate the navigational and interactive elements. Navigation should be simple and intuitive. Also, the students need to be oriented about where he is within the course. You may suggest the best path through the course but enable the student to chalk out his/her own path if he/she so wishes. In the world of hypermedia, the user decides the direction best suited for accomplishing his or her goal to learn.

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