Online course development: An idea paper

Ross Woods, Rev. 2020

Writing a new course is labour-intensive and time-consuming. This includes planning, assembling a team, setting parameters for the project, writing, running a pilot project (or Beta-test) with a small number of students. Although it needs to be finanicially viable, it also need to be a small enough group to resolve any problems.

Preparation of new online courses can follow either of two models. The first, called ADDIE, is to do thorough research and planning, so that the final product will be quite good in the first field-tests. The second, called AGILE, is to do less thorough research and planning, and start field-tests early in order to develop the course according to the feedback from field-tests. The comments below tend to follow the first of these models.

The first run-through with a large group will probably show some larger faults that need correction. The following reviews are simply continual improvement, so course preparation costs decrease dramatically each time it is run.

Courses eventually become out-dated and staff must decide to re-write them. Even if the content is not out of date, the any video content might need updating.

Perhaps complete re-writes could be less frequent by having a "Current research" box that is easy to update each time the course is run. These boxes could summarize current trends relevant to that subject.

Unit templates

The team needs a toolkit of model templates at both lesson and unit level. These would be a range of different templates for different kinds of subjects, and the team could subsequently improve them and be creative with them.

At a course level, an ideal template might start each new degree group with a local face-to-face induction and a conference, but this is difficult for several reasons:

1. It assumes that a team of staff would be in all locations at the same time at the beginning of each semester.
2. Travel and accommodation costs will be prohibitive.
3. It could easily be percieved to make extravagant promises, which could precipitate disappointment.
4. Accreditors might require online induction before any face-to-face contact.
5. It does not scale up for larger numbers of students and more locations.

Various ideas on templates:

1. To start, the team should have several good working examples of online programmed instruction.
2. They could also use templates to generate more templates. For some things, you could have a master template with lots of things in it, and simply delete various items to generate new templates. For example, a project management template is useful to generate courses in other fields that follow a project approach, such as community development and event management. The research template has a variation for undergraduate essays.
3. Program developers could have a simple wizard for staff to write tailor-made templates, but some would need a programmer to write them from scratch.
4. Forking would allow us some extra options:
• The same thing could be offered in different formats (e.g mp3, mp4, e-book, programmed instruction). This would create variety, give students some feeling of free choice, and address different learning styles. For example, two units could do the same thing but be different in learning approach, cultural adaptation, contextualization, etc. Different staff would also have their preferences.
• There is a limit to variety; limiting to only one version of each option would prevent product clutter, which staff and students would find confusing. (Like Moodle plug-ins, having too many is confusing.)
• Online courses need to be consistently themed, especially when they comprise a range of disparate resources. The style sheets and general layout policies are the obvious starting points.

Interface

The interface needs to be very user-friendly so that students can easily find and use everything they need. We should assume that it will give them a better learning experience with fewer frustrations and less wasted time, translating into increased satisfaction, higher retention rates, and more positive referrals. As for us, it will also cost less to redesign the course, and take less staff time in help forums. As an extra hint, highlight next assignments and due dates. If students involuntarily miss a deadline, they are more likely drop out. (Based on "Can UX [user exerience] Design Improve MOOC Completion Rates?" Elena Sanchez, Oct 10, 2013 MOOC News and Reviews.)

This is one of the strengths of Moodle; it allows students to see only as much material at the time as the instructor wants.

Students, however, tend not to read information no matter how much they need it, and generally procrastinate no matter how much forewarned. Consequently, we should check whether they need interactive cognition exercises (in which they must actively responde to the "what" questions of the information) to reinforce good habits during the orientation course.

Planning

Choose a particular course to develop. The choice should be a good fit with our strategic goals. It should be one for whom we have networks and immediate needs, and from whom we can gather good quality feedback very easily. It could be one of a number of things:

1. Introductory English as a Second Language (ESL).
2. A basic high school or university entrance level course.
3. University students who want extra help or who are cramming for exams.
4. A basic business course for highly motivated "need to learn it now" students.
5. A basic business course for highly motivated "need to learn it now" English native speakers.
6. Identify student needs by consultation through our existing networks.

Assembling a team

Course development is a complex process. Depending on the range of options, it can involve the following roles:

1. Project managers manage the whole course development process. This includes writing the course proposal and getting it approved, overseeing the team, complying with timefame, complying with budget, etc.)
2. Two subject matter experts per study area write materials, answer content queries, and check accuracy.
3. Tutors give feedback on how students have responded to different kinds of approaches.
4. Course researchers find existing web resources, gather, analyze, and present new information. (Finding good materials on the web is a bigger job than it appears.)
5. Instructional designer plans and writes lessons.
6. Text editors proofread and check content, accuracy, presentation, etc. of text materials for publishing.
7. Video production for video and interactive TV:
   1. Presenters
   2. Videographers
   3. Tech support: sound and lighting
   4. Video editors.
8. Graphic designers make sure web appearance is attractive and functional.
9. Test supervisors oversee field-testing of new materials with real students. (Often the same person as the instructional designer)
10. Programmers for software development

 

Some fundamental tensions

Every specialist will probably be annoyed by managerialist values, such as budgetary impositions, the limitations of the target populations, etc.

It's quite likely that staff who are communication specialists will hit a wall in advanced units that need advanced technical knowledge to understand what they are even about. If the communications specialists get out of their depth and are less able to make a contribution, the educational quality of the materials would lower. These situations require a specific coping strategy and extra training.

There is also a fundamental tension between the mindsets of teachers and subject matter experts:

Teachers	Subject matter experts
Express concepts simply for people who are unfamiliar with them Prefer tertiary (explanatory) sources Take responsibility for the learning process See teaching as a priority	Express concepts in complex form as if people were familiar with them Prefer primary sources Expect students to take responsibility for their own learning See preparation for research as a priority

 

An online option for writing units

One of the main ways of training teams is, quite simply, to present a short course that shows teams what we want to achieve. Team members will probably respond is different ways; some will be inspired with ideas to do better and some might be unable to match the quality. Some might even be critical of the approach and need to leave.

A team of tutors could do most of the planning for a unit in a series of on-line Wikis. It would need to be supplemented by a videoconference, and it would be good to have a drag and drop facility in the software, so people could easily move items around on screen. The project leader also needs to keep backup versions on the way, to prevent good ideas from being lost. The team leader is responsible to assign tasks, although this is not usually difficult. After the team has worked on each stage, the team leader decides when the draft is ready to move on to the next stage.

The first pilot would mainly use behavioral learning principles and would not address a full range of learning styles.

1. Train personnel to write self-teaching materials.
2. Start with a simple brief for the team. The brief should contain:
   1. The topic, code and level (e.g. Accounting 101, freshman semester 2)
   2. Define the overarching purpose of the unit and philosophy of approach (e.g. the particular need it addresses)
   3. Appoint a team leader to oversee the project
   4. Define relationships with other units in the degree, e.g. shared metaphors, prerequistes, units for which it needs to prepare students
   5. Set a timeline with deadlines
   6. Convey results of any industry consultation and list any relevant industry standards
   7. Suggest templates
   8. Copyright arrangements.
3. Team defines unit objectives.
4. Team fills out the topic with sub-topics.
5. Team defines lesson objectives.
6. Team pools their knowledge of proven strategies and activities for teaching this subject matter.
7. Team brainstorms suggestions for:
1. Problematization and motivators
2. Outline of each lesson
3. Various possible sequences
4. Learning activities
5. Assessment activities
6. Source materials
7. Forks:
   1. Forks for cultural styles, learning styles, temperaments, different levels of technology
   2. Remedial loops (which are a kind of fork)
   3. Short-cuts (another kind of fork).
8. Team evaluates the ideas and selects the best.
9. The team leader stores unused ideas in the vault (a repository of ideas).
10. The team leader delegates any tasks that require specific expertise.
11. Team drafts text of all written materials and script for video.
12. Team tests the draft with a group of students from the target population. First, they need to validate the materials educationally and identify improvements. Second, it also needs to be effective as market research to find out what people want.
    1. Will it attract students? Would they recommend the course to others?
    2. Does it motivate them or bore them?
    3. Do students like it? Does it motivate them or bore them?
    4. What did students understand correctly? Incorrectly? Why?
    5. Which of our assumptions and hypoheses are correct? Which are incorrect? What changes do we need to make?
13. The team intersperses questions to stimulate comment:
    1. "Why? What implications? How would you respond to a case where ...?"
    2. "Write a case study/scenario that covers these variables ..."
    3. "What does (author x) say about this?"
    4. "What about a situation where ...?"
    5. "Write a flow-chart of the process."
    6. "What other possibilities?"
14. The team leader sends the video script draft to the production team.
15. The production team turns them into self-teaching materials.
16. Upload the pilot program as a Moodle website.
17. Moodle allows tutors to prepare week by week, so the final field-tests only need to keep ahead of delivery.