Skip to content
Design Constraints and Expectations
To design an effective course, many elements must be taken into consideration.
Consider Timing
Our online sessions are eight weeks in length and run from Monday through Sunday, except in Week 8 the course ends on Saturday. For consistency, all times and due dates are at 11:59 pm Central Time (CT).
Assignments are always listed in the week they are due, even though students may need to begin working on them earlier.
Design for a Master Course
While the developer may teach the course, it will likely be taught by many other instructors as well. The course should be easy to facilitate by others and not overly personalized. Personal stories and experiences should be limited.
Align the Course with the Master Syllabus and Department Expectations
The official Master Syllabus outlines the learning outcomes and topics to be covered in a course, regardless of venue. Some departments also have specific expectations that will be provided to the ID by the PC in the PreDev notes.
Understand Online Delivery
Activities that work for an in-seat class may not translate well to online. Opportunities for student-student and faculty-student interaction must be included. All courses must include at least one weekly graded discussion to ensure student interaction and engagement in the course.
Anticipate Questions and Misconceptions
Providing immediate feedback to students and session instructors while they are working in the course is not always possible. Therefore, anticipate questions and provide explicit and clear instructions throughout the course. The “Instructional Materials” located in the Content area of each course can be used to provide direct instruction.
Plan Asynchronous Activities Only
Our students and instructors are worldwide so we do not have required synchronous (at the same time) activities such as webinars in our courses.
Understand Technologies Available
Brightspace, our learning management system, offers threaded discussions, groups, quizzes, assignment submission with plagiarism detection, rubrics, and grades. We also offer custom multimedia development. Discuss options with your developer. A “Developer Resources” module is also available in the Content area of the course for their reference.In addition, streaming hosting is not available for audio/video, so all video-based content and assignment submissions must use hosting. Learning objects are available to teach students how to use their YouTube account to host videos. However, designers must use the Columbia College YouTube account to host all custom course videos. Freelance IDs should contact the TL to have the files uploaded, if needed. Do not allow developers to submit videos from their own Youtube accounts.
Select and Use Materials Carefully
All publisher content, including test banks, must be vetted by the developer. All quiz and exam items must be hand-selected to ensure valid and fair coverage of only the material covered in the 8-week course.
The is available for developers, which provides supplemental content such as databases, research-based journal articles, and films on demand. When providing content from the Stafford Library to IDs, developers should be prompted to provide the permalink to the content.
All course materials must comply with . Copyright images, articles, PDFs, or materials may not be used unless provided by the publisher or permission was given for use. Public domain, creative commons, or custom images are preferred. Using publisher materials behind our D2L login is acceptable use. However, it is never acceptable to place publisher information on public websites such as Quizlet or YouTube unless the material is hidden from the public using password protection.
Comply with Quality Standards
Courses must meet standards based on the and . The ID role is to ensure compliance. are available. In the event a required learning activity must be used that does not meet these guidelines, alternative assignment accommodations must be provided.
Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.
This is not the way.
Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (
CtrlP
) instead.