Online Course Design

CONTENT DEVELOPMENT Jennifer Freeman

ACADEMIC ■ IMPRESSIONS

• Recognize the logistics involved when developing online courses as a team; executing the course development plan

• Understand the importance of the Syllabus in online courses

• Review content sequencing and the instructional design blueprint

• Explore storyboarding as a tool for lesson construction

• Identify accessibility and usability issues; planning for scalability

Session Goals

• The Lifecycle of a course– Writing and designing the course– Developing materials– Validating instruction

• Development scheduling• Tasks chart

Logistics and Processes for the Course Development Team

course isreleased

• Why it’s so important

• What should be included

• Sample syllabus checklist

Developing the Syllabus

• Things to keep in mind– Sequencing– Linear vs. Hypertext– Granularity + Portability = Reusability

Storyboarding and Lesson Construction

Lesson Model #1: Linear

no yes

advanceorganizer

summary

multimedia

discussion

notes

textbook reading

www resource

test

Lesson Model #2: Non-Linear (Open)

summary

multimedia

discussion

notes

textbook reading

www resource

test

advanceorganizer

_______________________ ____ ______________

quiz

__ _______________________________________

test

Storyboarding steps:1. Consider your goals/objectives

2. Evaluate and organize existing content and identify gaps

3. Develop a navigation plan

4. “Chunk” content

5. Add text to your storyboard

Storyboarding and Lesson Construction

Storyboarding steps

6. Add multimedia and graphics

7. Add activities

8. Build linkages

9. Review entire layout

Storyboarding and Lesson Construction

• Consistency of Style– Bullets vs. paragraphs– Straightforward language– Formal vs. informal

• Fonts• Text Color, Formatting• Whitespace-to-text-to-graphics ratio

Usability: Effective Text in the Online Course

Usability: Why Use Graphics in the Online Course?

• Clip art vs. photos• Fit with overall color scheme (link to an online color wheel resource)

• Decorative vs. instructional• Examples of interactive graphics

1 2 3 4• Graphics and media resources• http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/

periodic_table.html

Usability: Effective Graphics in the Online Course

• Audio, video, animation, interactive• Examples 1 2 3 4 5 6• Instructionally appropriate?• Talking head syndrome• Limitations

– Accessibility issues (provide transcripts)– Usability issues (plug-ins, broadband)– Length of clips (2-3 minutes)

Usability: Effective Media in the Online Course

Usability: Navigation and Organization

• Use icons as visual cues• Make use of orders and horizontal rules• On long, vertical pages, make use of _____________links• “Next” and “Previous”• Too much hypertext = too many choices…sometimes linear

organization is good

“back to top”

Best Practices – Web Design Principles

Navigation

• Provide ______________________________ options

• Provide descriptive page titles

• Use clear, unique, descriptive headings

• Use a clickable list of contents on long pages

• Provide a site map

Best Practices – Web Design Principles

navigational

Navigation

• Use “glosses” to assist navigation…Glosses are:

______________________________________________

• Use “breadcrumbs” to assist navigation…Breadcrumbs are:

________________________________________________

• Highlight critical information with formatting

• Use headings in the appropriate HTML order

Best Practices – Web Design Principles

text that identifies the “path” taken to arrive at a page

short phrases that pop-up when hovering over a link

Accessibility

• Always provide ______________________ for non-text elements (alt

tags for images, captions for media)

• Be sure to title all of your pages; also title all of your links

• Allow students to skip repetitive navigation links

• Don’t use color alone to convey information

• Limit the use of tables and frames

Best Practices – Web Design Principles

text equivalents

Page Layout

• Make sure everything is appropriately aligned

• Allow for enough ____________________ to keep the page from

looking cluttered, but not so much that students have to scroll

excessively

• Consistently place important information near the top of the page

• Use fluid layouts, as screen resolution and monitor size will vary

Best Practices – Web Design Principles

white space

Scrolling

• NO ____________________ scrolling;

limit vertical scrolling

• Facilitate rapid scrolling while reading

• Consider using _________________

rather than scrolling

Best Practices – Web Design Principles

paging

horizontal

Links

• Use meaningful text link labels

• Match link names with their destination pages

• Avoid misleading or inconsistent cues to click (blue or underlined text)

• Within an LMS, external links should

_______________________________ so that students can easily

• return to their place in the course

• Include title tags

Best Practices – Web Design Principles

open a new browser window

Text

• Use familiar, common ____________

• Use plain, high-contrast backgrounds

• Use consistent formatting

• Don’t use ALL CAPS…on the internet, it’s the equivalent of SHOUTING AND IS CONSIDERED RUDE

• Use BOLD sparingly, or it ceases to draw attention and clutters the page

• Use text color sparingly, as it can be distracting

• Use at least _____________ fonts, or provide for users to enlarge text

Best Practices – Web Design Principles

fonts

12-point

Color, Graphics and Media

• Use background colors to group related information

• Use simple background images or none at all

• Label clickable images

• ____________________ images for download

• Use images and media meaningfully

• Use thumbnail images to preview larger images

Best Practices – Web Design Principles

Optimize

• Course Design– Flexible structure– Use of objective testing

• Discussions vs. email– FAQs– Student-led help thread– Student discussion leaders

• Group projects vs. individual– Less grading– Peer assessment– Self assessment

Planning for Scalability

• The logistics involved when developing online courses as a team

• The importance of the Syllabus in online courses

• Storyboarding as a tool for lesson construction• Existing instructional materials• Important web design principles

What We’ve Learned

Jennifer Freemanjfreeman@utsystem.edu