Online Courses

Online Course Development Process

Contact the instructional designer before you begin developing your course for orientation and preliminary guidance.  The instructional designer will provide help to make your job easier. 

Overview

1. Initial evaluation: This preliminary step ascertains that all components needed for development of your course are present.  These include text designation, course outline or syllabus, permissions, exams, and answer keys (see the Course Outline template and Syllabus checklist below).
2. Editorial evaluation: Just prior to the start of course development, your instructional designer will map out a plan for developing the course.  At this point, you may be contacted to discuss scheduling or other concerns.
3. Applying the template: DOCE will create a WebCT course shell for your course and apply our internal template. Course developers will then supply the needed content in Word or another format. The instructional designer will insert and format that content into the online course.
4. Design, layout and specific formatting: Assistance with these elements can be provided by the instructional designer and/or course development team. DOCE can also provide assistance with online quiz creation and formatting activities.
5. Editing: The instructional designer will help assure clarity, completeness, and consistency of your course.
6. Developer review of edit: This step is combined with proofreading.
7. Proofreading: You, as well as the instructional designer, should proofread your online course.  Content integrity, however, is your responsibility.
8. Final corrections: The instructional designer will work with you to incorporate amendments, edits, and corrections to produce the final version of the online course
9. Opening the course: Once your course is finalized, it will be opened and available for enrollments the same day.

Working with the Instructional Designer
The course development process begins when you contact the instructional designer and submit a word-processed course outline. At this time also provide syllabus, permissions, exams, and answer keys (see appendix for Course Outline template and Syllabus checklist). You will work with the instructional designer to develop the course materials. Meetings will be scheduled to map out the online course structure, provide training and guidance in using the WebCT teaching tools and reviewing the course development progress.

Organizing your Online Course Content
The WebCT environment provides two (2) basic formats for organizing content: Content Organizers and Learning Modules. We advise using the Learning Module feature. A Learning Module allows you direct the flow of a class by presenting the material in a sequential path of readings, discussions, quizzes, assignments, etc. in a particular order. It gives a more linear guide for the student to work through the course. This is especially beneficial for fully-online distance courses where there is no face-to-face contact with students.

Online Course revisions
See provisions for the print-based course revisions.

Online Course Syllabus Checklist
Please use the course syllabus checklist for developing your syllabus.

DOCE Online Course Outline & Template

Please follow this Word document to create your course outline. Your course outline will be within the "Start" materials in your online course. The course outline will help guide students through the online course components.

Online Course Template

The above image is a screenshot of the course outline main page. This is the first page students will see in the course. Not all courses will have as many core components, but these are some of the available components for organizing your course. All courses will have at least these components:

• Start Here
• Help Resources
• Course Content

These components serve as the organizer pages for your course materials. For the organizer pages and links that appear on the home page of the template, as shown in the VISTA homepage image above, you will need to produce effective content. Below is a guide for how to complete the needed content.

Creating Organizer Pages

Organizer Page Title: Start Here (required)

Provide a brief introduction to the features of the online course. This serves to familiarize students

• Course Introduction (faculty creates and uploads)
• Syllabus (faculty creates and uploads)
• Instructor information (faculty creates and uploads)

Organizer Page Title: Help Resources (required)

Provides explicit advice for undertaking course and direction to student support resources:

• WebCT Vista Student orientation (automatically loaded into course)
• Technical Help resources (automatically loaded into course)
• How to Succeed in your Course (automatically loaded into course)

Organizer Page Title: Course Content (required)

• Course modules (faculty creates and uploads)
• Study guides (faculty creates and uploads)
• Publisher epacks (as chosen by faculty, but used as a complement to core materials)
• Assignments and Quizzes may all be linked from within this section. Doing so can be useful to ensure that students see and complete all of the course requirements.

Organizer Page Title: Discussions (optional)

Discussion should be the core of the online course. Here students post introductions, answer questions posted by the instructor, dialogue with other students and work in small groups where possible. However, because our courses are open enrollment, discussions may be difficult to create or use. Please discuss how to use discussions with our instructional designer.

• Interact with other students (if appropriate)
• Ask your instruction questions (created by faculty)
• Other (optional, to be created by faculty)

Organizer Page Title: Assignments/Projects (optional)

Using the assignments feature student can submit assignment electronically. The instructor can specify instructions and due dates. Once an assignment is graded the grade can be automatically transferred to the grade book.

• Assignments to be submitted via WebCT Vista (faculty creates in Vista)
• Projects to be submitted via WebCT (faculty creates in Vista)

The assignments feature can be used within a separate assignments/projects section or can be linked within the main "Course Content" section. Your course content and structure will determine the most effective way to present assignments.

Organizer Page Title: Quizzes (optional)

Use for periodic assessment or self testing.

• Graded assessments (created by faculty within WebCT, and graded within WebCT or by faculty)
• Self –assessment quizzes  (created by faculty within WebCT, and graded within WebCT)
• Final exam (created by faculty, administered by proctor, graded by faculty)

Organizer Page Title: Additional Resources (optional) 

Instructors can provide access to a variety of resources both electronic and otherwise to support the course learning objectives. Resources such as links to external web sites, multimedia content resources,

• Other files related to the course (created and uploaded by faculty)
• Weblinks related to the course (faculty creates within WebCT)

Organizer Page Title: Access the eLibrary (required for credit courses)

For-credit distance student can have access to UF library resources online. This link provides instructions for connecting to the electronic library from your computer

• Access UF library resources (automatically created and included in every course)

Link Title: Online Course Evaluation (required)

Students will be able to complete the course evaluation as they would for a traditional face to face class

• UF –DOCE evaluation (automatically loaded)

Other elements of the template are the:

• Calendar -  include important dates and deadlines for the course
• My Grades – student access to assignment and assessment grades
• Announcements – post important notices and reminders to students
• Mail – in-course communication