Six Things to Think About When Planning Web-Assisted Courses

The following tips represent basic guidelines of the issues and topics to keep in mind while preparing a course for online offering. A more extensive description of each item can be found in ET@MO’s Planning and Developing Web-Based Instruction. You may also like to speak with an Instructional Design Specialist, which can be arranged by contacting instructionaldesign@missouri.edu.

1. Know Your “Audience” Students have access to various technologies both at home and on campus. Consider where your students are more likely to access your course materials (on campus where the Internet connection is fast and stable or at home via a modem) and what type of programs they may have access to (e.g., Word, Excel).

Be aware of the access that students will have to the WWW.
Be aware of students’ previous experiences with the technology.
Be aware of the educational and experiential background of the students.
Be aware of the range of ages or life-stages of the students in the class.

2. Prepare Course Content Distributing course content on the Internet is a terrific way to make materials available to students and shift your attention away from the copy machine. Just as you would expect from your students, make sure your materials are well formatted and error-free.

Identify learning objectives and goals.
Identify the content you will cover.
Plan how to communicate assignment or schedule changes for the course.
Identify the instructional approaches you will use.
Identify how interaction will be incorporated.
Identify the materials students will need to successfully complete the course.
Identify plans for grading and testing.
PowerPoint is highly effective in the classroom but it can present a variety of challenges to students. Consider exporting your PowerPoint presentation as an outline to Word to make it more accessible to students.

3. Respecting Intellectual Property Rights, Copyright, and Permissions ET@MO and the MU libraries offer an array of information regarding copyright issues and online courses.

Which materials in your course are copyright protected and who are the owners?
Would using the Electronic Reserves System be an easy solution to using copyrighted works? Have you considered using online on-line databases?
Remember, students own their papers, work, and contributions to your course. If you’d like to use student work in subsequent semesters as an example, you must request their permission.
http://etatmo.missouri.edu/resources/teachtool/index.htm#copyright

4. Prepare for Interaction Effective interaction must have as its foundation adequate preparation by the instructor as well as preparation for the students. These can be summarized in a series of essential points.

Decide the expectations for yourself and students in advance.
Decide in advance, how you wish to structure the groups for interaction.
Create a plan for initially facilitating group interaction.
Decide in advance how you plan to provide motivation for interaction.
Using Interactive Teaching Methods such as Discussion Groups, Project Groups, Case Studies, or Problem-Based Learning.
Check the course discussion boards and email Monday through Friday.

5. Tips for Course Page Design

Plan and provide an online tutorial or sample lesson.
Use hyperlinks to provide students access to more information, other resources, or outside content.
Use graphics when they communicate some meaning or deeper understanding of the content such as graphs; avoid “cute” clipart.
Use an effective layout and design (think readable and understandable).
Be consistent in whatever format you choose.
Maintain site quality by keeping the content up to date, readable, accurate, and well formatted (and check your links too).

6. Tips for Managing Overload Using a course website to organize and guide communication can be an effective management tool, if you’ve planned for it. Set aside blocks of time on your calendar each week for responding to students’ e-mail.

As a general rule, let students know you will respond to their messages within 48 hours and follow through—be a role model.
Identify how you would like students to contact you (email telephone, etc.).
Tell students to be very clear and precise in creation of subject lines.
Tell students to avoid using unnecessary formatting. The simpler a document is formatted, the more easily other users can open it.
Be sure to model the behavior you expect of your students in your own.
Include information in your site for students on how they can access technical assistance and support.