Peer Review

Building Blocks of Effective Online Courses

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Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:: Video lessons for the unpracticed online instructor. The video series guides the potential online instructor through the process of creating an online syllabus. Topics emphasized include: creating a course framework, learning outcomes, and assessments tied to grading rubrics.
Type of Material:: Workshop and training materials.
Recommended Uses:: Material for faculty trainers or new online instructors who put material online without the help of instructional designers. Instructional designers who need a refresher in online course development. Can be used as self-study material or as part of a curriculum for training the online developer (faculty or ID).
Technical Requirements:: Flash player or browser that supports HTML5 video player. Headset or speakers.
Identify Major Learning Goals:: By the end of the course, learners will be able to complete the online course design process.
Target Student Population:: Faculty new to online teaching. Experienced faculty and instructional designers. Higher Ed learners in graduate and undergraduate teacher or instructional design programs.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: Basic understanding of instructional design theory.

Rating:
Strengths:: Valid concepts associated with instructional design for online course development. Covers important material that anyone putting a course online should study. Following the videos in a sequential manner helps to build the prerequisite knowledge needed for further study in the discipline of online teaching and learning.
Concerns:: A bibliography would be helpful to allow learners to further pursue the topics covered.

Rating:
Strengths:: The learning objectives are clear. Learners should be able to develop their own online course based on the principles presented here. The lessons can be easily integrated into a course syllabus for aspiring online faculty as well as experienced ground-based faculty bringing their courses online for the first (or second, third, etc.) time.

Rating:
Strengths:: This course is very easy to use. Videos are supported with supplementary materials in graphic format. It is easy for the learner to stay on track since the videos lessons are presented sequentially.
Concerns:: If the course is done via YouTube (which iPad and iPhone users will do), rather than CourseBuilder, it is easier for users to get lost. Since there is no sequencing of lessons there. There is no accommodation for subtitles on CourseBuilder, but YouTube does contain closed captioning (which could use a bit of tweaking) for those with hearing impairments. Since these are videos, there is no accommodation for those users with vision impairments who generally user screen-readers.

Other Issues and Comments:: This course/workshop contains well designed instructional material that steps the learner through the process of putting a class online. The course practices what it preaches in terms of instructional design. The course was submitted as a video presentation, but we see it as a training workshop that can be administered to professionals and aspiring faculty/instructional designers alike.
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