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[commuter]

Hi all,
I am exploring the possibility of designing an on-line course, in response to the desire to commute less (my own and many students) and the sense that this desire will only increase in the context of peak oil, high gas prices, and (in my region) poor public transit options.  

What are your top pieces of advice for me as I try to decide what's an appropriate course to teach on-line, how to design it, what questions to ask colleagues, students, and administrators, etc?

We have WEb CT, fyi, as the mode in which this course would be administered. Many courses are fully on-line in other departments but none in ours.

thank you!

[White Knight]

Knowing your discipline would help.

[Marie]

From a student's perspective, I would say make sure your WebCT site is very well-organized.  All of the on-line classes I've taken have suffered from varying degrees of disorganization.  In one class there were multiple copies of the same assignment with two different due dates that appeared in two different sub-folders on the web page.  Other times it's just been problems with things not being labeled clearly.  The little communication glitches that would be negotiated in person seem to be much bigger and more annoying in an on-line environment.

I realize you are asking for more big-picture advice and I hope you get some from other posters, but once you get the course designed, the details matter, too.

Also, one of the reasons people often give for dropping on-line courses is the sense of isolation.  You can combat this to some degree by making good use of the threaded discussion board.  Encouraging discussion between students is good, but at some point you should chime in, too.  We (as students) need the benefit of your knowledge and also a taste of your enthusiasm for your subject.

Good luck!

[%sig%]

[commuter]

Thanks for these very useful comments, Marie! White Knight, this would be a literature course. Sorry for not saying that up front.

[my experience]

My best piece of advice: ask the technology people to name a faculty member at your campus that really does a good job with online courses. Then ask that person for access to one of his/her courses and take a good look... imitating what you liked. S/he will be flattered you're asking and will likely share tips with you.

[Source]

A lot of courses are already pre-packaged and sold. They're not necessarily good, but I wonder if one you generate yourself will be worth your time and effort. That's something else to check into.

[%sig%]

[both sides]

If this is the first online course for your department, you may want to set it up so it has an initial meeting to do syllabus and iron out all the little details that sometimes get missed.  This can be helpful if students already have to come to campus to buy books, attend other classes, and check out books from the library for research papers (or other on campus tasks).  This can also help limit the feeling of isolation, even if you never physically meet the students again.

Even if you don't have a specific meeting, make sure to have deadlines for classwide communications.  Discussion boards are absolutely vital to the success of any interactive aspects of online courses, and you should make sure students post to the discussion board as soon as possible (I require mine to post before the end of the first class week).

Give a quiz over the syllabus (this can be automatically graded by WebCT).  This makes sure students read it, and they know what policies are important.  I like letting them take it multiple times so they go back and check the policies to be sure.

As far as appropriate courses to teach online, you can teach a wide variety of classes online, but I advise against anything that requires students to purchase unusual equipment.  Writing classes are good, since assignments can be submitted and graded.  It can be hard to determine how students are coming up with discussion entries (they come up with a large number of statements including quotes).  Sometimes it can be more difficult to encourage students to look at a topic in more depth.

As a starting point, look at the courses that are currently taught online at your institution.  See if you can get a look at some of these courses, preferably any that students in your department may have taken (or may take in the future).  You may also want to take an online course.  There are many WebCT training courses (training on using WebCT, but you are treated as the student), and it is helpful to experience a course from the student view.  If your institution does not have WebCT training, you should be able to find a CC with it (some may have it for the summer).  They often also help with syllabus design for online courses and online pedagogy.

It's a huge amount of work to put a course online, but you can gain lots of appreciation from students.  I've seen too many bad online courses, and I am happy that you are thinking ahead about the issues involved.  Good luck!

[anon]

I am now teaching fully online for three different schools.  I started with a community college (that uses WebCT by the way) that provided the class shell for faculty to use so that all sections by all faculty are essentially equivalent.  After doing that, I felt comfortable designing my own course for another school (slightly different topic, using eCollege).  I teach the same course f-2-f and online, and it is NOT just a matter of sticking up your same materials.  If at all possible, I would STRONGLY recommend teaching an online class before you design your own.  If that's not possible, be sure you talk to many people beforehand to figure out what works well and what doesn't.

Most schools offer training in online teaching, and some require it.  If your school is already offering online classes, chances are good that they have an online education office (or distance ed, or continuing ed, whatever it's called at your school) that provides resources to faculty teaching online.  At the school where I created my online class, there is no reqiured training, but the online education office is amazing.  They have incredibly nice and helpful staff, and offer numerous free training sessions throughout the year.  So look for a similar office at your school.  

If there is no office like that, at a minimum, try contacting faculty (in different departments) who are teaching online and set up a meeting with them.  They might be willing to share their course materials with you, and you might even be able to get a guest login to their classes to see how they set things up.  It is very helpful to look through actual class shells to see what people do because there are many small tricks that are incredibly helpful.

[ExPat in UK]

I've been teaching an online course since 1995. It's also my area of research. My recommendation is to make participation a significant part of the assessment.

A great online class moves the discussion into one that can be 24/7. But if there are no firm time frames given then students won't participate.

I start each weekly topic with an initial discussion question and an exercise. An exercise example would be:, the week we discuss E-Commerce I make them find 3 items on Ebay that they'd like to have. They have to follow the auction and they have to email one seller a question about the item. Since it's something that they want they should have a question to ask. They then have to bring into the discussion their opinions as whether or not the seller is an individual or a company. If it's a small company how has online auctions given small companies the ability to sell online.

I also tell my students that in the discussion there are NO right or wrong answers... it's a discussion.

[Non Trad]

I'm starting my own online experience this term, so thanks for posting.  

Our school is encouraging us to start with "blended" courses.  This means that you will have some in person contact, for example, once every other week, in addition to the online.  It allows the teacher and the students to work out the kinks and to get some benefit of both teaching modes.  

It might satisfy your desire to commute less (50%) as well as ease yourself into the process.

[%sig%]

[Alan]

Be clear about deadlines.

It's a big gripe I hear from online instructors. Come up with a clear policy and stick with it.

You should also strongly consider making your students take an online "quiz" that will educate them about the amount of time it will take to do the course. Many schools already do this but if they don't, find one and use it.

A benefit of an online class is that the student gets to timeshift and do the work at times that are convenient to the student. They don't always understand that it's very likely that the online class will require a larger time requirement than the corresponding in-class version.

I hear students who will add an online class even though they have a FT job, a family, and 12 units at the local uni (I teach at a CC). Hey, it's not like they have to go to class. What's the big deal?

We we do advising for registration and I have a student who wants to take an online class, I ask them a lot of questions to make sure they have an idea of what they are getting into.

Also, be careful about what you are getting yourself into. I'm not advising against the development of an online course. But-

1. What happens to the course after you've designed it? The college may thank you for your work and then get someone else to teach it.

2. Will you get release pay to design it?

3. Are you allowed to use it if you decide to teach a similar course at a different college/uni? In other words, copyright. Yours? The college's? Joint?

Some colleges are very good about addressing these issues. Others prefer to stick their heads in the sand and pretend that copyright is not an issue.

Alan

[Alice]

You are lucky you get to design an online course. In my SLAC if I  dare to mention online courses I may get shot.

Does anyone have any literature on online education at "traditional" liberal art colleges? I am sick and tired hearing how would online education will destroy are precious institution....

Alice

[Thundering Marshmallow]

You may be interested in the recent issue of the Review of Educational Research Spring 2006 Volume 76 pp. 93-125:

Teaching Courses Online: A Review of the Research[/b] by Runnels et al. This comprehensive article addresses course environment, learners' outcomes, learners' characteristics, and institutional and administrative factors as revealed in 40 quantitative studies (10 survey, 18 ex post facto, 12 experimental), 20 qualitative (case) studies, and 18 mixed methodology studies.

The social interaction component was of interest to me, given that a different body of research that has found that students involved with others at the school tend to remain in school and regard the school experience more positively, and that a key element in online courses is providing effective communication and interaction. This is affected not only by the platform, e.g. Blackboard, and quality of presentation, but also student characteristics. Sonnenwald and Li (2003) found that social interaction preferences (cooperative, competitive, or individualistic) affected students' perception of the usefulness, and concluded that online environments are not equally effective.

This would indicate to me that the course must include some metacognitive awareness of the pedagogical value and purpose of interaction tasks, and a more transparent discussion of assumptions regarding interdependence. Course structures can unwittingly foster competition within the class instead of with future competitors for jobs.

Some specialized course features ahve been studied, such as having text on the screen which echoes the oral script being presented. According to from Mayer, Heiser, and Lonn (2000), there is no positive affect attributed to the redundant words. Also, bad news for lovers of clipart: when interesting but conceptually irrelavent information was added, transfer of information was reduced.

Designing courses with the students in mind is of course assumed, and it is interesting to note that there is a  demographic of students in online classes that is different from students who are not. The online students tend to be older, and motivated to use online options for the same reason as the OP: reduced commute and increased flexibility. The older students are paradoxically more skilled at time management and task commitment, but less familiar with the technology.

Regarding student satisfaction, a big issue for teacher evaluation, Jennings & Bayless (2003) found that poor student perceptions were not based on wehther there were any technological problems, but rather on whether there was anyone available to help solve the technology problems.

As is usually the case in educational research, much of this is has a big 'well, duh' factor, but perhaps it is useufl to have some scholarly literature to back up your common sense.

[B.F.]

Good online courses are well organized, easy to navigate, and have an instructor who responds quickly to student emails. You should review other online courses to get an idea of how to organize them. Determine what types of assignments that you will have in the course. I assume you will have at least one paper.  I recommend that you have students turn those in through the WebCT Submissions function. If you will be giving exams, there is a whole process for creating exams. There is a lot to learn with using WebCT. I highly recommend that you take a training course if there is one available.

You should know that WebCT was bought by Blackboard, another course management system. WebCT's future is not clear and many schools are switching to other management systems. It may be that you will have to convert your course to another system in the near future.

[LarryC]

Lots of good advice above.  To which I add : 1) Make your students use proper spelling and grammar, 2) try to head-off student emails by encouraging them to use the discussion boards.  Have a board titled "Course Policies Questions" and insist they ask their questions there, not via email. 3) Don't let yourself become the technical support, make sure they contact the computer help desk at your school.  But the computer help desk number on the syllabus before your own. 4) Having an online class is like having an milk cow, it needs some attention every day. Check the Course Policies board in particular once a day, and answer promptly (this also discourages email). Make an announcement or something every day.  (You can cheat on this by writing an announcement ahead of time and setting to show up on some day you are out-of-town!) You don't have to be online for long, but let the students know that you are paying attention.