February 1999 — Features

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Anatomy of An Online Course

With working adults becoming an increasingly large percentage of our college population and with greater numbers of students having computer and Internet experience prior to entering college, opportunities must to be made to better meet their needs, interests and work schedules. Online courses can provide an alternative to regularly scheduled classes and can deliver the same services as a regular classroom environment. Instead of oral communication, however, interaction between instructor and students takes place using the computer.

What I would like to do in this article is share with readers who have an interest in offering online instruction the answer to the often asked question, "How do I develop an online course?" The idea of developing an online Computer Foundations course came to me at an NBEA conference after hearing other business educators tell of their online instructional experiences. Although I left the conference with a general idea of what an online course is - the opportunity for students to complete coursework away from campus and interact with the instructor via Internet - I left with no specifics. Exactly how d'es one prepare and implement an online course?

After returning to campus I met with our college's instructional technology support specialist to learn more. She informed me that our school had already purchased and installed a software program for online instructional purposes, but no one was currently using it. Because she was also interested in offering online courses, she agreed to direct my activities and serve as program administrator for the class. (Although we use the TopClass Desktop Education Server software by WBT Systems, other programs are available.)

Step 1: Course Layout

As I prepared the course materials and design, I tried to think of the kind of information I would want available to me if I were a student working on the course at home. I would want access to chapter or project objectives and intended outcomes, the teacher's lecture notes, course activities and assignments, and answers to the end-of-the chapter questions (TopClass's "coursework" feature).

Throughout the course I would also want instructor assistance when I encountered problems (the program's e-mail feature); instructor guidance and reminders of assignments and exam dates (the "announcement" or listserve feature); the opportunity to share with other class members my ideas ("discussion" feature); and the ability to take tests ("testing" feature).

Based on these prerequisites, my first task was to outline on paper the course layout. Since the Computer Foundations course contains both a theory component and a hands-on component, my layout addressed both. It began with three major divisions: Course Introduction/Overview, Theory/Concepts, and Software Applications. In the TopClass program these three categories are created within the menu selection entitled "Coursework" as directories or folders.

After organizing the course content, I then began typing (and typing and typing) the documents or files which would be included in each folder. These files are the instructional materials or Web pages that would be accessed by students.