It is vital to develop a plan of instruction when considering putting a course on-line.  The activities below will help develop the design plan.

Course Organization

In a traditional face-to-face course, the instructor often has complete control over the organization of their own course. The online instructor is central too, but not alone in setting up the organization and management of the course. New administrative skills are necessary for the online instructor to coordinate institutional, pedagogical, and technological demands.

Instructional Design for Online Courses [.pptx]

Online Instruction – Important Issues to Consider

1. What are the pros and cons of having a third party conduct course evaluations?
2. Should course evaluations be posted online and be publicly accessible?

The Internet is unequaled in terms of the amount of readily available current and uncensored information. It is a fount of informational resources, but also a fount of misinformation and faulty resources. Unregulated by the FCC, almost anyone may publish on the Internet. The accessibility of publishing on the Internet is one of its strengths, but is also the source of the Internet’s potential for disseminating questionable information.

Source

Anyone can publish on the Web. The author or source of information should show some evidence of being knowledgeable, reliable, and truthful. Some questions you should ask are:

Is the name of the author/producer easily identifiable?

The name of the author may be at the top or bottom of the Web page. Sometimes there will be a link to more information about the author, but keep in mind that none of it may be true!

By Mike McNett

In discussions among both new and veteran online instructors, some of the most persistently expressed concerns center upon issues of academic honesty. How does one conduct assessments in an online course? How can you be sure that the person taking the test is actually your student? And that they are acting alone, without the book? With the proliferation of online term-paper mills, how can you be sure that the essay or term paper you receive is actually your student’s work?

When giving an exam online, how can you be sure a student is actually doing their own work? What is the most secure way to handle online examinations? While there are no magic answers to these questions, there are many strategies an instructor can use to accurately assess student performance online and minimize a student’s temptation to cheat. Consider these options:

by Dale Maeder, Professor of Educational Psychology, UCLA

My online students often wonder how their participation in class discussions is going to be evaluated. Although I know that your grade here is probably not your greatest concern, you may be interested in knowing how I will be determining the participation portion of your course grade.

Suffice it to say that there are two fundamental principles I consider when calculating this portion of your grade:

Once you’ve created your rubric, the next step is to use it. As stated before, during the creation process, you should have taken into account both who would be using the rubric and who would see the rubric. Here are some guidelines for putting the rubric to use. They may seem like a lot, but as you begin to use more rubrics, these guidelines will become second nature.