Instructional design support increases student-to-student interaction. Source: Chloe 2: The Changing Landscape of Online Education

Designing a User-friendly Online Course

Nearly 70 percent of those who require professors to work with designers or in teams report "lots of" student-faculty interaction in their online courses, compared to about 40 percent of those whose campuses either don't provide design support or make it optional.

a six-step process (Salmon, 2016). In stage 1, participants write a blueprint by agreeing on a mission statement and ‘look and feel’ for the new course. In stage 2, participants develop a storyboard by visually plotting the various components of the course (classes, assessments, and other activities) on A3 flip chart paper. In the third stage, participants develop an online prototype of their new course, by trying out some of the redesigned activities in the online platform. In stage four, participants perform a ‘reality check’ by asking other workshop participants to try out their prototype and offer feedback. Participants review and adjust the prototype in stage 5 and then develop an action plan (stage 6) whereby they decide what else needs to be done to complete the course, when it needs to be done, and by who

User Experience Design

Online Learning Designer

Instructional designers had also developed a reputation on campus for completing repetitive tasks that instructors preferred not to tackle, such as creating folders in the learning management system and printing documents. Bond describes the dynamic as a “conversionist mentality: here's my stuff, put it online.”

“a higher education professional who is engaged in course design and development and who provides faculty support to aid in the adoption of academic technologies and effective teaching strategies across face-to-face, blended and online modalities.”

Critical instructional design moves toward realizing the possibility for learning that blends a new form of rigor with agency through a practice of inquiry, empathy, and emergence.

Instructional Design in Higher Education