7.4: Course Development
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Course development is also referred to as course authoring. Courses made available on the Web are simply collections of web pages designed to help people learn. They may be a group of resources to which a learner is referred, or they may be carefully crafted sequences of learning events that include interactivity, tests and assessments, animations, screen simulations, video, and audio. It is possible to create web-based learning courses by using templates or by programming directly in HTML or Flash but there are course authoring tools available which are designed to simplify the process.
In education LMSs some course authoring capability is usually included. Some instructors may prefer to use additional tools. Course authoring is not usually included in corporate LMSs, but is available separately. as part of an LCMS or as part of a suite of products.
Course authoring tools like Adobe/Macromedia Authorware and SumTotal ToolBook have been around since before the World Wide Web, and have evolved with it. Not all the tools do everything. The more complex ones require considerable expertise and can benefit from programming experience. Simpler ones are easier to use but may be somewhat limited in capability. Some are tools for converting PowerPoint presentations or Word documents to web code. They are often referred to as “rapid e-learning” development tools. Others are specialized to produce software simulations, or tests, and assessments.
In education LMSs course development tools provide the means for teachers to perform the following types of activities:
- Provide and organize resources related to the learning objectives: Most education solutions allow instructors to create simple text pages or web pages. These can be used for a syllabus, a project outline, assignment instructions, grading guidelines, and much more. LMSs usually provide support for multi-media materials such as video and audio streaming or modules or simulations built in other software tools. If instructors are using tools such as Dreamweaver, Flash, or other authoring tools, it is important to obtain an LMS that supports the code generated by these products particularly for any rich media, interactivity, and for recording scores on tests.
- Set up communication tools for the students to use: LMSs often give instructors and students the ability to send email to one another via the LMS. Instructors can also set up group areas, discussion forums, wikis, and other tools to allow students to communicate about general topics with little to no facilitation by the instructor or teaching assistant. For example, you can use a discussion forum as a way for students to introduce themselves, to provide technical support to each other, or to continue an interesting discussion if you run out of time in the classroom. Many LMSs also provide a calendar to which students, instructors, and the LMS itself can add events. Students can schedule study groups, instructors can remind students of special events such as field trips, and the LMS itself will mark events such as quiz dates or assignment due dates.
- Facilitate and manage online interactivity related to the learning objectives: Those same communication tools, and several others, can be used to facilitate online interactivity related to coursework. Depending on the LMS, instructors can use single-question polls to gauge student attitudes or knowledge about a reading, discussion forums to have students analyze a lab procedure before entering the lab, wikis to have students collaboratively solve a problem or work on a project, or chat to let small groups discuss required field work in real time.
- Assess student performance (skills, knowledge, and attitudes): LMSs provide avenues for students to submit assignments and for instructors to evaluate different types of student performance. For example, students can submit written essays in several ways, including, but not limited to, digital drop boxes, discussion forum threads, discussion forum attachments, wikis, or “assignment” modules. Instructors can require students to use different submission pathways to create different types of assignments. You might use a discussion forum to allow peer review, wikis to engage students in collaborative writing exercises, or assignment modules to make it easy to collect all the essays. LMSs usually provide tools for creating and delivering quizzes as part of the courses. Instructors may also use other tools for this purpose such as Questionmark Perception, Respondus, Hot Potatoes, and test banks that publishers provide. If you plan to use these tools, it is important to be sure that your LMS can work with the code generated by these third-party software solutions.
- Assess teaching effectiveness: Many LMSs contain survey tools to allow instructors to collect feedback about specific topics, including teaching effectiveness (see Chapter 24, Evaluating and Improving Your Online Teaching Effectiveness, for more information on this topic). The different LMSs vary the possibilities for instructors and students. Some allow anonymous student responses and some contain specific survey instruments for teaching effectiveness. If the LMS does not do everything you want, you can always link to an external survey tool on the Web. For example, the Free Assessment Summary Tool ( http://getfast.ca ) allows instructors to use a database of more than 350 teaching effectiveness questions, to create twenty questions per survey, and to download the results as an Excel spreadsheet, all for free.
Tip
Be sure your LMS will work with the additional tools that instructors are likely to use for course development.
Course Development in Corporate LMSs
Course authoring tools are not usually included as part of a corporate LMS, but are available separately or as part of an LCMS.
For corporate training there is a strong reliance on pre-packaged, self-directed courses. These can be purchased from third-party vendors like Skillsoft, Thomson NETg (now a part of Skillsoft, making Skillsoft the single largest vendor of such courseware by a substantial margin), ElementK (now owned by NIIT), and Harvard Business School Publishing. Generic courseware is available for learning skills in communication, business, leadership, management, finance, information technology (IT), sales, health and safety, and more specialized topics.
Most companies also have a need to develop courses on for unique situations and proprietary products and services. There are many tools available for this purpose. Most of these are designed primarily for creating self-directed online courses, but they can also be used to develop classroom materials.
Some examples of popular course authoring tools:
- SumTotal ToolBook
- Adobe Authorware, Flash, Dreamweaver, and Acrobat Connect Presenter
- Trivantis Lectora
- ReadyGo Web Course Builder
- MaxIT DazzlerMax
- Outstart Trainer
Course development can be very time consuming. There is a lot of material already available in Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. So-called rapid development, or rapid e-learning tools are designed to quickly convert these documents to e-learning courses. Examples include:
- Articulate
- Impatica
- Adobe Presenter (formerly Macromedia Breeze Presenter)
- KnowledgePresenter
Most of these tools (with the exception of Impatica) convert PowerPoint and Word documents to Flash because it is web-friendly and so widespread. (According to Adobe, Flash is already installed in 97 percent of browsers.)