The project management approach to developing and delivering technology-based teaching and learning ensures that resources are used efficiently and that individual team members contribute appropriate skills and knowledge to the project”. (Bates, 2000, p. 68).
Overview of The Design Team
Online courses are designed using a variety of configurations. For quite some time, a very common approach focused on the single instructor acting as content expert, course writer, and designer. This approach is what has been popularly called the “Lone Ranger” or “laissezfaire” style (Bates, 2000). “Certainly, there is a time in an organization when the laissez-faire or Lone Ranger approach may be suitable, and that is when a university or college is just beginning to commit to the use of new technologies” (p. 66).
A number of factors favoured this approach to design, most notably, cost and workload issues. The ‘going it alone’ approach is still alive and well in the e-learning landscape, but some experts stress that the disadvantages of this method far outweigh the benefits. “It is too hit and miss. It wastes resources, ignores the experience and many lessons that have been learned outside the higher education sector about how to design and develop creative media products and services, and above all fails to ensure high-quality, technology-based teaching in any consistent or widespread form” (Bates, 2000, p. 66). On the other hand, there are expert instructors who do have the pedagogical, technical, and content expertise to create viable and high quality courses on their own (Struthers, 2002). However, in reality, there are several different configurations adopted by various institutions, ranging from the single-course author supported by information technology experts to the extensive project team approach described in this section.
Current instructional design and e-learning research and practice usually stress the need for a project team approach, where a diverse variety of experts work together to create high quality, pedagogically sound courses and programs. This project team can be made up of a number of people filling specific team roles, the most common include a project manager, content or subject matter expert, a content writer, a multimedia developer, an editor, and an instructional designer. Often, a concurrent instructional design approach is used, where each member works on their portion of the project simultaneously or “as needed”, creating a modulated, synergistic milieu for designing the course or program. For instance, once the content expert and writer have determined the desired topics and inherent content, the multimedia and/or graphic designer can begin to work on the supportive visual and multi-sensory content or learning objects to augment the foundational content.
There are some drawbacks to using the project team approach to course design. The biggest hurdle may well be teacher buy-in. Most faculty, especially in higher education, are used to functioning autonomously, and may be resistant to sharing the design of a course because of intellectual property considerations. “The project management approach is often seen as a bureaucratic, expensive, and unnecessarily complicated process, and a process that restricts the freedom and autonomy of the teacher” (Bates, 2000, p. 72).
Another possible drawback is the notion that project management can restrict the creativity and/or originality of the course designer. Obviously, there needs to be open communication between administration and the various members of the project team to be able to design a top quality course together successfully. As long as each member of the team is respected for their own expertise and contribution, and the issues of ownership and copyright are amicably decided, most teachers feel some relief that creative and knowledgeable team members support their efforts. Unless an individual course designer is multi-talented, with skills in content writing, editing, multimedia design, and so on, it is unlikely that a truly interactive, original, dynamic course can be created all alone.
Human Infrastructure
Four levels of human infrastructure support are fundamental to the development of any course or program, especially when done at an across-institutional, regional or national level (Bates, 2001). These include:
technology infrastructure support people (design, maintain the learning network)
educational technology infrastructure support people (design, maintain the learning interface structure such as navigation, screen components)
instructional design infrastructure support people (coordinate the actual online course components and structure such as structure of learning activities or modules)
subject expert infrastructure support people (design content, provide instruction).
Instructional Design Team Roles
Often, the human infrastructure needed to design a high quality course is best achieved by appointing a diverse instructional design team. Each member of the instructional design team fulfills specific roles.
Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): The ideal instructional design team work together in synergy.
Project manager
The project manager or leader often applies project management methodology to organize the project plan in conjunction with the rest of the design team. Often, the project manager liaisons with the instructional designer to set project start and end dates, determine what resources are needed to fulfill each project task, and set the project goals, challenges, milestones, and needs. The project manager is also responsible for ensuring that all team members are able to fulfill their tasks on time, and responds to challenges as they occur across the project timeline. The manager also coordinates copyright adherence and final details of the course project.
Instructional designer
The instructional designer is responsible for the course layout, branching, and positioning the written content within the online environment. Often the designer is involved with determining the course module or lesson objectives, the evaluative components, and may help the content writer and/or expert to develop the content. The instructional designer also works with the multimedia/graphics designer to determine the specific graphics, audio, video, movie and other multi-sensory components to augment the content. The role of coordination is often shared between the instructional designer and the project manager, to ensure consistency across the team, and to help identify problems and obstacles that emerge as the design process progresses.
Content or subject matter expert
The content expert is the team member who has well developed knowledge about the subject content. The content expert usually works very closely with the writer to ensure that the core essentials of the determined content are current, accurate, and meet the learning objectives of the course or program. The content expert also assesses the written content to verify that it addresses the intended audience, and, in conjunction with the instructional designer, helps to decide what multimedia and graphical objects are required to make the learning experience rich and meaningful for the learners.
Content writer
The content writer is the member who brings expertise in writing content for the course. Sometimes, one team member serves as both the content writer and subject matter expert. Their role entails researching the content, incorporating the input from the subject matter expert into the written component of the course (or sometimes, rewriting and editing existing content), and fashioning the content so that it suits the online course environment. The content writer works with the rest of the team to determine course and individual lesson objectives and other components, and selects the supportive materials such as text books and readings, usually with the content expert, instructional designer, and project manager.
Multimedia and graphics designer/technologist
The multimedia designer is responsible for designing the animations, visual graphics, audio segments, and other multi-sensory objects that will support the instructional requirements of the course. Working with all members of the team, especially the course writer, expert, and instructional designer, the multimedia designer helps to bring the course to life, providing a robustness and aesthetic appeal to the course design.
Editor or technical writer
The editor is responsible for ensuring that the content is well written and meets quality standards. The editor edits the course content for spelling, grammar, tone, and general usability, usually working closely with the content writer and the instructional designer.
“Communication is human nature. Knowledge sharing is human nurture”. – Alison Tucker, Buckman Laboratories.
