Designing online courses : reflections from the cyber trenches

This paper reviews research on the use of instructional design in developing course websites; it then describes the writer\u27s experience creating a supplemental website using Blackboard, contrasting the project with the previous experience of creating an online course using WebCT. The writer analyzes problems with early online courses, reflects on the challenges of becoming an online teacher, documents her methodology, shares the results of the project, and makes recommendations for the design of effective web-based courses. Online teachers incorporate instructional design in many ways: they rethink their courses, analyze learners and content, design on paper first, structure the physical layout for content and interaction, actively engage students in solving problems, and find a variety of ways to evaluate students