This section will discuss the meat of the online course: the content! To get started, review these 10 tips for developing your first online course from Faculty Focus, then let's go!

Course Design

In addition to thinking about content and activities, faculty need to consider how the course will be designed (in other words, organized and set up for ease of use and understanding by the learners).  This course does not focus explicity on design principles, so if you have instructional designers available, be sure to consult with them before getting started- it is easier to organize well from the start and include good instructions and tools than to try to fix after the fact. 

Quality Matters is an evidence-based approach to organizing and designing online learning and content.  Use of its tools and resources is subscription/membership based, and your institution or organization may have a membership that would give you access to their rubrics and other resources such as training opportunities. Their process also includes peer review of courses which can help you improve upon your course over time.  Setting up a course well can be overwhelming for some people, but becoming familiar with best practices and incorporating at least some of them from the start will get your course on the right track.