Web Course Analysis
Analysis in the first step in web course design. The aim is to clearly define the need as well as the way the course will meet the need. During this phase you will also get a clear picture of resources available to develop the solution as well as any technical and other constraints that might effect your web course design.
At the end of this phase you should have analyzed the following:
- What is the learning problem?
- What are the goals and objectives?
- Who is the audience? Is this part of a classroom setup?
- What are the audience’s needs?
- Does the audience have to pay to access the course content? How will the payment be handled?
- Is the course content protected and allows access to only those authorized or is it freely available to anyone?
- Is it important that the course content be found easily via search engines ie. does it have to be optimized to rank high in the search engines?
- What existing knowledge will/ should the audience have?
- Will there be an instructor/ facilitator. What will his/ her role be in the online course?
- What existing content is available? Are they available in formats that can easily be used on the web?
- What kind of download speed will the audience typically have while going through the course on the internet?
- Availability and time availability of subject matter expert (SME)
You should also have recommendations regarding the following for your web course:
- What is the learning environment?
- What are the constraints? This could include technical skills, internet download speed of the audience, time, money, content availability, content copyrights etc.
- What are the resources available?
- What are the delivery options?
- Will the course be time bound i.e specific dates or at any time? Will an entire class do the course together or can individuals do the course anytime at their own pace?
- Will there be any opportunities for interaction amongst students themselves and also with facilitator?
- Will you be using a Learning management system (LMS) e.g. Moodle? If so, how does it work, what are the constraints etc.
- Will you be using any other web platform or content management systems (CMS) e.g. WordPress, Joomla, Drupal? If so, how does it work, what are the constraints etc. You can find WordPress and Drupal tutorials on this site.
- Do you have the resources to develop Flash animation and interactivity, video, audio, graphics etc.?
- If the course is comprised of various modules, who will be the learning designer, web designer, web programmer, Flash designer assigned to each module?
- Who will approve the output of the various stages of web course design?
- Who will test the final web course? What criteria will it be tested for?
- How will feedback about the course be collected on an ongoing basis?
- What is the scope of the project keeping in mind the resources and constraints.
- What is the timeline for the project?
At the end of this phase you will have a broad idea of the learning needs, the current content availability, the resource persons, the proposed solution and deliverables.
Web Course Design
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