Resources for Online Course Design

by David Glassmeyer, CETL Scholarly Teaching Fellow for Online Pedagogy
last updated: July 2022

If you are looking for the basics of online course design, this list is the best place to start. These resources will help you orient yourself with best practices in online instruction and access additional resources and training on best practices related to asynchronous and synchronous technology. 

Getting Started in Online Course Design

Digital Learning Innovations (DLI) has a series of getting started resources suitable for new online instructors. The Bagwell College of Education (BCOE) has also developed a video titled Basic Online Course Design to help instructors get started. 

Accessibility in Online Course Design 

KSU’s Academic Web Accessibility has resources for getting started in designing a course of any format, which includes four aspects of accessibility that will always be the faculty developer's responsibility: the Faculty Four of Accessible Development include alternative text, captioning and transcripts, document formatting, and accessible resources. Here is a Course Accessibility Checklist. 

DLI has several resources on how to make course content accessible when designing your online course. Their resources include: 

  • Creating an Accessible Microsoft Word Document
  • Creating an Accessible Microsoft Excel Document
  • Creating an Accessible Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation
  • Validating the Accessibility of a PDF Document
  • Creating Accessible D2L Course Content

The Bagwell College of Education (BCOE) has also developed a series of technology videos to help instructors develop accessible online courses: 

KSU University Information and Technology Services (UITS) has put together resources explaining Ally, the online accessibility checker automatically integrated within D2L. Their resources include: 

Enhancing Instruction in Online Course Design 

Once you have the basics down, DLI’s resources, Enhance Your Online Course Delivery, can help take your virtual instruction to the next level. These resources include: 

  • Deliver and Grade Assignments
  • Provide Online Assessments 
  • Effective Practices for Maintaining Integrity in Online Exams
  • Encourage Student Interaction 
  • Lecture using an Online Classroom 
  • Hold Virtual Office Hours
  • Remotely Access Your Office Computer
  • Record and Caption Your Lectures 
  • Upload Documents to OneDrive

In addition to the basics, research-based strategies exist for enhancing online instruction can be found in the book Small Teaching Online: 

  • Overview by Inside Higher Ed
  • Lang, J. M. (2016). Small teaching: Everyday lessons from the science of learning. Jossey-Bass & Pfeiffer. 

Instructional Design Principles

DLI has produced an overview of instructional design principles to assist online instructors. For more detailed information about these principles, here are additional resources free to KSU instructors: 

Resources for Implementing KSU Teaching

 

 

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