Chapter 6 Focus Question: Course Design and Development
Julie Barbadillo
EMC 598
Arizona State University
Summer 1998

Introduction

Background

In Chapter 6 "Course Design and Development" of Moore and Kearsley's Distance Education: A Systems View (1996), the authors discuss several types of instructional design models. These are: instructional systems design (ISD), author-editor, and course team approaches.

ISD is a "widely accepted set of procedures and processes for the development of instructional programs" (Moore and Kearsley, 1996, p. 123). ISD is a continuous process of five phases which are ongoing, continuous, and overlapping. These five phases are:

  1. analysis,
  2. design,
  3. development,
  4. implementation, and
  5. evaluation.
The ISD model is dependent on planning and training. ISD is most widely utilized by open universities, large corporations, and the U.S. Department of Defense because these organizations provide employee training; greater funding; orientation to producing specific, short-term results; and organizational support for education and training. Therefore, ISD is not used intensively in traditional universities and home study schools (Moore and Kearsley, 1996, p. 104).

The author-editor model uses a two-person (author and editor) team for instructional design (ID). And the course team model employs 20 or more team members (Moore and Kearsley, 1996, p. 104).

Scope

First, I will describe the ISD, author-editor, and course team models of ID and reference several on-line resources that are useful for developing distance education courses. And then, utilizing Moore and Kearsley's general design principles, I will evaluate an Arizona State University distance education course: EMC 598: Intro--Authorware.

 

ISD, Author-Editor, and Course Team Models of Instructional Design

ISD's history dates back to post World War II, when "the pressure for more efficient training techniques . . . were generated by the war" (Moore and Kearsley, 1996, p. 102). Grounded in several theoretical perspectives on learning and teaching--systems theory, behavioral psychology, and communications and information theory--ISD proposes that "all aspects of learning and instruction should be defined behaviorally, so that what the student is expected to learn can be measured, and teaching can concentrate on the student's observable performance" (Moore and Kearsley, 1996, p. 102).

Unlike the system approach of ISD, the author-editor two-person model follows a linear, two-step process of

  1. drafting a study guide by a subject matter expert/author and
  2. editing the final document by an editor or editorial staff.
The author-editor approach is favored in the production of correspondence courses, but it also used in program-level teleconferencing where a content expert works with a media specialist (Moore and Kearsley, 1996, p. 104). The major drawback to this type of ID is that, usually, the absence of an instructional designer compromises the final product. Often the editor must challenge the author to ensure that learning objectives, evaluation criteria, and teaching strategies are included. And many times the author's will prevails (Moore and Kearsley, 1996, pp. 104-105).

Author-Editor 3.5 by SoftQuad is a software program which allows an author/designer/instructor to create a document and an editor/user/student to modify it. The Orlando Project out of the University of Alberta in Canada compared Author-Editor 3.5 to WP SGML/WP 7.0 and selected Author-Editor 3.5 for these reasons:

The British Open University (BOU) designed the course team model which is characterized by teams of 20 or more individuals, each of whom is a specialist. A system's model, the course team approach is a complex process which engages academic content specialists in the design stage whose focus is on the objectives and content of each unit/module of the course. The whole team evaluates these objectives, including producers, editors, and external consultants. Further, academics design tests and develop supplemental materials. The technical experts assist the academics with the design of these materials. And, finally, a senior academic leads the team and an administrator ensures that each task in the development schedule--often two years in total--is completed on time (Moore and Kearsley, 1996, p. 105). Beatriz Sandia provides a detailed history of BOU's course team approach.

 

Evaluation of EMC 598: Intro--Authorware Using Moore and Kearsley's General Design Principles

Using Moore and Kearsley's twelve general design principles (1996, pp. 122-123), I evaluated an Arizona State University distance education course: EMC 598: Intro--Authorware. Moore and Kearsley's principles are comprised of these categories:

  1. Good structure
  2. Clear objectives
  3. Small units
  4. Planned participation
  5. Completeness
  6. Repetition
  7. Synthesis
  8. Stimulation
  9. Variety
  10. Open-ended
  11. Feedback
  12. Continuous evaluation
In EMC: 598--Intro to Authorware, six of the twelve principles meet Moore and Kearsley's expectations, two are somewhat lacking, and four are not able to be evaluated using the on-line materials. In terms of structure, the course design was somewhat difficult to navigate, as the sidebars, featuring the course's six links--about the course, objectives, schedule, assignments, evaluation, and resources--appeared alongside text, but the text didn't line up with the sidebars. Further, the structure of the schedule was too uni-dimensional and would benefit from added color and a variety of fonts and sizes, instead of the occasional blue and dominant black text. Also, due dates should be more discernable. However, a positive structural feature is the extensive project guidelines with explicit criteria for each assignment. The objectives of the course are clearly stated in the "objectives" section, and the on-line format of the course provides a means to divide and link the course's distinct units. Planned participation is evident in the projects, which involve the use of two-person student teams. One shortcoming in terms of completeness is the lack of examples of previous student work. Repetition of important ideas could be more evident, but I did not feel that this principle could be fairly evaluated as Moore and Kearsley indicate repetition is an ongoing process (p. 123). And, similarly, synthesis, is an ongoing process and was not evaluated. In terms of stimulation, with the exception of the lack of structural interest in the site, the assignments appear sufficient and varied. There are a variety of topics covered and the use of various media is required in the course. The open-endedness of the course is not entirely evident, and, once again, this is an ongoing process that requires the instructor to interact with the student throughout the semester. Feedback on assignments is discussed in the evaluation section. And, finally, continuous evaluation could not be evaluated based on the on-line materials .

 

References
Print

Moore, M. G. & Kearsley, G. (1996). Distance education: A systems view. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company.

Online

The Orlando Project. (1998). Comparison of SoftQuad's Author-Editor and Corel's WP 7.0. http://www.ualberta.ca/ORLANDO/aevswp.htm

Sandia, B. (1998). The British Open University. http://www.gwu.edu/~etl/bou.html

SoftQuad. (1998). Author-Editor 3.5 walkthrough. http://www.softquad.co.uk/products/authored/aetour/find.htm

Vrasidas, C. (1998). EMC598: Intro--Authorware. http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/~pambos/authorware/index.html