Moore and Kearsley lay out a model of widely accepted model of Instructional Systems Design. While the model encompasses several logical or systematic facets of course design, it is clear that not all designers use it. In addition, in stating that "all aspects of learning and instruction should be defined behaviorally," (1996, p.102) more contemporary thinking about learning being more a cognitive act than a behavioral one are being discounted. Further, while not a negative aspect of the ISD model itself, there is an a priori assumption that a design team that subscribes to the model is always able to guide its own course and not subject to departmental or institutional pressures of politics.

Many course development teams use this model it has been the authors experience that it, it is more widely subscribed to in corporate organizations than academic ones. Corporate organizations are by their nature systematic collections of units that function within the model even when creating instruction is not the immediate goal. In additional, in a corporate organization, the correct execution of personnel training in directly and strategically linked to that company's revenue. The accountability tacit within the ISD model, is already ingrained in the corporate structure.

This accountability is less apparent in the academe. While course development teams often start with the best of intentions, and while those teams initially begin projects by applying the ISD model, most often all of the steps of the ISD process are not met. There is a variety of reasons that the model is abandon along the way but generally speaking, the cause is often a mixture of shifting political realities and shifting priorities. More concrete issues such as budgetary constraints often hinder the process, for example, given the exponential increase in the price of paper in recent years, study guides may no longer be feasible.

Another emergent issue that threatens the process, is the way in which the mode of distance education as well. Computers are beginning to play a larger role in distance education and given the position of the current Presidential administration, there is little reason to believe that his trend will not continue. Given this, and given that information in digital form is highly "portable" and "leaky," a central member of the development team, the course instructor themselves are beginning to ask what their rights as creators of that intellectual property are (Guernsey & Young, 1998) Currently, there are several lawsuits pending or working their way through the courts regarding this specific issue.

Finally, it's clear that for a variety of reasons, universities continue to move at their own pace and often have a fundamental lack of understanding about what students want. While the ISD model valuable for good course design, and still effective in many cases, one must question if in it's current state their model is still viable. Consider that in addition to the preceding problems mentioned, the distance education units of some universities are becoming "customer" of corporate education provides such as Real Education and Archipeligo.

More and Kearly are not alone though in their belief that an Instructional Systems Design model is necessary. Another such model is presented by Jerrold Kemp who presents a more holistic model which is aimed more directly at computer based instruction. While they share some of the elements of the ISD model many of the evaluative components are more precisely defined. In addition, they have added elements which are more specific to computer mediated environments such as a support services requisite.

Knirk and Gustafson offer a model of ISD which breaks the elements into a three phase process in which several sub processes come into play. While the interplay between the sub-process is continuous as it is in the ISD model presented in the book, the movment between the phases themselves is one shot and only proceeds in a single direction as development of the course continues. Regardless of the model used and how tightly the design team holds to it, fairly general design principles are often explicitly and implicitly used.

Examples of these design principles can be found in the Idioms in Context course provided by the American English and Culture Program (AECP) at Arizona State University. The goal of the AECP program is to provide varying levels of English language instruction to foreign students. The Idioms in Context class is an test class to determine if it is possible to partially mediate a class in contextual English skills via WWW based instruction.

The course has a definite structure which is systematically laid out in two places, the first is a schedule of what tasks are required during certain classes, and the second is a calendar that shows what classes are taking place on what days. The schedule doesn't specifically list course objectives, but when the student refers to the chapter in the text listed on the schedule, the objectives are listed there.

During its duration, the course is broken into smaller units, with each unit representing a certain contextual basis for the idioms being studied. Chapter one for example is called Cold Feet and deals with idioms that indicate a lack of confidence. Students can participate and interact in two different ways during the course by using a threaded discussion and a chat room. The purpose of the discussion group is to allow students a place to use idioms in the context of a short personal narrative or explanation about a certain cultural custom. The chat room is uses at the discretion of the students.

The textbook which is the primary source material for the course is complete and contains a CD-ROM which audio content featuring spoken examples of the material to be learned. Repetition and synthesis occur at varying levels within the course and generally speaking, are an important factor since synthesis is an important factor in learning language. At the current time however, while students are being stimulated to learn with a variety of formats, there is litte variety and open-ended assignments are limits.

The reasons for this are because of the history of the development of this course, a bad experience with other course designers left the staff of AECP tentative and the constructed this course in a "gun shy" frame of mind. Regardless of that fact, the do provide students with regular feedback on their assignments, and they reevaluate their materials frequently as new editions of the book become available and as more research on teaching this type of English is published.

Guernsey, L., & Young, J. R. (1998, June 5). Who Owns Online Courses? The Chonicle of Higher Education.

Moore, M. G., & Kearsley, G. (1996). Distance Education: A Systems View. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company.

Archipelago (http://www.archipelago.com)

Instructional Design References (http://www.seas.gwu.edu/student/sbraxton/ISD/references.html#Models)

Jerrold Kemp's ISD Model (http://www.seas.gwu.edu/student/sbraxton/ISD/jk_design.html)

Knirk and Gustafson's ISD Model (http://www.seas.gwu.edu/student/sbraxton/ISD/GIFS/kg_design.gif)

Real Education (http://www.realeducation.com)