Example Workflow of a New Course Build
example workflow of a new course build
The following workflow was designed for a liberal arts course at the undergraduate level, but the concepts can be applied across the curriculum from Traditional Undergraduate to Graduate and Doctoral studies.
Each step is listed with sub-steps.
- Faculty are hired by Program Directors to fulfill an open teaching position.
Do they have experience with the university’s Learning Management System (LMS)? If so, continue to step two. If not, set aside time for synchronous training sessions or through an asynchronous introductory course or resources provided by the Program Director or Educational Technology staff.
- Faculty and Instructional Designer are connected, either through Program Director or established lines of communication.
Sharing of experience, relationship building and first steps, are discussed.
- Faculty submit their course map and syllabus to the Instructional Designer to begin building.
If no course map available, syllabus feedback is provided to ensure consistency with institutional policies and templates, as applicable. Feedback loop continues prior to initial build, ideally continuing until course is fully developed and during course delivery.
- Instructional Designer begins work on the course, referring back to the syllabus for clarification on content for overviews, discussions, and assignments.
- Instructional Designer suggests a variety of established principles for building content, continuing communication with faculty.
This includes, but is not limited to; assisting with naming conventions, connecting to external resources (think linking to resources on using APA citations rather than just a text box stating ‘You will use APA formatting.’), adding third-party apps to the LMS for authentic assignments (established through collaboration or by request of the faculty).
- Instructional Designer adds web accessibility content per Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
This might include color contrast, alternative text for images, title text for web links. In instances where the Instructional Designer cannot facilitate the accessibility guidance, will utilize faculty or a third-party service for closed captions on videos.
- Course is reviewed prior to publishing for student access by faculty. Instructional Designer continues to support as needed.
