Contents: Introduction Planning Producing Publishing Checking & Testing Resources Introduction: If you are in the midst of creating an online class, your mind is probably filled with questions. What are you going to teach? How are you going to teach it? What's the best way to organize the material and the class? How are you going to interact with your students and how can you use this new medium to it's best advantage? Fortunately, other people have blazed the trail before you. Let's start with a map of the region so that you can see the overall terrain. Here is a table of the entire process showing the typical activities involved before, during and after teaching an online class. Before During After Planning Producing Publishing Checking & Testing Communicating Assessing Managing Maintaining Evaluation Archiving Deleting & Cleaning up Redesign This session covers the 'Before' activities - planning, producing, publishing, and checking & testing. Planning: The process begins with a series of questions. What is the purpose? Who is the audience? What is the content? What is the order or structure of the content? What is the concept and style? What is the navigational structure? What are the technical specifications? What elements, devices, and tools will be used? What is the budget? What are the deadlines? Who will do the work? See Planning Questions and Issues for a more detailed list. Producing: Instructional websites can be custom built by hand, made using a web course authoring system, produced using template pages, or created by uploading information to a database. There are many ways to make a web page. Simple pages can be created in a word processor. Existing documents can be converted into HTML documents. Web editors such as PageMill, HomePage, Front Page or Netscape Composer can be used to assemble text and graphics and other elements onto a page. Simple sites can be developed by an individual. Complex environments may require a team approach. Each of the elements including text, graphics, multimedia elements such as sound, animation, or movies, and the programming of Javascripts or CGI scripts may be assigned to separate people. See Producing Questions and Issues for further information. Publishing: After your website is produced, it will need to be placed on a web server. All the pages and their images and other resources need to be located in the same relative locations as they were on your local computer or else the pages won't work properly. Decisions will need to be made about the site's accessability, level of security, back-ups and archives. The administration, support, and maintenance of the website may require a team of people. Pages will likely be added and edited continuously. Easy to use publishing tools are a must and ready access to the site from work or home is essential. See Publishing Questions and Issues for a more information. Checking & Testing Once your site is on the Web it needs to be checked and tested to make sure the pages look right, load quickly, and function properly. All the content and terminology should be checked for accuracy, and all the navigational links should be tested. Tools are now available which automatically check for broken links. Also, site management tools can make global changes on all the pages throughout a site. Pages can even be updated dynamically from information stored in a database. Change the database and every page which uses that information is changed automatically. Resources Strengths and Weaknesses - why the Web is a good medium for teaching and an outline of its strengths and weaknesses. Uses - a list of possible ways to use the internet in teaching and learning. Functions and Features - a list of common functions and features used in web courses. Features Matrix Planning Questions and Issues - a detailed list of questions and issues to think about while planning your online class. Online Course Worksheet Producing Questions and Issues - a list of questions and issues to think about during the production phase of your website. Software Tools - a list of software used in the production of web pages and sites with links to product information and downloads. Publishing Questions and Issues - a list of questions and issues around putting your class materials on the Web. Rules for Teaching Online - guidelines gleaned from experience. Tips and Strategies - a list of good ideas for web course designers. Observations From Online: Instructional Strategies and Techniques" - an article I wrote after teaching my Web Photography course for two terms. Web Design - a site for educators with background information, design tips and techniques, page elements, and resources. Web Photography - this is an archive of the first term for the course.