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Instructional Design and Course Development

EdTek Helps You Afford Professional Online Course Development

If you don’t have the resources to buy the online education software, buy the hardware, hire the extra staff to run your datacenter and provide 24/7 Help Desk AND do quality online course development then you need to think hard about how you’re spending your budget dollars.  Here’s why?  Without quality online course development you will not have a successful online education program.  Period.

EdTek’s outsourced online education software solution and our fee-per-student pricing model can help you stretch your budget so you can meet all your priorities and put together the online course development team you need.  Imagine the resources you would have available if you didn’t have to buy the software and hardware and have as many IT staff babysitting the datacenter?  You might actually have enough to build darn good online courses.

Now let’s go one step further.  Imagine the resources you would save if you didn’t have to hire a full-time team of instructional designers and course developers to build all your courses.  How would your budget for online course development look if you could hire that kind of talent on an as-needed basis?  You just might have more resources to dedicate to enrollment marketing.

Why You Need Professional Online Course Development

Professional online course development is as important to the overall success of your online learning program as the role of an architect or trades-people are in the construction of a house.  You need an architect to work with you to draw up the plans of what the house will look like and how it should be built. Then you need skilled trades-people to construct the house according to the plan using the best available materials.

Likewise, you need an instructional designer to work with your subject matter experts to draw up the plans of what the course will look like and what content needs to be gathered to build that course.  Then you need course developers and multimedia developers to actually build the online course itself.  The end result of these two processes is a home and an online course that both stand the test of time.  To do otherwise could lead to shoddy construction and potential disaster.

So, ask yourself this:  If you wouldn’t live in a badly designed and built home why would you expect people to enroll in badly designed and badly built online courses.

Quality Online Course Development Promotes Student Retention

For many students taking an online course may be a new experience.  Perhaps they are not comfortable with computers or working on the internet.  If this is the case then what they need are course instructions and online course content that is straightforward, well organized, easy to understand and navigate and relevant to their reasons for enrolling in your online education program.

If your students have taken online courses before or are active users of the internet for a lot of their daily information, product and entertainment needs they probably have even higher standards.  If you don’t dedicate the right resources to online course development then sooner or later the people taking your classes will see how poorly the online course is designed and constructed, feel disengaged from the content and the learning process that is supposed to be taking place and either do badly or drop out.  When they reach that point they’ve become tough-minded consumers and start looking elsewhere for the education experience they want.

If any of this describes your situation then you need to change that immediately.  Why?  Because the biggest and most successful online education programs are dedicating significant resources to online course development.  Is it working?  All you need to do is look at their growing online enrollments.  If starting an online learning program was supposed to be a source of new growth for your school can you afford to settle for lower quality in your online learning programs?

Get Yourself a Professional Online Course Development Team

Sound instructional design and course development are critical parts of any successful online learning program.  Unfortunately, after the heavy expense of buying online education software and the infrastructure and staff to run your online learning platforms there are usually very little resources left for quality online course development.

Here’s the catch:  Without professional instructional design and course development all you have is subject matter content together with some distance learning tools in some online education software.  Just having these things in place does not make for a pedagogically sound online course or a successful eLearning program.

EdTek Services can provide you with experienced and professional online course development support for as long as you need it.  Our online course development team consists of project managers, instructional designers, course and multimedia developers and iSupport consultants.  These specialists work closely with your subject matter experts to ensure you get a course that is pedagogically sound, engaging for the instructor and students, easy to navigate and reflects the way your institution wants to teach and be presented to general public.

Best of all – you are not left with surplus staff when the EdTek online course development team is finished building your courses.  That’s money you can spend on marketing your programs.

If you feel you need some help in designing and building your courses or you want to utilize or enhance off-the-shelf publisher course content then call us Toll Free at (800) 827-1593 x 2 or fill out the form on this page and let's explore how we can partner to improve your course and program quality. 

Click HERE to Request Our Free Report:

"The 5 Biggest Mistakes That Almost All Small Schools Make

When Launching a Distance Education Program"

Blog for Instructional Design and Course Development

• Online Learning Course Content

Frequent Questions for Instructional Design and Course Development:

• How do EdTek's Instructional Designers help us?
• What are the main challenges instructors face when building and teaching a web-based course?
• Why can't our instructors build their own courses?
• What is the difference between an Instructional Designer and a Course Developer?
• Why do we need to use Instructional Designers?

Web Resources for Instructional Design and Course Development:

• Merlot - Online learning materials

  Description: MERLOT is a leading edge, user-centered, searchable collection of peer reviewed and selected higher education, online learning materials, catalogued by registered members and a set of faculty development support services. MERLOT's vision is to be a premiere online community where faculty, staff, and students from around the world share their learning materials and pedagogy.

• Evaluating Online & Blended Learning in Higher Education (CD-ROM)

  Description: This on-demand web conference, offered by Academic Impressions, explores how to develop, implement, and report specific evaluation plans, strategies, and tools tailored for blended and online learning.

• Big Stock Photo

  Description: Download or upload high quality royalty-free stock photos - instant stock photo download! Search and download high quality low cost stock photos and images. Use these royalty free stock photo images for templates, web sites, print, ads, products and more.

• WIDS

  Description: WIDS brings together curriculum-design software, training and consulting services to see you through the entire process of course and program development.

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Instructional Design and Course Development

What are the main challenges instructors face when building and teaching a web-based course?

Why can't our instructors build their own courses?

What is the difference between an Instructional Designer and a Course Developer?

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