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One of the most neglected areas of online learning is the skills of online instructors. Like face-to-face instructors, online instructors need strong formation in content, instruction and assessment. But since they are teaching through technology, they also need formation in other areas (managing online learners, technology skills).

Increasingly, faculty who teach an online course may not be the ones who actually designed the course. Thus, current measurements, especially those that focus on course design and innovation, are not appropriate tools for assessing these faculty members. Instead, the authors assert: "We must look at the actions performed by the instructors within the course." The objective of the authors' study was "to identify a set of criteria that would yield objective data easily examined by supervisors and peers during an online course observation and serve as a balance to the more subjective data gathered from student surveys." The authors identified six questions to be used as a starting point for evaluating online instructors. These questions are copied below verbatim: Has the instructor logged in at least an average of every other day? Has the instructor posted a biography of at least a paragraph, in addition to contact info? Has the instructor posted announcements at least weekly? Is there evidence that the instructor answers student inquiries in two days or less? Does the instructor participate in discussion forums where appropriate? Does the instructor provide feedback on assignments? This article is an excellent resource because it clearly delineates between design and instruction. It also provides the six very concrete questions to use when evaluating instructors.

A good simple approach. A three staged process for blended learning design: Absorb - Do - Connect

"The process model consists of three stages: Absorb-During this stage, students are gaining basic knowledge. This can include reading a chapter in the textbook. Do-Students then engage in an activity such as a discussion before the face-to-face session (in the case of a blended course) or a synchronous online session in the case of a totally online course. Connect-Students apply knowledge to real-world situations."

I've helped faculty implement this model in online courses and think it has been very successful. While a model like ADDIE provides a structured approach to designing an entire course, this Absorb, Do, Connect model, along with models like Gagne's 9 events of instruction provide us with models for how to structure individual lessons and keep them consistent.

BlendKit Course: BlendKit Reader: Chapter 1

" ...a number of educators living in the world of online learning who took some time out to share these thoughts on practices and challenges associated with creating and conducting compelling online courses and course content."

This Faculty Focus special report features 15 articles from Online Classroom newsletter, and will provide you with specific strategies on how to use synchronous and asynchronous learning tools to engage your online students.

Tony Bates is a leading Canadian researcher and writes in the online learning field. I highly recommend subscribing to his Blog for weekly insights. He is currently writing a new text that will be open and online. Tony writes about online learning in general, however, he also writes regular posts on blended learning, see for example: http://www.tonybates.ca/2014/04/20/synergies-between-online-learning-on-campus-teaching-and-flexible-learning/

Useful to share with colleagues creating online quizzes

Some very useful slides with details on online assessments and appropriate strategies etc.

Thanks for bringing this site to our attention. It's loaded with great resources!

Lit review of the effectiveness of online asynchronous environments from 2003. The section on online interactions and the descriptions of learner-learner, learner-content, and learner-instructor interaction within the Community of Inquiry model is a good introduction to the CoI framework and interactions online.

Example checklist of what an instructor should do prior to the start of an online course, as well as, different ways to interact with student at several key areas throughout the course. This is a concept that has been applied at many places in the past few years and can be applied to both hybrid / blended or online courses.

The faculty engagement subcommittee has developed a faculty self-assessment for online teaching. Check it out! Over the past year, the faculty Engagement subcommittee has worked on a faculty self-asssesment for online teaching. Carol McQuiggan, an instructional designer at Penn State Harrisburg who manged the process, presented the faculty survey and its results at the SLOAN-C conference in Orlando in November of 2008.

Thanks for sharing this resource Beth! Last year I worked with Carol and two other colleagues to revise/update the content of the tool. The main goal was to align it with the Competencies for Online Teaching (https://www.e-education.psu.edu/files/OnlineTeachingCompetencies_FacEngagementSubcommittee.pdf). In addition, we presented the updated version at SLOAN-C in October to solicit feedback. We implemented some of the changes and are putting other suggestions "on hold" as we investigate a different platform to move the tool to in order to address accessibility issues.

Another checklist for online/blended courses (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee). I liked the straight-forward language.

I chose this link for ch 4 because it provides a (short) list of some online technologies currently available and provides tutorials to learn to use them.

I chose this link for ch 4 because it provides a (short) list of some online technologies currently available and provides tutorials to learn to use them.

Thanks, Beth - I like this site!!! Especially the first YouTube on how to create good PPTs.