Resources for accessible web design, many which apply to designing accessible online courses

Rubric and checklist to evaluate quality/ effectiveness of online courses

"Faculty often describe the role of the online teacher as more of a "guide-on- the-side"rather than a "sage-on-the-stage." However, this cliché can be taken to extremes; there isa fine line between being a guide on the side and being absent. Therefore, this articlefocuses on different strategies online faculty can use to improve their teaching andultimately student learning by balancing their teaching presence when teaching online."

"Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2000) identify and explain the critical elements of a Community of Inquiry that supports instruction and learning. The elements include: cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence."

Here are ten best practices for anyone just getting started in the online environment. Research and experience suggest that these practices contribute to an effective, efficient and satisfying teaching and learning experience for both faculty and students. Using these practices can help develop confidence, comfort, and experience in teaching online.

" The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze two online legal environment courses to determine whether the instructor successfully used technology to create an effective online teaching and learning environment. The central focus is on the concept of "teaching presence" in physical and online environments and how teaching presence can be created in an online environment. "

"Sometimes students in the online environment just need that extra nudge to feel connected in order to truly excel. As instructors, we can facilitate community-building in an asynchronous environment by utilizing synchronous tools, such as Wimba, Skype, Elluminate, and others available to us via our learning management system or outside of the LMS. "

"When teaching online, you have the option of using an asynchronous delivery method, a synchronous method of delivery, or both. Making decisions on how you deliver instruction impacts your design, as well as your teaching practice."

"Teaching with synchronous communication tools"

"Debunking the top 10 myths about synchronous online teaching"

Practical tips from a Sloan-C award for Excellence in Online Teaching winner

Practical tips for teaching online

A checklist

Created by the Office of Disability Support Services at Kansas State University to help faculty ensure course content is accessible, this website offers many useful resources. An accessibility checklist and how-to documents you can use to ensure that content is accessible at a basic level. Examples of what makes content accessible and why accessibility is important. Resources for more information and best practices for accessibility.

"Discussions of technology strategy and planning for new media at colleges and universities are informed by many factors of higher education culture and the way its core constituents--faculty and students--work and learn. One rapidly evolving area is online assessment, whether for fully online programs or for blended learning environments. Here, learning designer Judith Boettcher examines online assessment strategies beyond the traditional end-of-term paper."

This special report features eight articles pulled from the pages of Distance Education Report, and covers a variety of different aspects of online course design. Some of the articles you will find in the report include: * The Collaborative Approach to Developing Online Courses * Building Course Quality Systematically * Who Ya Gonna Call When a Course Needs Help? * Developing a Course Maintenance Process for Your Online Courses * What Learning Object Repositories Mean for Your Program

"The increase in the adop-tion of Internet-related technologies for online learning has been accompanied by a parallel, but separate, demand for greater accountability in higher education. Measures of student engagement offer valuable indicators of educational quality, yet have been limited to use in on-campus settings. The authors used key engagement dimensions that the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) defined to measure student engagement in online courses from 3 universities. Online students were modestly engaged in selected NSSE dimensions and had a pattern of engagement that differed from on-campus students."

Tools for improving instructor presence

I like that it gives examples of tools that can be used to increase instructor presence.

The University of Central Florida's (UCF) Center for Distributed Learning (CDL) offers the Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository (TOPR) as a public resource for faculty and instructional designers interested in online and blended teaching strategies. Each entry describes a strategy drawn from the pedagogical practice of online/blended teaching faculty, depicts this strategy with artifacts from actual courses, and is aligned with findings from research or professional practice literature. While TOPR is currently in its beta release, all are welcome to browse and search its contents.