Wiggins, Grant and Jay McTighe. "What is Backward Design?," in Understanding by Design. 1st edition, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall, 2001, pp. 7-19. Copyright: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development 1998 Backward design, or designing with the end in mind, is explored in this first chapter of the book "Understanding by Design". It outlines how we as instructors can rethink how we deliver instruction, by first identifying what the desired results are, determining what evidence we will accept that illustrates these results and then plan learning experiences and instruction to achieve those results. This design process may help filter which features you may choose to use in a LMS or non-LMS.

Reference: Freeman, W. & Tremblay, T. (2013). Design Considerations for Supporting the Reluctant Adoption of Blended Learning. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 9(1), 80-88. This paper presents a case study where an online course was redesigned as a blended course without involving instructor participation. It examines how the instructors struggled with this new format and offers suggestions to course designers on how to successfully design and implement blended programs.