Web-based Instructional Design Literature Review

By Grant MacEwan College

Definition
Instructional design of web based distance education courses is written
about frequently, partly due to the focus on instructional design in distance
education course development. In a print-based distance education context,
the course is designed prior to the beginning of the course and its form is
fixed during the time the course is offered. Revisions of course material are
difficult to make because changes often result in the reprinting of large
portions of the course so occur infrequently. In web-based distance
education, there is a similar emphasis on course design prior to the course
offering, although revisions are easier to make than in print-based course
modules. As well, instructor-student interaction can be built into web-based
course development, increasing the instructor’s opportunities to assist
students in completing the course.

Web-based courses can include a continuum of delivery mechanisms from

providing all course content and course activities in a web-based format to
various combinations of a web-based format with other distance delivery
formats, including print materials, site-based activities and all forms of
communication methods such as mail, e-mail, telephone, fax, discussion
lists, chat rooms, audio- and video-conferencing. Web-based instructional
design raises issues about collaborative design process, program
development, course design, web-based course authoring tools and
copyright and intellectual property rights. Instructors and administrators
considering web-based course delivery need to address these issues early in
the development process as a way to decrease the time and cost of
development.

Collaborative course development

The development and implementation of web-based distance courses is a
time consuming process, typically requiring more resources than the
development of a print-based course. (Gibson and Herrera, 1999; Brand,
1998). Baird & Monson (1992) note,

As the technology of distance education becomes more diverse,

increasingly sophisticated support organizations will be needed to
manage distance education networks and help faculty design, produce,
and deliver courses…As digital and analog technologies continue to
merge, distance education applications, among others, will also require
increasing interdependence between what may still be discrete campus
units: broadcasting, teleconferencing, video productions, and
computer technology. (p. 73)
Web-based course development can be done by instructors, however, in
order to develop an online program, many authors recommend using an
instructional design team including the instructor, and/or an instructional
designer and various support staff to deal with multimedia and graphical
elements, to provide ongoing assistance to students and instructors during
the course and to provide assistance with the administrative elements, such
as registration procedures, distribution of course materials (if required),
evaluation of course delivery, etc. (Duin, 1998; Gibson & Herrera, 1999,
Hirumi & Bermudez, 1996). The team approach to course development
requires ongoing and frequent communication between team members. Until
team members are experienced in web-based course development, all
members will experience frustration as they acquire and practice the skills
needed to design the course. The benefit of a team approach to web-based
course development is that it is easier to set a quality standard for online
course designs, to review "course content for quality and instructional
design," to formatively evaluate the course delivery, to set standards for
instructor response times in interacting with students (Meyen, Lian et al,
1998) and to develop instructor and student competencies required to
participate in both the development and implementation of web-based
distance courses. Viewing course development as a team effort with frequent
communication between appropriate staff, while time-consuming and costly,
is more likely to result in a quality course product than less collaborative
approaches.

Program Development
The development of web-based courses raises issues that apply to program
level decision-making. Meyen, Lian et al. (1998) summarize several
important issues that should be addressed during course development:

Will standard formats for course design be established so that students

do not have to learn a new format with each course they take? Will
there be common features across courses that students can anticipate,
for example, assessment strategies, chat groups, bulletin boards,
syllabi or communications with instructors? Will courses offered online
be equivalent to their counterparts offered on campus? Will courses
offered online be applicable to degrees or will they bc treated
differently? Will online coursework be transferable? How will students
learn about online courses, and will there be a simple management
system so that they can enroll with ease?

It is important to decide early in the development process if the eventual

goal is to deliver whole programs online or just a few courses. When web-
based course development occurs at a program or department level, there
are many more issues of institutional support that need to be decided upon
including instructor training, ongoing technical support to instructor and
students during the course, administrative support in terms of student
outreach, institutional support in terms of providing services available on-
campus such as library and learning centers, bookstore, student services,
registration, etc. and the institutional commitment of financial resources to
support the delivery of an online distance program (Gibson & Herrera,
1999). Although the need for such widespread support is less crucial in the
development of a single course, the development process is time-consuming
and costly and needs to be adequately supported both at the program and
the institutional level.

Course Design
An important part of course design is identifying the purpose of each
module, its primary audience and the expectations for learner outcomes and
experiences. Also, it is important to identify the kind of collaboration,
interaction and communication required, including how students will access
the instructor. (Duin, 1998). Equally important is assessing the target
audience for the course and ensuring that the course delivery method does
not prevent students from participating in the course. Another consideration
is to identify the origin of the material and the copyright/use issues
associated with it. (Duin, 1998).

Course design is a formative process during which designers answer the

following questions: Are the course objectives clear and achievable? Is the
technology being used to fulfill instructional goals? Is the course accessible
to students? Does the course have a good navigational design? Is is easy to
use? Is it on a "stable system?" What student competencies are required to
participate? How will assignments, exams be handled? What kind of
interaction and student participation is expected? How will the course be
evaluated? (Duin, 1998, Dringus, 1995). In a formative design process
someone, either course developers and/or a small group of students, goes
through the course as a student to give feedback about the course design
and the delivery methods (Lewis & Jansen, 1997).

Experienced web-based course developers recommend beginning with

courses that have been successfully delivered at a distance so that the
development process is focused on the format and delivery online rather
than a re-development of the course content. (Duin, 1998). It must be
noted, however, that ongoing course development following the pilot offering
of the course is likely as instructors and course developers acquire more
experience and confidence during the development process. Baird & Monson
(1992) comment that, "many educators who have taught at a distance, …,
remark on how their experience has forced them to better organize their
content, prepare better print resources, and pay more attention to
interaction with learners." (p. 71) Well prepared course materials, already
organized into appropriately sequenced activities and modules will still
require some adaptation in order to fit web-based delivery format.
Consistency in design, conventions for navigation and organization and the
differences in presentation of material online from printed text necessitate
changes to accommodate the change in format. Course authoring tools
facilitate the adaptation of printed courses to a web-based format.

Web based course authoring tools

A web-based courseware system is software that "handles the design,
delivery and management of whole courses online" (Firdyiwek, 1999, p. 29).
Although technical expertise is required to develop and mount a web-based
course using a courseware system, Murray Goldberg, the developer of
WebCT, asserts that the development time is significantly less than is
required in developing web-based tools without a courseware system.
(Goldberg, 1997). There are a few courseware systems available to choose
from, including WebCT, TopClass, Web Course in a Box, Virtual-U, Learning
Space and Web Mentor which have been developed for educational or
business training settings. Selecting a courseware system is an important
decision given the impact on the course design process.

Firdyiwek (1999) suggests a basic profile to assess courseware systems. The

profile includes administrative features, instructional features and the
features used by students. Administration features including setup and
maintenance, enrollment and registration, access control, and use tracking
functions. Instruction features include control over the look and feel of the
course, instructional tools such as synchronous and asynchronous
communication, assessment tools and course management functions.
Student use features including authoring and self-assessment functions. (pp.
31-32).

In her comparison of WebCT, TopClass and Web Course in a Box (WCB),

three different web-based courseware systems, WebCT shows a larger
number of instruction and communication tools, bettter student use tracking
and group management, more flexibility for students to follow their own
progress and better administrative tracking of course use. TopClass has
more flexible administration tools. All three courseware systems provided
instructor control over the look and feel of the course, assessment tools and
control of the students’ access to the course and direct access to basic
student information. WebCT and WCB provide students with web authoring
environments, useful for individual or group work while WebCT allows
students access to their own progress report information and statistics.
(Firdyiwek, 1999, pp. 32-33).

These courseware systems have so many features that the "overabundance"

of choice of features may make an informed selection process difficult,
obscuring the "pedagogical issues and implications underlying courseware
tools." (Firdyiwek, 1999, p. 29). Firdyiwek recommends selecting a
courseware system by assessing the software features in terms of the
pedagogical functions they serve, the amount of flexibility within the
software to accommodate the exploration of new learning approaches and
whether the features support instructional processes. The danger of poorly
informed selection of courseware is that "technological convenience may
take priority over sound pedagogy" and that re-evaluating courseware tools
may be considered too costly to do more than once. (Firdyiwek, 1999, p.
30).

Copyright and Intellectual Property Rights

The issue of copyright and intellectual property rights in web-based course
design are complicated and important issues that are in their infancy when
applied to Internet based materials. At present, it is possible only to state
the issues as they current exist. Teachers have traditionally used
copyrighted materials in the classroom. The private space of the classroom
made copyright infringement difficult to detect and prosecute. In an online
classroom environment, the material can potentially be accessed by non-
students and can also be copied, reproduced or otherwise manipulated in a
way not possible when reproduction relies on student note-taking. The
potential publication of student work which incorporates copyrighted
materials is also an issue where multimedia technology is used in education.
At the center of this issue is the public nature of material posted on the
Internet; it is a public forum that is accessible by educators for educational
uses. The fair use of copyrighted materials in an online learning environment
has not yet been clearly delineated.

The issues of copyright are unresolved in discussions between authors,

publishers, journalists and news media organizations and academic
institutions. Some attempts have been made to address the issues of fair
use of copyrighted materials and to apply existing copyright laws to
technological mediated forms of publishing such as web page content. The
Conference on Fair Use (CONFU) in May 1997, in Washington, DC. attempted
to reach a consensus among stakeholders about the fair use of materials and
the application of copyright but were unable to reach an agreement. The
suggested guidelines for web-based course development, include a section
on multimedia programs and projects. Significantly absent from the
guidelines developed at the conference are ones that apply to asynchronous
computer mediated delivery of distance education. The conference
consensus was that the area was too unsettled and that the issue should be
revisited in the next three to five years. The authors of this document note
that although the guidelines and rules of thumb developed through the
conference are not legally valid, following these guidelines may give users of
copyrighted materials reasonable grounds for arguing fair use. Guidelines
suggested by CONFU focus on four factors to determine fair use of material:
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a
commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of
the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the proportion
used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole, and (4) the effect of the
use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
(Educational Fair Use Guidelines for Distance Learning).

Canadian copyright law does not speak specifically to educational uses of

copyrighted materials in a web based format; delivery methods mentioned in
Bill C-32 are broadcasting and telecommunications. Canadian copyright laws
do, however, specify the use and reproduction of materials for educational
purposes as exempt from copyright infringement. In section 29.4 dealing
with educational institutions, the reproduction of copyrighted materials for
educational uses is not an infringement of copyright when used on the
premises of the educational institution or when communicated by
telecommunication to the public from the premises of the educational
institution. Computer mediated instructional technology is not included in the
wording of the bill at this time. Canadian copyright law also lacks the fair use
provision found in American copyright law that facilitates the use of
materials across a variety of mediums. The cost associated with following
Canadian copyright law is substantially higher without this fair use provision
(Houseman, 1999, p. 24).

Another issue is one of intellectual property rights of the course designer.

The ownership of a course in a web-based format should be specifically
addressed in the contract between the institution and the course designer.
This issue is particular to web-based courses because of the public nature of
online course material. Meyen, et al. (1998) comment, "All of the knowledge
and skills the faculty teaches online become open to review. Although it may
be restricted to students, it is still public. This is in contrast to traditional
courses, where lectures are presented but not recorded." (p. 53). They
suggest that the public nature of online course materials may have
implications for instructor evaluation.

In a traditional course you can assess student perceptions, but the other
evidence is in the form of the syllabi, exams, and supplemental resources. In
online instruction, however, even the interaction in the form of e-mail is
potentially available for review, as are the frequency and quality of faculty
responses to inquiries from students. The question then becomes whether
teachers of online instruction will be subjected to more rigorous evaluation
than instructors of traditional courses because their instruction is public and
all aspects of online teaching are accessible. (Meyen, et al., 1998, p. 53).

In both the issue of copyright and intellectual property, specific regulations

regarding web-based delivery of course material have not yet been
stipulated. These issues, although unresolved, can not be ignored as
educators and instructional designers create web-based courses. Following
fair dealing or fair use guidelines is likely the wisest course of action until
specific legislation is passed dealing with Internet based copyright and
intellectual property right issues.

References

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