Centre for Academic Excellence

Developing Online Course Components

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In this section, you will have the opportunity to think through what kinds of materials you can include in your course, how you can set up effective learning activities, and how to use online assessments.

How can I make course content available to students?

Don’t overload the content

The temptation in online classes is often to give far more content than in a face-to-face class because sometimes it looks like relatively little.  As you’re working through your course content, consider what feels reasonable and what will effectively allow you to achieve your outcomes and objectives.  Be selective in what you choose to use.

Explain readings

In addition to providing readings to students, it can be helpful to flag particular things for students to pay attention to and/or make note of while they are reading.  You might also consider prompting them to think about how what they’re about to read, watch, or do applies to other course content or to future learning activities or assessments.

Provide lecture slides

In cases where you’re providing lecture slides to students, consider what you would usually say or do in a face-to-face lecture that’s not represented in your slides.  If there are additional examples, explanations, or ideas that aren’t already on the slides, ensure that they’re made available to students, either through a text description of the slides, lecture notes, or supplementary audio and video materials.  Even when you have created a lecture recording, also providing students with a link to the original PowerPoint file means that they can change colours and font sizes or take notes within the slide file in ways that support their learning.

Create narrated slides

One way to ensure that any additional examples, explanations, or ideas that aren’t fully represented on your slides are available to students is to create narrated PowerPoint slides.  Any narrated slides should also be captioned to meet accessibility guidelines. If you use this approach, you can also provide a slide deck and transcript for students to review alongside the narrated PowerPoint slides.

Make or include videos

Simple, brief videos can be a helpful way of getting course content to students. You can use PowerPoint to create narrated slides or a program of your choosing to record yourself or screencast your computer desktop. Videos can be hosted through MS Stream, which generates captions that can be quickly and easily edited for accuracy.  Alternately, you can use captioned videos from other sources and can link to them from or embed them in your course.

Make or include audio files/podcasts

There are a number of different applications that will let you work with audio files for your course.  You may want to extract audio files from any video lectures using a program like VLC. Or, you might create your own audio files for students to listen to using a program like Voice Recorder.

Use Open Educational Resources (OERs)

OERs are materials that can be used for teaching and learning.  They’re freely available and, in many cases, are licensed so that they can be altered or adapted to meet the needs of different courses.  They can include any kind of open learning tool, such worksheets, videos, modules, and textbooks.

Use NC resources to locate OERs

The NC library has updated its subject guides to include subject-specific OER suggestions. You can consult your appropriate subject guide for options and speak with your program liaison to help you navigate options.

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What kinds of learning activities can I do online?

Use group activities

Collaborative work can have significant benefits for students.  In online teaching, where students aren’t face-to-face and it can feel like the stakes can be high, consider implementing group agreements, scaffolding any group work, using low-stakes assessments to take the pressure off, and giving clear guidelines and guidance.

Engage students through discussions

Using discussions in an online course allows students to connect with you and with each other  It also gives them an opportunity to think through what they’re learning and apply it to class concepts. Online discussions should offer students open-ended questions or prompts that allow them to think critically, apply materials and concepts, and share their ideas and perspectives.

Use Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs)

CATs are simple, straightforward, low stakes ways to check in with students, help them learn course content, and gather formative feedback on your course. There are many different CATs, and many can be easily adapted to work well in an online course.

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What online tools can I use to assess my students effectively?

Allow for a range of options

As with a face-to-face class, students are likely to have different strengths and preferences about how they complete assessments. Offering a range of assessments across a course makes it more likely that students will have at least some assessment options with which they are comfortable.

Consider new online tools that could meet different needs

There are a lot of really interesting online tools out there that can do a lot of cool things.  You might consider using blogs, journals, wikis, image sharing, polling, mind mapping, or design focused programs to open new opportunities for assessments. If you do use different tools, give some thought to how accessible they are likely to be for diverse students.

Be selective in your tool use

As appealing as many tools are, it’s often best to start with one or two.  This saves you from having to figure out a lot of new tools at the same time.  It also helps to limit confusion among students, since having to navigate a variety of tools outside of the course can get complex and confusing.

Allow students to choose what works best for them

If you’re using different tools in your course, consider giving students some choice in what tools they choose to use, especially around assessments. Allowing them to choose the tools that meet their needs and that allows them to do what they’re interested in doing increases ownership and engagement.

Choosing media for teaching and learning – https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/part/9-pedagogical-differences-between-media/

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What should I consider when developing online tests?

Assume open book (and open person)

If you’re not using an online proctoring service – which may present technological issues for students – assume that students will have access to their books and their classmates during any test. To deal with this, you may consider partially or fully randomized tests, or different versions of test questions.  You may also consider focusing on questions that require more analysis or critical thinking, so that answers can’t be easily looked up or answered by other people.

Consider offering practice tests

Tests can be created in Brightspace that don’t count towards final grades.  Offering students the opportunity to try out and learn from a practice test in advance can help to reduce student stress, particularly if online testing is unfamiliar to them.  In turn, ensuring that students are comfortable helps to decrease the likelihood that they will attempt to cheat.

Where possible, avoid use of online proctoring solutions

The technological nature of online proctoring makes it more likely that students will have issues completing testing on their devices and over a network connection.  This can hinder student access and significantly increase student stress.

Use a randomized test

Fully randomized tests can be set up in Brightspace so that each student gets a random set of questions.  With careful planning, each student can receive a test with the same number of different types of questions and the same number of questions from different units or chapters. This ensures that each test is comparable in difficulty while ensuring that each student receives a different set of questions than their peers.

Check out our the video “Create a Randomized Set of Quiz Questions” for information on how to do this in Brightspace.

Review this resource from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California for an overview of how to set up a randomized test in a way that is carefully planned and fair to students.

Keep flexibility in mind around test settings and availability

It’s often tempting to tightly restrict when students are able to access online assessments in an attempt to maintain academic integrity. With many students attempting to complete classes from around the world and in a range of time zones, ensuring that an assessment is available for at least 24 hours will help to ensure that students are able to complete the test at a time when they are able to focus and have predictable access to a device. If you’re concerned about questions and answers being shared among students, consider randomizing the test and pay close attention to what feedback is made available to students and when.

View tests as a learning opportunity

While some tests are of significant consequence to students and require assurances of academic integrity, others might be considered as more of a learning opportunity. Viewing a test as an opportunity for students to learn what they don’t know, either by reviewing materials or consulting with peers, can be one way to reframe online testing.

Consider an academic integrity pledge

Having students agree to maintaining academic integrity can make a difference in the degree to which they cheat on tests. Including an initial test question that they have to indicate that they agree with or that requires them to type out their agreement can be an easy way to accomplish this.

Sample academic integrity honour pledges – https://www.rochester.edu/college/honesty/instructors/pledge.html

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.  Use this citation format: Design, Develop and Deliver: A Guide for Effective Online Teaching, Centre for Academic Excellence, Niagara College.


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