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A Brief Overview of Award-Winning Article on GSMT Course Development

CSI Staff

Staff Writer

Center for Support of Instruction

Published: 0 2004

Category: » University-showcase » Papers-studies

In spring 2004, Stella Porto, program director in the Graduate School of Management of Technology's (GSMT) Master of Distance Education program and John Aje, GSMT Associate Dean were awarded the Best Paper Award from the Distance Learning Administration (DLA) for their paper, "A Framework for Operational Decision-Making in Course Development and Delivery".

In this paper, Drs. Porto and Aje look at several dimensions of the online course development and delivery process, namely: models and processes, technology, intellectual property, cost, and faculty support. They use these factors and and analyze the course and curriculum development at GSMT as a case study.

In so doing, they propose a set of criteria that should be applied when during the development and delivery of online courses. In their words, "the purpose of the criteria is to provide a framework that guides the selection of courses for online development, as well as selection of the process, models and resources, which should be devoted to their development".

In building out the criteria, they identify two sets of intertwined, non-linear steps:

1. "the administrative decisions such as what should be developed and when", and
2. the pedagogical criteria such as "how best to develop the course".

They emphasize the importance of being able to adapt quickly to the "changing needs and demands of students", particularly for resource allocation and multimedia production (including outsourcing considerations), the need for a repository of learning objects, the centrality of faculty support in the process, the attention to quality, and the need for external assessment to reinforce this.