Technology Corner Web-Based Teaching and Learning

General Quality Guidelines. Provides standards, guidelines and benchmarks for best practice in Web-based education from the American Council on Education, the American Distance Education Consortium, the American Federation of Teachers, the Council of Graduate Schools, the Council of Regional Accrediting Commissions, the Institute for Higher Education Policy, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education and the Sloan Consortium. 13 links

Course Guidelines and Evaluation Criteria. Provides guidelines, standards and criteria for designing and evaluating Web-based coursesand e-learning courseware. Areas include content, instructional design, interaction & feedback, instructional media, evaluation, course management and support services.Also addresses interface and general usability issues and accessibility. 19 links

Web-Based/Distance Education Instructional Design. Outlines and describes the basic processes involved in instructional development as applied to Web-based and distance education. Covers the key decisions to be made when creating an online course and the strategies and tools used for producing quality Web-based instructional experiences. Applied the instructional design process to multimedia authoring. 22 links

Teaching Online. Reviews technical and pedagogical factors to consider when planning an online course, discusses instructor training and support, and provides guidelines for effective instructional practices. Covers course delivery and management issues, student characteristics & preparation, course design & structure, instructional strategies, and online evaluation. Also addresses how to motivate students, manage communications, and foster active and learning. Includes a self-evaluation tool to assess one's readiness for online course development and teaching. 27 links

Online Collaboration. Reviews the theories, goals and assumptions underlying Web-based collaborative learning, discusses how to promote interaction among students and how to design collaborative learning tasks and environments. Includes links to bibliographic resources on collaborative e-learning. 8 links

Meeting Accessibility Standards. Describes the core concepts of accessible Web design and outlines the key criteria for creating Web pages that meet the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and the ADA Section 508 standards. Includes checklists and links to free online software tools for evaluating Web pages for accessibility. 16 links

Distance Education Associations and Resource Centers. Provides links to associations and centers that support organizations, agencies and individuals involved in the design, development and delivery of Web-based and distance education programming. Includes access to an array of clearinghouse materials and searchable databases on the effective use of telecommunications technology in learning. 15 links

Bibliographic Resources on Web-Based/Distance Education. Provides access to dynamic searches of the NLM Medline database on distance education in allied health, dentistry, medicine and nursing. Includes links to selected distance education reports and abstracts, a comprehensive bibliography of journals and books on distance education and gateway pages reporting on on outcomes research in distance learning. 8 links