The first thing to keep in mind as you design an online course is that you are not starting from scratch. In the case of an in-person course that will be taught online, content for the course already exists. You will be adapting the content for the online modality. This will involve intentional pedagogical and practical considerations. 

If your course already exists, a good starting point would be to apply OLC’s quality checklist to the syllabus and its Brightspace site (if applicable). While your course won’t score perfectly, the initial assessment will give you a strong idea of where you’re starting. 

If the proposed online course is brand-new and does not have an in-person equivalent, the OLC’s quality checklist should also be applied to the syllabus and course description. Gaining familiarity with the checklist will be valuable as you begin the design process.

Before you get started, it’s important to remember that online course design is an iterative and intentional process; as you build your course and observe its effects on student learning, you will want to refine and adjust your design. The sustainable design and quality-driven practices outlined in this document will support you in doing that. 

As you dive into the design process, your choices should be guided by this question:

What types of experiences do you want students to have while they are mastering content through each learning activity, assignment, discussion, and assessment?

1. Interaction with each other (student-to-student)

2. Interaction with you (student-to-instructor)

3. Interaction with the content (student-to-content)

Ideally, you’ll create a consistent combination of these experiences throughout the course. To ensure consistency, it will be important to identify which type of experience accompanies every learning exercise, assignment, discussion, and assessment and adapt your plans accordingly. 

In reflecting on the types of experiences you want students to have, it’s important to note that all learning exercises can be delivered to students in one of two ways: synchronously or asynchronously. 

Synchronous: instructors and students gather at the same time and interact in real time with a very short or “near-real time” exchange between instructors and students.

Asynchronous: instructors prepare course materials for students in advance of students’ access. Students may access the course materials at a time of their choosing and will interact with them over a longer period of time.

Online courses can be facilitated entirely asynchronously, or they can involve a combination of asynchronous and synchronous experiences. Both synchronous and asynchronous learning provide opportunities for student-to-student, student-to-instructor, and student-to-content interaction. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Further, some content areas are static and explicit, lending themselves well to asynchronous activities, while others are unstructured and implicit, where synchronous activities would be more beneficial to clarify misconceptions. This chart will provide you with a clear idea of the distinct advantages and disadvantages each delivery method offers. 

Regardless of whether an online course is entirely asynchronous, or if it employs a combination of both synchronous and asynchronous work, it is important to clarify to students how they will be expected to engage in course materials. What does taking this course look like from the student perspective? For example, if a course requires weekly synchronous meetings, that should be explicitly clarified for students in the syllabus and course schedule. The specifics of what will occur during each synchronous meeting should also be outlined in the Course Plan Template. 

To help facilitate design decisions, this table divides course offerings into three learning formats based on primary activity types. Identifying which of these categories your course most closely resembles can be helpful in making decisions in the Live Syllabus Template and the Course Plan Template.

Once you’ve identified your course’s learning format, you’ll be able to move forward with constructing your course plan. This narrative of all the materials and interactions that will take place during the course is reflected in both the Live Syllabus Template, which is student-facing, and the Course Plan Template, which is used only for instructor use. 

These course plans are fundamental to sustainable and intentional course development and will help you meet the criteria on the OLC quality checklist. It might seem expedient to start your online course design by plunging right into technology: creating a course site and plugging in items from the syllabus etc.. However, you will save time and create a better end result by following a sustainable, intentional, and quality-driven approach for two reasons. 

• From a practical perspective, the online learning space, like technology itself, tends to be dynamic. Creating your course content directly in tools that may change may be work that will need to be re-done later. 

• From a pedagogical perspective, crafting a course plan is a research-driven approach to ensuring quality, student-focused online course design. This approach will give you a bird's-eye view of your course, and enable you to implement consistency of experience across the entire term/semester. 

To map out your course, the Live Syllabus Template and the Course Plan Template are foundational documents in this sustainable and quality-driven course creation process. 

In using these documents, first, make a copy of the Live Syllabus Template. We recommend working in Google Docs and using this formatted template for accessibility and flexibility.

You’ll see that the majority of the information you need to initially provide is general administrative information. Not only is this information necessary for students, but much of it is required on the OLC quality checklist. You can start filling in these fields from existing documentation, such as syllabi and course proposals, and then refine the information later as needed.

Some additional items to keep in mind as you generate the syllabus are:

• In creating syllabi for online courses, you need to be more explicit than you may be in syllabi for face-to-face courses. Since you will not have the same opportunities to gauge student responses, it’s important to be up front and clear about 1) your expectations, 2) assignment instructions, and 3) the overall flow and structure of the course. 

  • This is beneficial to instructors and students alike, and aligns with the guidelines in the OLC quality checklist. 

• For weeks that contain synchronous components, ensure that you’re making the most of those opportunities for live interaction by giving students explicit assignments to prepare them for the session and having them submit preliminary evidence of their work beforehand.

  • Example: completing a reading/video and doing a knowledge check, a discussion post, or a learning journal entry before the live session 

• In crafting the plan for each unit/week, you will ideally create learning experiences and assignments that provide a consistent blend of student-to-student, student-to-instructor, and student-to-content experiences.  

  • Each of these three types of interactions are required as per the OLC quality checklist. 

NYU’s Office of Global Diversity & Inclusion offers additional guidelines and resources on crafting an inclusive syllabus. 

When you get to the Weekly Planning section of the Live Syllabus document, you’ll see that for each week you should provide the following:

• Week #

• Topic

• Learning Objectives

• Instructional Materials (Required & Supplemental)

• Learning Exercises & Assignments

The order of these elements is intentional: it automatically engages you in the backward design process. You begin by articulating what your students need to learn about the the week’s topic (the Learning Objectives), then collecting all of the materials they will need to use to do that learning (the Instructional Materials), and finally explaining the ways they will engage with those materials and demonstrate their learning (the Learning Exercises & Assignments).

• Each of these elements is necessary to as per the criteria on the OLC quality checklist. 

Even for seasoned instructors, the backward design process offers a rewarding opportunity to see familiar material in a new way. Using the backward design process to create each step in the weekly plan can be a helpful way to make sure you are unpacking any implicit elements in your assignments.

Depending on your course’s learning format and your pedagogical approach, each unit or week will take on its own unique shape. The following are examples to help guide your thinking about how they might look:

• Example of a Content Mastery Focus

  • If you have a course where the focus of activities centers on content mastery, lecture may be a primary element of the course in its face-to-face format. In the online modality, these lectures may be adapted to short video lectures paired with knowledge checks and other types of assignments and assessments. 

• Example of a Skills/Process Focus

  • If you have a course where activities center on Skills/Processes, learning exercises with a continuous feedback cycle from the instructor may be primary elements of the course. Writing courses, for example, are skills/processes-focused courses.  

• Example of Experiential/Project-Based Learning Focus

  • If you have a course that centers on experiential and/or project-based learning, learning exercises might include internships, science labs, service learning initiatives, reflections, portfolios, and/or large-scale individual and/or group projects. 

In reviewing these examples, please keep in mind that they are in no way meant to be prescriptive. Every course is different and the A&S Office of EdTech is happy to discuss various course design approaches with you. 

At this point you will want to move from the Syllabus to the Course Plan Template to fill in the unit structure for your course. In this template, the Unit Overview section is the highest level of organization. Units can be segmented by weeks, progressions, textbook chapters, etc. This segmentation really depends on the structure of the course. The most common segmentation is by week. 

The subunit sections are often where the real work of backward design comes into play. Here instructors have the opportunity to unpack the Activity Overview into the individual steps that students will need to take to reach the unit’s/week’s learning goals. Separating activities into clearly articulated subunits allows instructors to ensure they have been explicit in their assignments and expectations of student learning. 

As you complete the units in the Course Plan template, you will move the student-facing information (assignments, materials, instructions) over to your Live Syllabus document and create any other supplemental planning documents you may need, such as question banks for quizzes.

In addition to the example weeks listed above, the A&S Office of EdTech has also compiled an assortment of different learning exercise/assignment, discussion, and assessment options for you to consider as you plan out your course. 

Online Learning Exercises & Assignments

Online Research

Description: Students are given a specific prompt or task that requires them to conduct research using NYU Library resources or on the open internet

Tools: Any web browser with internet access (NYU recommends Chrome or Safari)

Interaction: Student-to-instructor or student-to-content

Delivery: Asynchronous

Polling Exercises/Quizzes

Description: Students are presented poll-based exercises/quizzes that can be auto-graded. These exercises can be used as temperature checks, knowledge checks, or game-based competitions

Tools: Poll Everywhere, Zoom Polling, Perusall

Interaction: Student-to-content, Student-to-student

Delivery: Synchronous or Asynchronous

Additional Resources:

Comparison of Synchronous Engagement Tools

Knowledge Check

Description: Students are given a set of multiple-choice / true-false / matching style questions to reinforce content students are working toward mastering. 

Tools: Google Forms, GradeScope, Brightspace Quizzes, Poll Everywhere

Interaction: Student-to-content

Delivery: Asynchronous

Application of a Knowledge Check: Example 1

Additional Resources:

Comparison of Low/No Stakes Knowledge Checks

Social Annotation

Description: Enables conversations about texts, images, videos, or podcasts to take place in the texts, images, videos, or podcasts themselves; particularly effective for teaching close reading skills. Students can mark up assigned materials on their own, and instructors can “embed” question(s) for students to address while they complete their annotation. During the process, students can view and respond to the commentary from their peers and instructor. 

Tools: Annoto (video), Perusall (text, video, or podcast), VoiceThread (video or presentation), Google Docs (text), Google Jamboard (image)

Interaction: Student-to-student, student-to-instructor, or student-to-content

Delivery: Asynchronous

Application of a Social Annotation: Example 1

Additional Resources

Example video with Annoto

Student Video/Presentation Creation

Description: Students are directed to record or create a video/presentation. 

Tools: NYU Stream, Brightspace (Assignment or VoiceThread), Google Slides and/or PowerPoint

Interaction: Student-to-instructor, or student-to-content

Delivery: Asynchronous

Additional Resources:

Student Guide for Creating Podcasts

Student Guide for Creating Short Videos

Digital Poster/Flyer/Diagram Creation

Description: Students are directed to create some type of graphic or visual representation in order to demonstrate content mastery

Tools: Google Slides, and/or PowerPoint

Interaction: Student-to-instructor, or student-to-content

Delivery: Asynchronous

Website/Blog Creation

Description: Students are directed to create a website/blog and/or contribute to one that is made for the course to demonstrate content mastery

Tools: NYU Sites , Web Publishing, Wakelet

Interaction: Student-to-student, Student-to-instructor, or student-to-content

Delivery: Asynchronous

Online Discussions

Live Class Sessions

Description: Students and the instructor meet “in class” at a predetermined time for a set duration of time.

Tools: Zoom, Zoom Whiteboard, Google Jamboard, Zoom Polling, Poll Everywhere, Google Docs

Interaction: Student-to-student, Student-to-instructor, or student-to-content

Delivery: Synchronous (can be recorded to be provided to students asynchronously)

Additional Resource: 

Sharing your Screen or Desktop in Zoom

Attendance tool in Brightspace

Application of Live Class Sessions: Example 1

Traditional Topic and/or Video Style Discussions

Description: Students respond to a prompt the instructor has provided via text and/or video response, in addition to respond to a number of their peers

Tools: Brightspace Discussions, NYU Stream, Flip, Google Chat

Interaction: Student-to-student, Student-to-instructor, or student-to-content

Delivery: Asynchronous or Synchronous (Google Chat only)

Application of Discussion: Example 2

Additional Resource:

Comparison of Asynchronous Discussion Tools

Online Assessments

Essays/Papers

Description: Students write and submit work in accordance with instructor directions and specifications in order to demonstrate content mastery. 

Tools: Brightspace Assignments, Google Docs, Google Assignments, Perusall (for peer review assignments)

Interaction: Student-to-instructor, student-to-content, or student-to-student (if peer review)

Delivery: Asynchronous

Additional Resources: 

Comparison of assignment tools

Comparison of peer review tools

Student guide for Google Assignments

Application of Written Assignment: Example 2

Individual/Group Projects

Description: Students individually or collaboratively work on a component(s) associated with a project designed to enable students to achieve content mastery

Tools: Brightspace Assignments, NYU Stream, Google Slides

Interaction: Student-to-student, Student-to-instructor, or student-to-content

Delivery: Asynchronous or Synchronous

Additional Resource:

Comparison of assignment tools

Getting Started with the Brightspace Groups tool

Getting Started with PowToon

Application of a Individual Project (Podcast): Example 1

Exams

Description: Students complete and submit multiple choice / true-false / matching / short answer / essay questions to demonstrate content mastery.

Tools: Brightspace Quizzes, GradeScope, Google Forms, Respondus

Interaction: Student-to-instructor, or student-to-content

Delivery: Asynchronous or Synchronous 

(Note: We recommend avoiding giving high stakes synchronous or asynchronous exams that are comprised primarily or exclusively of objective answers to maintain academic integrity)

Additional Resources: 

Comparison of high stakes assessments

Comparison of low stakes assessments

It’s recommended to host virtual office hours through Zoom. The Waiting Room feature will help to ensure that your one-on-one conversations are private. 

Note: Be sure when you mention your virtual office hours in your syllabus that you specify the Eastern US time zone for those of your students who are living and working elsewhere in the world. 

When your Course Plan template is complete and you are ready to start building in your course site platform, you may be surprised by how many different elements you have amassed. The amount of information involved in a well-planned online course makes the final step in the sustainable, high-quality design process one of the most crucial: creating and maintaining a well-structured library of course materials. 

We strongly recommend storing all course materials in Google Drive. Here are some reasons why you might want to do this, in addition to simply keeping track of what you’re using in the course: 

• Many learning materials are interdependent, so if you need to make a change or swap out a resource, you’ll need to make a change in assignments linked to it.  Having them identified and organized together makes that task easier and more accurate.

• If you need to make major adaptations in the structure of the course, say to accommodate a change in textbooks, it can be helpful to be able to treat related materials in chunks. 

• It will help you to control assessments for integrity and differentiation, to make sure that you’re not using the same exams over and over and that you have a record of all of the different versions you’ve used. 

Additionally, tips include: 

• Creating an organized folder structure (e.g., COURSE MATERIALS 2020 > READINGS > ASSIGNMENTS > VIDEOS > QUIZZES, etc.)

• Creating and sticking to document naming conventions (e.g., COURSE_NAME_SEMESTER_YEAR_Syllabus)

• Keeping an Archive folder for older or discarded versions of assignments or syllabi.

As noted, leveraging the live syllabus template and course plan documents are key to sustainable, high-quality course design. An example of completed elements in a course plan as they might look in a Brightspace course can be found on the Course Plan in Action document.