Overview

Designing an online course is often a time-consuming project. Some faculty report spending weeks and often months working with an instructional designer to design their online course. Many faculty, especially those who are new to online teaching, are often unprepared for the volume of work that comes with teaching online. Teaching an online course can quickly become overwhelming as the emails, discussion posts, and papers roll in like a tsunami. Researchers suggest that online faculty spend more hours than face-to-face faculty in preparing and administering their online courses (Sheridan, 2006). Significantly, Cavanaugh wrote, “The amount of time spent teaching online was over twice the amount of time spent teaching in-class. Per student, the time spent online was over six times larger than the time spent teaching in-class” (2005, p. 12). Therefore, it is crucial that faculty teaching online employ time management techniques. Before diving into the nitty-gritty of using specific technology tools as time-savers, let’s back up and use a big-picture perspective to talk about some strategies you could use to turn that online workload tsunami into a steady but gentle babbling brook.

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