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Thoughtful creation of online course content: implications of SCORM for educators.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

There has been a tremendous increase recently in the number of online classes offered by universities and other institutions. Unfortunately, professional development for teaching online courses has not increased in kind. Thus, many faculty are uncertain of the most appropriate ways to put content online. In this article, we describe SCORM, a set of industry-based standards used to control Learning Management Systems. Due to SCORM's wide acceptance by industry, faculty need to be familiar with SCORM and the implications it has for education. We discuss those implications and conclude with strategies for content design and delivery.

Introduction

Online courses, and the colleges, universities, and businesses that offer them, are continuing to rise steadily (Shea and Boser, 2001). This is due, in part, to the opportunity online education presents for global competition, an important topic in times of shrinking budgets (Schwartzman & Tuttle, 2002). This can also be attributed to a new type of student and consumer who wants learning on his or her own time and schedule. Finally, this increase coincides with the growth of research supporting the notion that technology can help teachers teach and students learn (Ferdig, 2001).

Unfortunately, this increased interest in teaching and learning online does not necessarily mean college faculty are equipped with the knowledge and skills to teach online. Many faculty have not taught online; most have never even taken a course online. Simply digitizing material does not work, as online education requires faculty to change from being content providers to content facilitators (Smith, Ferguson, & Caris, 2001). For this to happen, faculty developing online courses need scaffolding in creating, teaching and managing online courses (Ellis, 1999). This need to support faculty has been handled with two simultaneous approaches. The first approach consists of professional development, some of which has taken the form of innovative training methods. In some cases, faculty become online students first in order to understand the differences between face-to-face and online instruction (Lorenzetti, 2002).

A second approach is to purchase or create Content or Learning Management Systems that streamline and organize content for online delivery. Rather than asking faculty to learn authoring products or computer languages to develop online courses, tools such as Blackboard, E-College, and WebCT allow faculty to easily upload content and manage student data. These technologies also provide for synchronous and asynchronous chats, resource sharing, and evaluation instruments.

Both approaches are important. Online courses are labor-intensive, and they require an innovative way of thinking about the role of the instructor. Training provides faculty with this support technologically as well as pedagogically. Professional development also leads to faculty 'buy-in.' Learning Management Systems, the focus of this paper, are also important as they help standardize how faculty...

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