Standards: Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6 | Page 7

Preface

The following information is intended as a guide in developing a new RODP course using the official RODP template. This is a set of notes which accompanies training and should not be considered a complete or detailed explanation of the implementation process. Course developers should take advantage of every opportunity for training in WebCT course development and management techniques as well as web page development. Continuing training is available both through the Regents Degree program and at the local college or university level.

The Template

Great care and thought has gone into the template design. A number of experts were consulted, and concepts from current research into the best design practices were included. The RODP staff has also taken care to address issues that have arisen from experience. WebCT is a powerful tool which can be individualized in a number of ways. For example, it is possible to have web pages with pink backgrounds and blinking purple text. Please realize that just because it is possible does not mean you should feel free to experiment with the interface design. Each course is part of a progam - the Tennessee Board of Regents Online Degrees Program. This is not a miscellaneous collection of independently designed courses. The look and feel of the template is designed so that each course can be seen as part of a whole. The RODP staff does not wish to infringe in any way on the individual professor's best judgement in presenting his or her course content. We are asking, however, that you do abide by the template design for the outer shell of your course. Professors wishing to substantially deviate from the RODP template should contact the RODP staff before beginning the course development process.

Master Copies

Courses under development will be the master copy of the course (sometimes known as "R50" sections). Later, close to the beginning of the semester of offering, the master copies will be "cloned" to form the individual sections which will have actual students. Remember that the original course developer may not be the instructor for every section of the course being developed. Therefore, do NOT change the generic instructor name, email address, and phone number on the homepage and also do not edit the generic instructor contact page. The master copy of the course will be unavailable for editing at least two-weeks prior to each semester. It must be 100% complete before that time. That means that all content, quizzes, assignments, and calendar entries must be in place.

Cloned Sections

As the semester nears (two weeks before the start of the semester) the master copy will become unavailable to anyone other than the RODP staff. At this time the master section will be copied (or cloned) to form the individual sections that will become the courses which are actually delivered to the students. During this pre-semester transition period all cloned sections will be available for editing by the instructor of record. This person will personalize his or her individual section by editing the homepage and instructor contact page.

Directory Structure

There are five folders in the template My-Files root directory. The folder "edit_these_files" contains files which must be edited by the course developer (or instructor). The next two, "instructor_files" and "instructor_images", are folders for use by the course developer and subsequent instructor. The other two folders, "rodp_files" and "rodp_images" contain files and images that should not be edited or deleted. Within the rodp_images folder one can find a folder of headers and a folder of icons. The icons will be particularly useful as new pages and tools are added to the course. All files created by the course developer should be placed inside the appropriate instructor folder. Once the organization is decided (weekly units, units, modules, topics, etc.), folders for each unit should be created INSIDE the instructor-files folder. Files may then be uploaded into the appropriate subdirectory as the course is developed.

Template CD-ROM

During training each developer will be given a CD containing all the files and folders in the My-Files section of the template (approximately 3MB). Please copy the entire collection of files and folders (drag and drop) to the local hard drive. If there are existing files which are to be part of the course under development, they should be copied into the appropriate instructor folder. All newly created files and images should be contained within the instructor_files or instructor_images folders. This will help ensure that all relative path names to images or other content pages are correct after uploading to WebCT.

Self Assessment

Each course developer should carefully consider his/her own level of ability in regard to WebCT and web page design. The RODP course template is designed to allow instructors to concentrate on content development. The learning curve for a basic understanding of WebCT is rather steep. It is advisable that instructors new to teaching online rely heavily on the template for course management. Experienced web designers will want to incorporate more advanced techniques than are in evidence in this basic template. However, the basic structure and design of the RODP template should be followed in either case. There exists plently of opportunity for self-expression and creativity in the construction of the actual course content. The template, which forms the overall look and feel, should be consistent throughout the Regents Online Degrees Program.

Textblocks and HTML

Many of the upper and lower textblocks found on organizer pages and content modules contain small bits of HTML code. Do NOT edit the HTML. This code contains such things as font and formatting information that should remain as part of the template. The text and the HTML code have been separated by large areas of whitespace (blank lines). Please edit ONLY the actual text in these textblocks.