Instructional Design and Online Standards

Abstract

Online education has a foundation so that beneficial practices can leverage online environments effectively. Besides generic instructional design principles, models of good online instructional design are emerging. These practices and models are codified into online instructional design standards that provide research-based criteria that can be used to measure the degree to which such instructional designs meet those standards and can serve as guidelines of factors to consider when designing online instruction. This chapter provides an overview of instructional design as it applies to online teaching and learning. It also discusses how standards can help improve such instructional design in order to optimize student learning and achievement.