Coordinating artifacts in an online course delivery system

Abstract

Development of online instruction has become a major goal of many universities. There are multiple aspects to delivering an effective online course [Carr-Chellman and Duchastel, 2000]. One of these is to provide guided web based sessions for tutoring, review or introduction of skill development. Materials provided can include question/answers (data), lecture (video), problems (textual input), and others. The instructional delivery of an online course can overlap many of these artifact types. These artifacts, designed to heighten student involvement, can clutter the screen, adding distraction. There is a challenge in concurrently presenting similar concepts of different artifacts in a meaningful way. Our research investigates making the delivery of content through these technologies more effective. By linking review questions to the display of the content delivery, we propose that student attention will be more focused and content retention will increase.