“Conceptual Reverse Engineering” of Online Learning Objects and Sequences for Practical Applications

For instructional designers, one of the early steps in any design involves an environmental scan to see what publicly available online learning objects, sequences, and raw materials exist for the topic. “Conceptual reverse engineering” involves analyzing the online learning objects and sequences to infer how those objects may have been created, what technologies were likely used, the probable learning objectives, the apparent target audience, the prospective costs/inputs, and other factors. This information may be used to understand the state of the art, to inform a competing design methods, to inform the selection of technologies, to budget design and development work, to decide whether or not to adopt available third-party learning objects, and other applications. This chapter describes the creation of the conceptual reverse engineering of online learning objects and sequences (CREOLOS), which includes a step for validating/invalidating the reverse-engineered design.