Designing and Implementing e-Learning Courses: A Comparative Analysis of Policy Guidelines from Nine Professional Organizations

Abstract

Abstract— Many universities around the world are utilizing or planning to utilize e-learning formats in their programs to reduce the average per-student cost. Although cost-saving is very much desired, many institutions are also concerned about the quality of their e-learning courses. This study aims to synthesize the literature about the various policy guidelines to help faculty design and implement e-learning courses. Documents from nine professional organizations were analyzed. These documents were carefully screened to identify the main themes and corresponding sub-themes. We then describe the similarities and differences among these documents. We found a large extent of agreement among the documents on 11 key areas that should be considered in order to maximize the success of an e-learning course. However, the documents were vague in providing concrete suggestions regarding areas such as how to promote student-student interaction, online discussion group size, and review of e-learning courses. We found three major disagreements among the various documents with regard to: addressing various student learning style, requirement for student online collaboration, and reward for faculty who use e-learning. Finally, we suggest several strategies that could help overcome the fuzziness related to maximizing student-student interaction, and the review of e-learning courses.