Articles & Blog Posts

Here are some of our favorite articles for creating the best online learning courses and exams.

Marketing Online Courses and Exams
The author for this article interviewed successful publishers of online courses and exams to uncover battle-tested ways to market online learning materials.
http://blog.coursewebs.com/2009/05/how-do-i-market-my-online-classes-or.html

Crash Course in Learning Theory
This article distills a lot of research-based learning theory into an accessible (and fun) form.
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/01/crash_course_in.html

Common Quiz Question Mistakes
Here's a short article with some very basic, but often overlooked, advice on the "don'ts" of writing online assessments.
http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/5-common-quiz-question-mistakes-and-how-to-avoid-them/

Writing Multiple Choice Questions
Brief primer on the advantages and disadvantages of multiple choice questions and how best to implement for effective assessment.
http://web.uct.ac.za/projects/cbe/mcqman/mcqchp2.html

Migrating learing materials from "Live" to Online Courses
Despite the title, this article has some good suggestions for transferring course material for online delivery that was originally used for live classrooms.
http://fp.ucalgary.ca/maclachlan/EDER_679.16_Winter_2007/instructional_design.pdf

Dump the Drone
92 slides stand between you and better courses.
http://www.slideshare.net/CathyMoore/dump-the-drone-easy-steps-to-livelier-elearning

Good advice for developing (mostly) text-based course materials
If you are developing a predominantly text-based online courses here are some tips that can help spruce up your text and improve the learner's instructional experience.
http://www.webdesignerwall.com/tutorials/typographic-contrast-flow/

162 Tips and Tricks for Working with eLearning Tools
Experienced eLearning developers offer lots of insightful tips on developing online learning content. You might want to print this one out and keep it by your desk.
http://www.elearningguild.com/showfile.cfm?id=2671

The Magic Question for Learning and Instructional Design
Will Thalheimer talks about the importance of considering the desired performance AND the context of real-life situations when constructing our learning objectives.
http://www.willatworklearning.com/2007/07/the-magic-quest.html