Chapter One including the abstract Dissertation

Chapter One including the abstract - Dissertation Example It is on this basis that faculty-designers have emerged as critical a component in the development of online courses. Given the importance of faculty-designers, there is need to ensure that these faculty-developers possess requisite skills and competencies that are key in maintaining the quality of online courses. This chapter presents issues surrounding the skills, competencies and best practices for designing online courses. In addition to these issues, this chapter will present the purpose of the research, research questions and hypotheses, justification and significance of the research, as well as limitations and assumptions for the research. Keywords: Faculty-designers, Skills and Competencies, Instructional Materials, Online Courses and Best Practices Chapter One Introduction Online education has experienced unprecedented growth in the last decade. Rapid growth of online education has emergence along with sophisticated information and communication technologies. Information tec hnology tools have been integrated into online platforms and enhance delivery of learning materials. Proponents of distance education have applauded the flexibility and convenience of online learning studies. However, dissenting voices have increasingly raised concerns over the quality of online courses. ... Many of the decisions influencing the successful delivery of course materials take place prior to commencement of online classes. Course design stage requires careful planning to not only make teaching more enjoyable and easy, but also to facilitate effective student learning. Well-designed courses facilitate smooth implementation of course content on a day-to-day basis (Anderson, 2008). Faculty-designers require requisite skills and competencies that will assure the effectiveness and quality of online learning (Weston, 2009). Increasing demands for online courses stimulated many institutions of higher learning to offer online courses. As the number of middle-level colleges and fully fledged universities offering online courses continues to grow, a pressing need has arisen for highly skilled and competent faculty-designers (Salmon, 2004). Skilled and competent faculty-designers are needed in crafting professional development and technical training online courses (Watson, Watson and R eigeluth, 2012). The quality of online courses has been compromised, in part, by hastily-developed learning materials (Hsu and Lin, 2008). Much as information technology has the potential to develop and implement effective online learning, the quality of this modern pedagogy is compromised by lack of competent faculty-designers (Anderson, 2008). The rapid growth of online learning has focused increasing attention to components that constitutes a quality online course (Reigeluth, 2011). Understanding of how to design an online course and what is needed to be an effective online instructor has deepened significantly (Hsu and Lin, 2008). Technologies used to design and access online courses have also improved tremendously. Equally important, faculty-designers have