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Evaluation course design & developments

Evaluating IMM: Issues for Researchers by Shauna McKenna
McKenna's paper for the Open Learning Institute on evaluating the materials used in computer based learning and evaluating the learning itself. It is compact, focused and thorough. It is unique in addressing the difference between evaluation of course materials and evaluation of learning experience.

Use, Design and Evaluation: Step towards an Integration by Liam J. Bannon
"This paper argues for a shift in perspective away from thinking of the activities of design, use and evaluation as quite distinct activities, but as activities that are necessarily interleaved and mutually constitutive." It also addresses the need for an iterative design practice, demanding that online courses be in a continual state of construction and improvement.

An Analysis of Web-Based Instruction in a Neurosciences Course by Chris Candler and Robert Blair
The authors of this piece see the design of Web-based courses as a complex, iterative process involving student and faculty feedback.. They write, "To maximize the potential of the medium, educators must carefully plan and design their educational materials and do more than put their syllabus online. Technical issues such as user interface design, access and availability play an important role in determining how students will receive such materials," and furthermore, that "Student and faculty feedback will guide future improvements in this and other online courses."

ELT: Evaluating Learning Technologies
ELT seeks to develop methodologies for evaluating and to produce a toolkit for use by staff to help them evaluate their own courses. See the ELT pedagogical framework for embedding technology into courses. From this page you can access several scholarly writings, but you need the Adobe Acrobat Plug-in to view them.

Designing for learning: What are the essential features of an effective online course? by Allison Brown
The author begins this paper with the questions," How do online courses differ from traditional university courses? What are the new learning demands made on students in online courses? Which particular design features optimise the teaching and learning process in an online delivery mode? " The topics covered all relate to evaluation, but not always directly. The report is specific to the experience recorded by the author, and so it covers many different aspects of designing an online course.

Evaluating Learning Networks: A special challenge
"This page is intended to demonstrate the usefulness of having a list of strategies that can be used for evaluating online learning experiments. When working in an online environment, no less in any type of instruction, it is necessary to consider evaluation as a design issue." The information on this page is valuable, if brief. Analysis is presented in a table for easy comparison.