This session will demonstrate how to use your LMS as a project management system. This system allows instructional designers to guide subject-matter experts through the process of planning, designing, and constructing an online (or blended) course. The session will provide visual exhibition of this system from two institutions.
Park University and Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary have developed methodologies for constructing a course development process utilizing their LMS as a project management system. This presentation will demonstrate each adaptation of this concept within the respective institutions.
Park University assigns their team of instructional designers an individual Canvas workspace that is unique to the term and unique to the designer. The designer will add their subject-matter experts (SMEs) as students each term. Within the workspace, they have created templated worksheets that outline the required pieces of the course. The SME completes each worksheet, giving specific details of the course. These are loaded as assignments into the Canvas workspace based on the due date given for that piece of the development. The instructional designer uses the worksheets as the foundation to design the course in an effective online format.
Midwestern uses Canvas as a project manager to facilitate the collaboration between the SME and instructional design (ID) team assigned to the development of an online course. When a SME agrees to develop a course, he is placed in the Canvas project manager course as a student, and the ID team is enrolled in the same course as instructors. The course is built to guide the SME step-by-step through the course development process. It includes tutorials on important elements to course design, such as Bloom’s Taxonomy and writing appropriate course objectives. Like at Park, the course has worksheets—delivered as assignments to the SME—that allow the SME to provide the essential information about the course content to help the ID team guide the development. The ID team can likewise set deadlines (in the form of due dates) for these tasks, which allows them to receive that information before key meetings. This allows the ID team to be better prepared to facilitate the planning meetings.
For both institutions, at each step of the course design and development process, the project manager course serves as the central communication and submission hub, allowing the SME to provide the ID team with the content that will become an effective online course. This session will show examples of the project management courses from each institution and give participants guidelines for creating similar courses to meet their own needs. The presenters will also answer any questions participants have concerning the planning and implementation of such a course.