Presentation first given at the D2L Connection: Arizona edition at UA on March 29, 2019. Created by Barry Dahl, Teaching & Learning advocate at D2L.

1. A Key Component for Student
Satisfaction
Designing Online Courses for Flexibility
Barry Dahl, D2L

2. Stuff to Cover
• PSOL
• Top 3 Factors to Enroll Online
• Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere
• Windows of Opportunity
• Factors Impacting Time Flexibility
• A Rubric, or Maybe a Checklist

3. Ruffalo Noel-Levitz PSOL
• From their website:
“Now you can measure the satisfaction levels of
online learners with the Priorities Survey for Online
Learners (PSOL). The first survey of its kind designed
specifically for online students, the PSOL can tell you
how satisfied your students are and what issues are
really important to them…”

4. PSOL Factors to Enroll in Online
46. Financial assistance available
47. Future employment opportunities
48. Reputation of Institution
49. Work schedule
50. Flexible pacing for completing a program
51. Convenience
52. Distance from campus
53. Program requirements
54. Recommendations from employer
Students rank
each factor on
how important it
is to them.

5. Most Important Factors to Enroll Online
46. Financial assistance available
47. Future employment opportunities
48. Reputation of Institution
49. Work schedule
50. Flexible pacing for completing a program
51. Convenience
52. Distance from campus
53. Program requirements
54. Recommendations from employer
These 3 factors
always rank as
the most
important.

6. Flexibility
•#1 Reason why student take online
courses
•Not distance, not cost, not preferred
learning modality
TIME FLEXIBILITY

7. Flexibility

8. Online learning is
Anyone
Anytime
Anywhere

9. Online learning is
Anyone
Anytime
Anywhere

10. My Anyone
Does NOT
include my
group mates
on diff scheds

11. Online learning is
Anyone
Anytime
Anywhere

12. My Anytime
My AnyoneDoes NOT
include Mon-
Wed nights
or weekends
Does NOT
include my
group mates
on different
schedules

13. Online learning is
Anyone
Anytime
Anywhere

14. My Anytime
My Anyone
My Anywhere
Does NOT
include Mon-
Wed nights
or weekends
Does NOT
include my
group mates
on different
schedules
Does NOT
include places
without
free wi-fi

15. Online learning is
Anyone
Anytime
Anywhere

16. My Anytime
My Anyone
My Anywhere
Does NOT
include Mon-
Wed nights
or weekends
Does NOT
include my
group mates
on different
schedules
Does NOT
include places
without
free wi-fi
My Anyone,
Anytime,
Anywhere
Is different
from theirs!

17. Conventional Wisdom
Online education
enables anyone,
anytime, anywhere
learning.

18. Unconventional Wisdom
No, it doesn’t!!
You do that (or not)

19. What is a Window of Opportunity?
The amount of time that an
online student is given to
complete a task; such as
• take a quiz,
• complete and submit an
assignment, or
• post to a discussion

20. Piece of cake.
That’s perfect
for me.
Example: Required Writing Assignment
• Opens Friday morning and closes Sunday night.
• Three days (but only two sleeps) might not seem
too short for some people, but it certainly would for
other people, depending on their circumstances.
No way can I
get that done
in time

21. One Big Window?
• What about one big window?
• Opens on first day - Closes on last day

22. Other Factors Impacting Time Flexibility
• Timeliness of instructor feedback on student performance
• Days and times of the week when due dates are scheduled
• Required synchronous activities
• Required group work
• Online office hours; both the timing of availability and the modes of
contact
• Appropriate amount of course content
• Extra credit or make-up opportunities for required coursework that
is missed

23. Timely Instructor Feedback
• Timely and useful feedback from instructors is important
for keeping students on track in online courses.
• Plan to set aside sufficient grading time soon after the
assessment is due.
• Some faculty find that they save time by providing audio
or video feedback rather than text, which can also
increase your instructor presence with online students.

24. Example of Feedback to be Avoided
Monday – Module 1 Essay Questions due date
Thursday – Module 1 Exam due date
Friday – Feedback on Essay Questions received

25. Sundays @ 11:59 PM
• There are many different opinions about when due dates
should be assigned for online course activities or
assessments.
• Is Sunday is a fair day for a deadline when that day
wouldn’t be used for an on-campus course?
• Maybe, maybe not – what do you think?
• Should a weekend be a weekend? Even for an online
student?

26. Due Dates and Times
• What about holidays?
• Are these fair game for online courses?
• What about time of day for deadlines?
• Is 11:59 PM really beneficial? To whom?
• Unless you are going to grade the work at 12:01 AM,
what value is there in having a deadline at that time?
• Wouldn’t 8 AM the next day be just as good?

27. Synchronous Activities
• A course in a traditional classroom is a set of
scheduled, synchronous learning opportunities.
• An online course can be either synchronous,
asynchronous, or a combination of both.

28. Advantages of Synchronous Learning
• Allows for immediate feedback
• Including the need for further explanation
• Removes the barrier of distance
• More closely mirrors “on-campus” courses
• Yet frees up campus space for other classes
• Sessions can be recorded for absentees
• Enables live lecture or student presentations

29. Disadvantages of Synchronous Learning
• Reduces time flexibility for students
• Instructor determines the pace, not the student
• Demands greater bandwidth
• Time zone issues for students at great distances
• Distractions are easy and plentiful
• More difficult for students to work ahead
• And more deadly if they fall behind
• Audio time often dominated by a few

30. Can Synchronous Activities be Flexible?
• Educators tend to agree that well-designed synchronous
activities can breathe life into online courses.
• However, that’s only true if the students can attend at the
appointed time and in the manner intended.
• If possible, make scheduling of synchronous activities as
flexible as possible, with an effort to accommodate groups
of students at times that are convenient for them.

31. Required Group Work
• When students are required to work in groups, they often
run into the same time issues as with synchronous
activities; even though group work isn’t always done
synchronously.
• When there is a requirement for group members to meet all
at once, a good strategy is to form groups based on
availability rather than other grouping possibilities.

32. Online Scheduling Tools
• Use an online scheduler to have students indicate
when they can be available, and then form the
groups based on their availability to work with
similarly scheduled teammates.
• Examples: Doodle, Wiggio, NeedToMeet, Rallly
• Groups are usually formed by some other factor,
regardless of student availability.

33. Online Office Hours
• Many faculty who teach online courses hold some
sort of electronic or online office hours (OOH).
• When done well, OOH can help provide time
flexibility for the enrolled students.
• However, just the fact that they occur online doesn't
necessarily lead to such flexibility.
• Example: My OOH are Tuesdays, 5:00-6:00 PM ET

34. Scheduling OOH
Are your OOH scheduled for your convenience?
… or for the convenience of your students?
Find out when your students can meet with you, then
be as accommodating as possible (within reason)

35. Course Content for Goldilocks
• Quantity of Course Content – an often overlooked
factor in course flexibility
• In on-campus courses, the amount of course
content is naturally constrained by the amount of
seat time.
• But online, some faculty throw all kinds of extra
content into courses, with the assumption that more
content is better.

36. Content Dumps
• This often results in redundancies, and ends up
wasting students’ time by exploring resources that
are not going to be assessed.
• In other words, too much content takes time away
from what’s most important.
• But, I’ve also evaluated online courses that had too
little content, forcing students to search for other
info sources, which can also be a drain on their
time spent on task.

37. Same as On-Campus?
• Many faculty who teach both online and on-campus find success by
using approximately the same amount of course content for both
delivery formats.
• This approach presupposes that you are starting with the right
amount of content in the on-campus course (are you?)
=
?

38. Make-ups for Missed Deadlines
• Extra credit or make-up opportunities for
required coursework that is missed.
• Obviously, these items can increase the
time flexibility of online courses, but they
are a bit of a mixed bag.
• Discuss…

39. Circle back to….
• The Windows of Opportunity
• How do you know if they’re too long, too short, or
just right?
• We could make up an answer….

40. Rough Guidelines for WinOpp
1. Full-time fully-focused students (grad program perhaps)
could handle shorter windows of opportunities than a
group of non-traditional students who have many non-
school commitments.
2. Assignments of any type that require a short time frame
to complete can likely be assigned a shorter window
without serious consequence.
• A 15-page paper needs a much longer window than a 15-
minute quiz, but you already knew that.

41. More WinOpp Guidelines
3. If there are several requirements that all need to
be completed in the same window, then that
window should be longer, generally speaking.
4. Consistency is very helpful to online students. If a
discussion forum posting has a five-day window,
then you should try to create similar windows of
opportunity for most discussion assignments in
the course.

42. A Checklist, Not a Rubric
• I originally set out to create a rubric for measuring
online course flexibility.
• A good rubric has some defined boundaries of what is
poor, acceptable, good, and great – or similar
• Some of this is hard to quantify – enter CHECKLIST

43. Course Flexibility Checklist, Part 1
1. Does the length of your windows of opportunity match
the difficulty or time required to complete the task at
hand?
2. Are your windows of opportunity long enough to allow
students to fit your course requirements into their
otherwise busy lives?
3. Does your grading policy provide assurances that
students will receive assessment feedback from you in a
timely manner?

44. Course Flexibility Checklist, Part 2
4. If synchronous activities are required, have you provided
opportunities for students who cannot be in a certain
place at a certain time?
5. If group work is required, have you provided opportunities
for students to form groups based on availability?
6. Are your due dates scheduled in a way, in combination
with the length of the windows of opportunity, that provide
students with the option of not working on weekends or
holidays?

45. Course Flexibility Checklist, Part 3
7. Are you confident that you haven’t overloaded or
underloaded the amount of course content needed by
students?
8. Have you scheduled your online office hours in a way that
will be convenient to most if not all enrolled students?
9. Are your windows (both length and ending date/time)
consistent throughout the term for similar activities?

46. Q & A
barry.dahl@D2L.com