Ruth Markulis hosted a panel on effective course design at WCET 2012 in San Antonio, Texas. The panel discussed challenges in course design, a case study of developing a cybersecurity program, and developing a mobile strategy. Developing the cybersecurity program involved integrating efforts from many disciplines into interactive modules, case studies, and a capstone simulation. Effective project management strategies for the complex program included detailed project plans, weekly status reports and meetings, and subject matter expert training. The panel then discussed the growing impact of mobile devices on educational institutions and strategies for developing an effective mobile presence and content, including considerations for design, testing, and standards.

1. WCET 2012
San Antonio, Texas
November 2, 2012
Effective Course Design Panel
Ruth Markulis, Instructional Technologist

2. Effective Course Design Agenda
Welcome! I am happy to be here with you today to share
experiences and have an interactive discussion.
 Your Course Design Challenges
 Cybersecurity Case Study
 Developing a Mobile Strategy

3. MS Cybersecurity Program

4. Effective Project Management

5. Managing Complexity
• Curriculum
 Interactive Modules
 Case Studies and Virtual Labs
 Capstone Simulation
• University-wide effort of collaborative teams
• Integrate efforts from many disciplines and
skill sets

6. Effective Project Management
Strategies That Worked Well
• Weekly Excel Project Plan Tracking Sheets
 Staffing, Tasks, and Due Dates
 Completed Items
 Pending Items
 Yellow and Red Alerts

7. Effective Project Management
Strategies That Worked Well
• Weekly Project Status Reports and Meetings
 Delayed Tasks and Milestones and Impacts
 Accomplishments
 Pending Items
 Concerns and Recommended Actions
 Remarks

8. Effective Project Management
Strategies That Worked Well
• Making all assumptions explicit
• Explaining dependencies
• Flexibility
 Adding or realigning resources and contingency plans
• Sharepoint as document repository
 Version Control/Archive

9. Effective Project Management
Strategies That Worked Well
• Details!
 Include a deadline in the subject line of emails for
time-sensitive materials
Urgent-Please respond by date
 Include vacation schedules, holidays
 Scheduled check in conference calls

10. Effective Course Design

11. Instructional Design Model

12. The Process

13. The Process

14. Subject Matter Expert Support
Strategies That Worked Well
• Subject Matter Expert Training Workshop
 Policies and Procedures/Roles Expectations
 Research and Writing
 Unique, Accurate Master’s Level Content
 Case Study and Simulation Ideas for Critical Thinking
 Best Practices and Current Thinking in the Field
 Quality Assurance

15. Review Teams
Strategies That Worked Well
• “Bug Sheets”
 Content, Graphics, Technical
• Active Discussion in Wimba/WebEx
• Lead SME has final word
• Requested changes/clarifications
• Continuous quality improvement

16. Review Teams
Strategies That Worked Well
• Initially a long process
• Became streamlined
• Led to proactive change in design/process
 Moved editorial review and intellectual property review
earlier in process

17. Tools for Interactivity

18. Effective Course Design

19. Tools for Interactivity

20. Tools for Interactivity

21. Tools for Interactivity

22. Faculty Support
Strategies That Worked Well
• Model classroom
• Orientation each semester
• Faculty classroom for discussion/questions
• Ongoing meetings as needed
• Teaching/lab assistants

23. Going Mobile-Best Practices
Has your campus experimented
with mobile devices to deliver
content?
Please share your experiences.

24. Going Mobile-Best Practices
• Feature Phones- 12 keys, digital camera, media
player
• Smart Phones-Third party applications for
productivity
• PDAs-QWERTY keyboard and stylus for
organizational tasks
• iPads-More features for light work,
presentations, interactive learning

25. Going Mobile-Best Practices
How many mobile devices are
there worldwide?
What impact is this having on
educational institutions?

26. Going Mobile-Best Practices
Gartner Group 2011
•5.6 billion mobile phones worldwide
•80% of world’s population
•$315 billion in revenue

27. Going Mobile-Best Practices
The State of the Mobile Web in Higher Ed
February 2012 (267 institutions)
 59% provide a mobile solution (37% in 2011)
 39% plan to develop a mobile solution
 2% no plan

28. Going Mobile-Best Practices

29. Going Mobile-Best Practices
The State of the Mobile Web in Higher Ed
February 2012 (267 institutions)
 56% plan a dedicated mobile Web site
 26% plan to develop device-specific apps

30. Going Mobile-Best Practices
The State of the Mobile Web in Higher Ed
February 2012 (267 institutions)
 73 % developed by faculty staff
 20% developed by vendor
 65% no special budget for mobile

31. Going Mobile-Best Practices
Develop a Mobile Strategy
•Why are you going mobile?
•Determining appropriate content
•Interactivity-solving a real problem
 Checking sports scores
 Checking weather, directions, maps
 Flight reservations
 News updates

32. Going Mobile-Best Practices
Develop a Mobile Strategy
•Balance business goals vs. constraints
•How does mobile presence help organization achieve its
goals?
•Audience goals-What does user want to accomplish?
What is the value-added proposition?

33. Going Mobile-Best Practices
Develop a Mobile Strategy
What do you think would be appropriate
educational content for mobile devices
based on these commercial applications?

34. Going Mobile-Best Practices
Good Mobile Design
•Designing for mobile devices is different
than designing for the Web
•Don’t take an existing Web page and make
it smaller
•Limit content and plan content categories
and navigation carefully

35. Going Mobile-Best Practices
Primary Navigation
Header
Navigation
Menu Content
Content
Navigation
Footer Footer

36. Going Mobile-Best Practices
Design Challenges or Constraints
•Variety of devices and browsers
•Older devices
•Screen size and keypad design
•Embedded objects and scripts not supported
•Frames not supported
•Flash not supported

37. Going Mobile-Best Practices
Design Challenges or Constraints
•Pop-up windows not supported
•Linking to external resources adds time and
cost to page views

38. Going Mobile-Best Practices
Good Mobile Design
•Must be device specific
 Target devices
•Must render properly
 128 X 160 pixels
•Must load quickly
•Must not crash the browser

39. Going Mobile-Best Practices
Good Mobile Design
•File sizes are small, under 10 Kb
•Customization
 Site should remember user information and
preferences and load them when user returns to site

40. Going Mobile-Best Practices
Good Mobile Design
•Handset detection-serving correct version
of mobile content
 http://deviceatlas.com
•Dynamic content formatting
•URL redirects
•Register domain names

41. Going Mobile-Best Practices
Developing Standards
•W3C Initiatives
 Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group
 Device Description Working Group
 Consistent, complete User-Agent Profiles (UA-Profs)
•Open Mobile Alliance (OMA)

42. Going Mobile-Best Practices
W3C Mobile Web Working Group
•XHTML Basic and XHTML MP 1.0
 Character Encoding-UTF 8
 XHTML MP 1.0 Doctype-tells browsers how to
render content
 List of MIME types on server-add XHTML

43. Going Mobile-Best Practices
W3C Mobile Web Working Group
•XHTML Basic and XHTML MP 1.0
 Search engines use page titles
 Wireless CSS stylesheets lower page size
•Use Wireless Markup Language (WML) for older mobile
browsers
•HTML 5 and Java

44. Going Mobile-Best Practices
Design Considerations
•Use <div> or <dl> tags, not <table>
•Use server side includes (SSI), not frames
•Place navigation in content page
•Use accesskeys (numbers on keypad) to link to content
and limit links to 10 or fewer per page
•Prioritize links by popularity
•Use brief forms if at all
 Use radio buttons and drop-down menus rather than text boxes

45. Going Mobile-Best Practices
Design Considerations for Images
•Image width should by under 120 pixels
•Avoid images containing dense information
•Specify pixel height and width so these do not have to be
calculated by the device which increases rendering time
•Omit image maps as there usually is no pointing device
•Always use alt tags

46. Going Mobile-Best Practices
Testing
•Prototyping and Usability Testing
•Desktop testing
•Emulator testing
•Device testing-Prepaid SIM cards
 http://wurfl.sourceforge.net/
 http://www.uaprof.com/
 http://www.developershome.com/wap/detection/detection
.asp?page=uaprof

47. Going Mobile-Best Practices
References and Resources
W3C Mobile Web Best Practices Basic Guidelines
•http://www.w3.org/TR/mobile-bp/
Global Authoring Practices
•http://www.passani.it/gap/
mobiReady Tool evaluates your Web page
•http://ready.mobi/launch.jsp?locale=en_EN

48. Going Mobile-Best Practices
References and Resources
Dot-mobi domain approved by Internet Corporation of
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in 2006
•http://news.cnet.com/2100-1039_3-6075779.html
Mobile Web Best Practices, Case Studies, and Statistics
•http://www.mobithinking.com/
Open Mobile Alliance
http://www.openmobilealliance.org/

49. Going Mobile-Best Practices
References and Resources
Horizon Report 2012
•http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2012-horizon-report-HE.pdf
Accessibility
•http://www.w3.org/WAI/mobile/

50. Effective Course Design
Thank You
ruth.markulis@umuc.edu