Online Course Development

MLMultimedia’s services for online courseware start with your need to communicate some content. Either you have existing courseware, a computer-based training (CBT) project, or existing live classroom course material that needs to be converted or updated or you have an idea for a course you would like to create. Once we see the level of completeness/readiness in the content you have, we would then come up with a plan to proceed. The steps in the plan can include:

  • A functional specification of the course or module
    This consists of recommended details of presentation and interface. In this document we describe the presentation means (will it include an audio track, will video be used, will the student achievement in the subject matter be assessed and recorded and the like)
  • A content specification for the course or module
    The content specification is something that we have come to rely on to give a quick start to a project. Often, everyone has agreed to get started. But where do we actually start? We write the content spec based on whatever the current state of your material is – whether an older, existing CBT, notes from a live, classroom course, product documentation, etc. If necessary we will do the research ourselves to make sure there is substantive material in the proposed course. With this in hand, we then do our work and, in about a week, it’s done. When it is, it gives the reader a clear idea of what the course will look and ‘feel’ like. We organize your material into a series of logical modules, units and lessons and lay that out in the content spec. The spec also gives a sense of the pace and style of the course — will it be extremely technical, conversational, interactive, game-like and so forth.If you would like to see an example of one of these specs, leave a reply at the bottom of this page. We’ll be in touch.
  • A prototype of your course
    Here we would include the interface design we recommend (based on your input) plus a small amount (one lesson or screen’s worth)

We would then go through a review and approval process and proceed to complete your course.

Before the course is complete, however, there are several steps to be sure your course works as intended:

  • Test
    We organize a group review, checking and validating each detail in a live demo, or we send copies out to a select few principals. Any changes needed are made.
  • Beta release
    We put an ‘as complete as possible’ version on a beta server (either yours or ours) and solicit users to take it and provide comments
  • Final release
    The course is placed on the production server.

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