Educators’ perspective of online course design and delivery

BACKGROUND: With advances in technology, educators are increasingly involved in the delivery of online courses. This paper reports a qualitative descriptive study from the educators' perspective of developing and delivering a fully online course to undergraduate health science students. METHOD: The authors engaged in reflective conversations about the course which were audio-taped, and the resultant transcripts analysed thematically. RESULTS: Two main themes emerged: (1) Arousing students' interest, which represented the central motivator in the formulation and implementation of the course, and (2) Working with larger numbers of students, which highlighted the most significant challenge encountered during course delivery. There are considerable workload issues for courses which attempt to use material that is relevant, applied to students' interests, requires collaboration, and includes learning activities linked to sequential assessment. Time must be allowed for consistent, frequent and focused engagement with the students online in order to achieve a quality teaching and learning environment. CONCLUSIONS: The findings revealed that ongoing tension exists between aspiring to provide high quality, pedagogically sound, interesting and collaborative online learning opportunities and the workload and time demand realities of enacting these intentions.