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Design, Development and Delivery of Instructional Materials over the
Internet
Introduction
Brenda Bannan
Instructional Technology
George Mason University, USA
bbannan@gmu.edu
William D. Milheim
Instructional Systems
Penn State Great Valley, USA
wdm2@psu.edu
The World Wide Web is becoming one of the fastest growing resources available to a wide variety of
professionals today. Its vast assets are being utilized more and more for research, data collection,
communication and other similar tasks in nearly every professional field. In fact, in many ways it is
revolutionizing the ways many people carry out their required tasks in a variety of different work
environments.
In education, however, the Web is only beginning to be utilized in any substantive manner for
instructional purposes. While teachers are beginning to use Web-based resources for research and/or
information-gathering, they have not yet begun to use the instructional potential that the Web can offer for
actually teaching students in diverse locations or at times different than when a teacher is currently available
(asynchronous).
The purpose of this paper is to provide specific strategies for utilizing the Web for teaching rather
than simply as a resource for data gathering. These strategies should assist faculty in a variety of educational
settings in their use of the Web to provide instruction outside of traditional classroom environments.
Suggestions for the Design of Web-Based Instruction
As with any other instructional products, the design of the materials is one of the most important
steps in the overall process. In the case of web-based instruction delivered at potentially great distances from
the assigned faculty member, the design is even more critical since the materials themselves must carry much
of the instruction with only limited human intervention in the educational process.
Based on these needs, the design of web-based materials should include:
1. a significant audience analysis, since the learners for this instruction may be quite diverse and
geographically dispersed,
2. an interface design that allows for effective viewing on the computer screen as well as high quality
printed copy,
3. frequent student-to-instruction interaction due to the individualized nature of the this medium and
the inherent potential for the use of "page-turning" software, and
4. frequent assessment to provide feedback to the student since actual human contact may be quite
limited.
Suggestions for the Development of Web-Based Instruction