Navigation
An easy-to-navigate course provides clear directions and obvious next steps for students.
When you are designing your online or hybrid course, consistency is key! Consistency helps to ensure a student’s experience in your course is predictable and learnable, effectively lowering the student’s cognitive load.
A consistent MyCourses course site is easy to learn and navigate, which means students can focus their energy on learning the course content.
Our students may interact with more than one MyCourses course each semester. The navigation experience from course-to-course should be consistent.
Module Navigation
There are several options for organizing content modules:
Topic-based Organization
Create modules for each of the main “topics” within your course. The advantage of this topic-based approach is you can easily adapt it for semesters that vary in length. For example, you could have 15 topic-based modules and present one a week during fall and spring semesters, and then if you transition to a 7-week summer semester you could release 2 topic-based content modules a week to your students.
Learning Outcome-based Organization
Create modules for learning outcomes within your course. The advantage of this learning outcomes-based approach is you can easily adapt it for semesters that vary in length. For example, you could have 15 learning outcome-based modules and present one a week during fall and spring semesters, then if you transition to a 7-week summer semester you could release 2 learning outcome-based content modules a week to your students.
Weekly-based Organization (recommended)
Create modules that include all the content, activities, and assessments you want your students to do each week. This method works well for helping students stay on track and manage their time. It also complies with the recommendation to have modules become available on a specific date and time each week. For example, all modules can open at 8:00 am on Monday and all activities/assessments can be due on Sundays at 11:59 pm.
This organizational method can involve more work for the instructor when switching from a 16-week semester to a 7-week semester.
Units-based Organization
If you have decided on an assessment strategy that includes 4 exams (or other forms of assessment) you can create 4 modules for your course and all of the content, and activities for the first assessment are included in the unit 1 module, etc.
You should select one method for organizing your content in the Content Tool and stick to that method for all modules.
Course Navigation
It is not only important to maintain consistency from module to module but also from course-to-course to ensure student success. IT recommends using the default course homepage layout and navigation bar to prevent confusion for students.
While customizing the course navigation bar is possible in MyCourses, it should be reserved for adding links to tools not already in the default navigation bar such as links to Publisher integrations. If your course requires a custom navigation bar, IT recommends notifying students of the additional links by providing clear instructions with screenshots. Links should not be removed or rearranged from the default navigation bar.
If you choose to create custom navigation bars and homepages please remember that you will need to check the links to ensure they are still working every semester.
IT only updates the default navigation bar and homepage when new integrations are added to MyCourses or when vendors require updates. Custom navigation bars and homepages do not automatically receive these updates.
Course Rhythm and Structure
In face-to-face classes, students get into the habit of attending class at the same time and place each week. Online and hybrid students must form similar habits to perform consistently throughout the semester.
Things like ensuring that assignments are always due on the same day of the week and that each module of content begins on the same day will go a long way to providing the necessary rhythm and structure.
Based on iCollegeNow by Tracy Adkins; Crystal Bundrage; Kathleen Mapson; and Will Kerr. This site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
