This book, written by authors representing 12 countries and five continents, is a collection of international perspectives on distance learning and distance learning implementations in higher education. The perspectives are presented in the form of practical case studies of distance learning implementations, research studies on teaching and…

Describes the use of the "Why 10?" game at the beginning and end of a course on instructional development to test its feasibility as a means of evaluating the course. The game showed promise as a valid tool for assessing changes in students' attitudes. (JEG)

A survey of 164 accounting departments found that more of those accredited by American Association of Colleges and Schools of Business used assessment for planning purposes. More of those accredited by Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs used assessment results for instructional changes. (SK)

Discusses changes in the field of educational technology from a mechanistic to a more humanistic view, and highlights the importance of interpersonal skills through three studies conducted in the British Open University: one dealing with instructional development, one with the evaluation of teaching and teaching systems, and one with the fostering…

In an experimental project, a university instructional development consultant (IDC) provided consultation for a faculty client in a graduate course where the IDC was also enrolled as an auditing student. The course, Issues in Higher Education, was taught by a university administrator complementing his administrative responsibilities, and the…

Sometimes an assessment program becomes well-established, nationally recognized, "proven" effective, and thus stuck in its routines and reasoning, becoming just another university bureaucracy for the teachers and students who work within it. The pedagogical question was how to keep an assessment program, or writing program for that…

Discusses the roles played by student evaluations of teacher performance in the instructional design process; reviews issues related to their use; and outlines suggestions for the construction, administration, and analysis of the questionnaire data by the instructional development consultant. (Author/JJD)

In November 1984, the Rand Corporation was asked by the Annenberg/Corporation for Public Broadcasting (A/CPB) Project to conduct a study during the spring 1985 school semester on the feasibility of evaluating student outcomes from A/CPB telecourses. This report documents the findings of that study, which had three goals: (1) to examine alternative…

Planning the activities for an instructional development unit and evaluating how well it has performed requires a set of standards against which the unit can be compared. This paper proposes a set of standards developed from a variety of references and personal experiences with instructional development units from across the country. Thirty-eight…

This booklet begins by examining the role played by evaluation in course and curriculum development, and then shows how the basic "error elimination" approach advocated by the philosopher Karl Popper can be used as a basis for the on-going evaluation of instructional systems. Next, two contrasting paradigms of evaluation are described,…

This article describes a set of Preactive Decision Exercises (PreDEx) that can be used to evaluate teachers' planning abilities. The exercises present, through simulations, typical situations in which teachers must make planning decisions. The exercises were given to students entering a preservice teacher education program. (Author/PP)

Recommends a comprehensive approach to course evaluation. Problems related to current approaches are discussed, and a checklist illustrating issues and questions to consider is presented. (Author)

Identifies factors facilitating and impeding the development of eight print-based distance education undergraduate courses designed by Syracuse University's Center for Instructional Development for U.S. Marines stationed in Saudi Arabia, including course definition, faculty perception of student abilities, textbook selection, faculty/developer…

The evaluation of distance education courses at the FernUniversitat was an important focus of interest during the initial stages of its development (1974-1980), when courses were being developed for five major departments and the number of students enrolled was increasing rapidly. Since teaching began immediately, a formative evaluation approach…

Discusses a diagnostic technique called the Collaborative Analysis and Action Planning Process (CAP), which focuses on patterns of behaviors that are produced, interpreted, and responded to by college teachers and students during a lesson. The steps involved in the CAP process are described, and a 16-item reference list is included. (Author/JL)