Developing an online course on-the-fly with an IR state of mind

Today's higher education professional is beginning to feel the squeeze of higher expectations and the need to deliver instruction in a variety of ways but at always one speed-fast. Faced with an array of delivery avenues, a limited budget, and little time, instructor efficacy could plummet. Collaborative course development, plus a focus on collecting course data for a regime on continuous improvement, can help calm problems of budgets and speed. The instructors of the course decided to first think like institutional researchers: they built a patchwork of course material around a solid, predicable assessment theme. The results of these assessments indicated that students, working online in a hybrid format, performed equally as well as those in a traditional classroom. The instructors felt empowered by the experience.