As the number of distance education courses delivered via the Internet grows exponentially, it is clear that there is a need for tools to assist instructors in developing and delivering their online courses. Currently, many instructors must do eveything themselves. This makes teaching online nearly impossible for those instructors who are not competent in the technology.

This need for development tools is already being met by a number of companies. The purpose of this project is to identify the needs of instructors and learners in an online course. Once the needs are identified, the online course management system can be evaluated based on how well its products and services meet these needs.

I chose to evaluate as part of my project. E-education is a part of JonesKnowledge.com which also operates Jones International University, an accredited university which offers only distance education classes.

Instructor and Learner Needs
Here is a summary of the identified needs that should be met by online course management software.

1. Orientation - both instructor and learner need to be familiarized with the online environment and tools
2. Communication - in addition to the need for instructor-learner communication, learners must have communications between themselves
3. Content - there must be a variety of means to deliver the content necessary to meet the course objectives
4. Resources - a variety of tools and resources will be needed to successfully complete a course
5. Status - learners need to be able to monitor their progress in a course; instructors need to to monitor student progress to avoid
6. Assessment - there should be a variety of means available to assess learner achievemet of objectives
7. Help - technical problems for both instructor and learner are inevitable; useful technical assistance must be available at all times

The navigation bar links will take you to a detailed discussion of each of these needs and an evaluation of how e-education.com met or failed to meet these needs.

Home | Orientation | Communication | Content
Resources | Status | Assessment | Help