The instructional design process focuses on determining the goals and expected outcomes of the educational experiences and then matching those goals to the desired instructional strategies and to the supported media. Redesigning your course under a timeline and as a team member can be a very trying, yet very rewarding experience. And the subsequent rewards are great. Once the course is redesigned, faculty report increased satisfaction with the interaction between themselves and students and an increased interest by students in taking responsibility for their own learning. Faculty will always be needed.
Faculty are the content experts and as researchers, they are constantly creating new knowledge.
However, the role of the faculty will change. By necessity there is less lecturing and more mentoring. Quality control for distance learning courses is partially assured by the focus on instructional design. The instructional designer focuses on determining, in collaboration with the faculty member, what are students intended to know, do, and think upon completing the learning. Distance learning courses should also be evaluated with peer review of the materials and student evaluations.