This course is part of the Penn State World Campus Faculty Development Program. It is designed to introduce faculty new to the World Campus to issues involved in authoring and teaching a course in this environment. It can also serve as a resource to other distance education professionals outside Penn State.
Distance education is a rapidly growing and changing field.
Communication technology advances coupled with changing student demographics make it an attractive method for reaching new student audiences. There is also a growing feeling that traditional methods of designing and teaching are not as effective in distance education settings. If you are a course author, we suggest that you take the authoring module before beginning your course design work. Before you begin instructing the course, or if you are teaching a course designed by someone else, we recommend taking the instructing module before you begin teaching. You may work through the course at your own pace, and each module should only take about one week to complete if you spend approximately one hour a day on the materials.