Much of what I have to say applies to the development of any course for delivery via the Internet. But I will focus my remarks on converting an existing humanities course for delivery on the net. I decided to convert an existing course in part because development time was short, and I had already developed much of the structure of and material for the course. In the process of developing and teaching this course, I came up with the following guidelines for conversion of conventional college courses to the Internet. Most of the principles apply to the development of new courses for the Internet as well.
Some courses lend themselves better than others to delivery on the Internet.
At this point in the development of the technology, courses that don't demand as much immediate instructor feedback and that can take advantage of the resources on the Internet are perhaps the best candidates. Retain only the essential elements of the course An attempt to reproduce the traditional classroom on the Internet is doomed to fail. The environment is simply too different. We need to begin not by trying to create a virtual classroom, but by creating a learning experience that is unique to the Internet but that accomplishes the essential goals of the traditional course. The essential elements in this course included the presentation of certain themes, instruction in writing, evaluation of student accomplishment, and personal interaction.