Abstract

This paper describes the experience of designing and teaching an elective undergraduate course on writing online at a large urban university in North America. The course, Educational Communication, was developed for e-Concordia, the organization responsible for online education at Concordia University, a large urban university in Montreal, Canada, which wanted to add a writing course to its curriculum of online, elective undergraduate courses. The course was approved a few months before it was first scheduled; development occurred while the course was first being taught. The course was developed to run on a customized Learning Management System and involved a team with many skills, including instructional design, graphic design, programming, and videography. The eight-unit course takes a genre-based approach to the instruction of writing and adapts research-based practices into its design. Each unit explores a different genre, and uses videos, guided readings, discussions, exercises, and writing assignments to develop students’ skills. The course has been taught four times. Student evaluations of teaching are positive and grades are similar to classroom versions of writing courses taught by the instructor of record. Two of the most significant additions since the course was launched are resources to assist teaching assistants with grading and a series of notes from the instructor to students to support them in starting the course.The course is in the process of being revised; the revised course will include a new unit on an additional genre not covered in the first version of the course.