Distance Education Training for Distance Education Trainers: The "Roadmap to Effective Distance Education Instructional Design" Project

Overview & Synopsis

This article provides an overview of a 6-university collaborative project, "Roadmap to Effective Distance Education Instructional Design." This project developed instructional materials and innovative approaches to better prepare instructional designers at land-grant universities and other universities with agricultural academic programs to support their universities' distance education teaching programs. Previous studies indicate that distance education faculty training is conducted by staff instructional designers, and that a large percentage of these instructional designers do not have training or knowledge of distance education instructional design methods before being hired at their universities. The case study outlined in this article describes the process the project development team undertook, research results to date, and the collaboration process among partnering institutions. (Contains 5 tables and 1 figure.)