UC Irvine Distance Learning Center

Creating Materials for Your Online Class

The “IP” class

The IP (Intellectual Property) type of online class is one for which content has been pre-created. Textual content was written by a subject matter expert who worked with one of our DLC instructional designers organizing the material for learning, after which it went to graphic designers for the creation of charts, graphs, visual images, programming for computer interactivity, and so on.

In most cases you were not the person who wrote the text for the course. Hence it becomes absolutely essential that you familiarize yourself thoroughly with all the content before the class begins. Your class will probably also have a textbook, which your students will purchase through the UCI Bookstore or from another vendor. Your students will then have one or more textbooks, the pre-created online content, the organization you develop for it via our online course tools, and, finally, the instruction you provide while the class is in session.

Components of your online course

Printed materials, such as textbooks

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Organization and set-up for instruction

Online content / resources

/ Teaching and learning while the class is in session

Connecting the content to the textbook

Since textbooks change frequently, we worked hard to disassociate the online content from any given textbook or textbook edition. However, when you teach the class, you will want to make references to the current textbook. You do that by creating “resources,” as you see below.

Online content / resources

Most of your resources have already been created, but you will probably want to add some of the following:

  • A file (resource) that describes how this week’s online content is related to this week’s textbook reading, the week’s assignments, and the week’s forum prompts (Word file saved as HTML)
  • A file (resource) of current events linked to the week’s topic (Word file saved as HTML which includes URLs to the web resources)
  • One or more current articles or other information relevant to the week’s topic (the DLC can save these as pdf files for you if you wish)

Organization and set-up for instruction

The most important organizing document for your class is your syllabus. Please look at the sample syllabus provided in this package. If you have questions about the sections of “my expectations of you” and “what you can expect from me,” please contact us at 949-824-7613 or .

Our Content Management System (CMS) has the following function types, described in more detail in the enclosed Instructor Manual:

  • Assignment
  • Chat
  • Choice
  • Forum
  • Journal
  • Quiz
  • Resource
  • Survey
  • Workshop

The most commonly used are:

  • Resource (described above)
  • Forum (your prompt for class discussions)
  • Assignment (self-explanatory)
  • Quiz (can be graded or not)

DLC recommendations for Forum prompts

  1. Your first forum should be a welcome message (contact the DLC for samples)
  2. A second forum specifically for announcements is useful (choose “Force everyone to be subscribed” for this forum only)
  3. Ask open-ended / critical thinking questions
  4. Create prompts that relate the content materials to learners’ practice
  5. Ask for opinions supported by evidence

DLC recommendations for Assignments

  1. Choose the option “upload a single file” when you set up your assignments because this creates an online gradebook
  2. Specify the “deliverable” for the assignment in terms of length, depth, references, etc.
  3. Choose the due date carefully

DLC recommendations for Quizzes

  1. Write quiz items that require higher order thinking and not just factual regurgitation
  2. Write brief feedback to the test taker for the wrong choices
  3. Consider using quizzes for students’ self-check of comprehension and mastery

Since inputting quiz items takes a bit of learning, the DLC will be happy to do it for you until you get so familiar with the process that you decide it’s faster to do it yourself!

Teaching and learning while the class is in session

See enclosed “Best Practices in Teaching Online” document.

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