Writing Across Six Time Zones: Part 1
By Susanne Glenn

Imagine that you enrolled in your first online NACLAA course back in January. You've mastered the technical hurdles, and are getting comfortable in the virtual classroom. You've got a stimulating study guide, enlightening assignments, and collegial classmates. All is well in the cyber-study world, and then the question hits you: How did all this diverse material come together into such a well-designed online entity?

Designing an online course with national scope and regional relevance could be the topic of, well, a course in itself. It takes a dedicated team of academics and professionals as diverse in their skill sets as their geography to nurture a course from abstract idea to finished product.

Coordinating such a group is always a logistical challenge. The same technologies that support NACLAA students -- internet, e-mail, WebCT and the telephone -- are essential to creating courses with both national focus and regional wrinkles.

Over the next few weeks, MuniMall will feature a series of articles about the NACLAA course development process. Readers of Writing Across Six Time Zones will discover:

• where the idea for NACLAA originated
• how a concept becomes a course
• the challenges of coordinating teams spread over six time zones
• who writes the assignment questions
• what it takes to ship out 200 course packages

MuniMall readers will learn about what goes on behind the scenes BEFORE students receive those big white binders with a course guide, six modules and a text book.

Next week: Writing Across Six Time Zones: Whose Idea Was This?

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