We have proven expertise in custom online course development. We offer:

— Assignment or activity-based focus to learning
— Pragmatic balance between development costs and learning value
— Flexible authoring environment
— Network of reliable and proven course developers

Assignment or activity-based focus to learning
In developing online courses, we design our courses from the student's perspective, not the teacher's perspective. Our courses use an assignment-driven approach where students "learn by doing". While our course materials feature comprehensive readings, graphics, web links, interactive client or server-based quizzes and Flash tutorials, we have found the "real learning" occurs when students practice the skills and receive feedback through assignments and activities.

Our assignments are designed based on relevant, real-world situations that engage and challenge the student. This means they spend most of their time practicing the skills they need to learn. For example, in one section of our graphic design course, students typically tell us that it takes them about 1 hour to read the materials and about 4-5 hours to complete the assignment. In a traditional classroom, that would equate to a 1 hour standup lecture followed by a 5 hour hands-on exercise.

Pragmatic balance between development costs and learning value
Like traditional course development, online course can be expensive. That's why it is important to determine when to use conventional reading materials or more elaborate multimedia formats such as animations, audio and video. For example, in our graphic design course, we use small Flash tutorials to show people how to construct things like pie charts in a step-by-step manner [try it]. These little Flash tutorials aren't as "glitzy" as ones that you might find in other courses, but they are cost-effective to produce and have high-teaching value when coupled with an assignment that requires the student to practice the skills conveyed in the tutorial.

Flexible authoring environment
Our course authoring tools and processes were designed to reduce development costs, while providing a flexible base for adding or updating course materials. As a result, our authoring environment allows course developers to:

— Reuse existing materials (e.g. Word or Power Point)
— Automatically generate a tree hierarchy [1]
— Automatically generate breadcrumb trails [2]
— Easily incorporate multimedia files (e.g. Flash, javascript, html, audio or video) [3]
— Easily change any aspect of the output and branding using style sheets [4]
— Automatically generate tables of contents and indexes
— Easily create a wide range of quizzes using style sheets
— Easily create server-marked quizzes for student grading and certification
— Easily create client-marked quizzes for student self-testing
— Output courses in HTML, PDF, HTML HELP, SCORM, XHTML, IMS Learning Design, and DocBook
— Output courses as a unit that can be used by any Learning Management System
— Track changes for reviewing the materials

Network of reliable and proven course developers
Over the years, we have developed a reliable base of quality course developers. Our network includes instructional designers, writers, graphic designers, human factors specialists, animation specialists and programmers. Having access to this network ensures that the course you develop will meet your student's learning needs while striking the right balance in terms of quality and cost.