Online-Learning Announces... Online-Learning to Present Proven Course Authoring and Delivery Process at SIGDOC 2002

Ottawa, October 10, 2002: Online-Learning.com (OLL) - a leader in the development and delivery of online courses - will share details from its very effective Course Authoring and Delivery Process at SIGDOC '02, October 20-23 in Toronto, Ontario. Through research and a collaborative methodology, OLL has been able to balance cost-effective course development that has reduced authoring costs by 50% with delivery techniques that have seen student completion rates increase to 80%.

SIGDOC (Special Interest Group for Documentation) is a society of senior communication professionals who create documentation in many styles and mediums. With members from all technical and scientific disciplines, it addresses research, practical topics and philosophies in documentation and maintains a membership directory of documentation specialists. The SIGDOC four-day annual conference in Toronto offers a blend of tutorials, panels and industry experts and academics speaking on a range of topics such as Documentation for Programmers, Interactive Media, and Teaching and the Web.

OLL has identified a number of problems associated with course authoring, which is the collaborative effort between a course owner, course author and a set of course reviewers, and has developed a six-stage authoring process to facilitate the development of its online courses. OLL also uses a series of course-authoring tools and documents to assist and promote course progress that include a user friendly web-based workspace, an efficient stand-alone authoring tool, a flexible and well-known presentation format, standardized writing and graphics guidelines for content and both test and live sites for course delivery.

OLL's proven mentored-learning model for delivering courses has seen student dropout rates decrease to an average low of 17% in an industry whose eLearning dropout rates range up to a high of 70%. Instructors mentor students both individually and as a group via email, chat and discussion boards, which increases interest and motivation levels. Students receive prompt and continuous attention during courses and are requested to provide feedback through course evaluations.

OLL, with over 25 years of experience in distance education, has been delivering courses online since 1995. It offers high-quality content using an instructor-mentoring approach that combines traditional classroom techniques with the communications convenience of the Internet.