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Requirements

It is helpful to know the requirements for developing a course in Open edX before beginning. This list is not comprehensive but is a solid overview.

Content

Content is king. Well-developed digital content is required for an online course. We have identified a specific content set at EKTU to guide our faculty in the course design.

Each topic or section should have the following primary content:

  1. Presentations - PowerPoint, Google Slide, or other sequentially formatted presentation formats
  2. Videos - Instructor-created videos are strictly required for these courses
  3. Lecture notes - A text version of the lecture to provide additional information and for convenience and accessibility
  4. Quiz questions - Self-assessment questions for students to interact with the content and to know if they understand the content before moving on

Open edX Course Requirements

Content is just one piece of a huge puzzle. An online course must have scaffolding to support the content and guide the learner similar to how a classroom teacher verbally gives additional instructions or information to students. An online course without scaffolding is like a course without a teacher. Now, imagine this scenario:

The students show up to their classroom and find a binder with printed copies of the syllabus, tasks, and other projects. The syllabus explains everything in general terms, such as the schedule, which textbook to check out from the library, assignment due dates, readings, lab assignments, etc.

classroom-without-a-teacher

Do you think that these students will be successful? Now, think of an online course missing the scaffolding to supplement what a teacher brings to the classroom. In short, the learners need to know how to interact with every piece of content and what they should learn from it. It's great that you posted a link to a website or uploaded a document, but what do you want the students to do with it? Asking them to read a 75 page PDF file just because will probably have the same result as asking them to read 75 pages of their textbook during class time. :) They will probably ask two questions:

  1. What is the purpose of this activity (i.e., what do I expect to learn and how can I apply it) and
  2. How much time do I have to read it?

Our course template provides examples of required scaffolding.

  1. Шаблон (на русском)
  2. Үлгі (қазақ тілінде)

Please familiarize yourself with the course structure and requirements for ETKU course developers: