Saylor101: Saylor Course Development

Welcome to Saylor Academy! We’re thrilled that you are going to be applying your teaching and subject matter expertise to our open courses. This brief training course will provide background information on Saylor Academy and the open education movement as well as outline the various course development processes and provide guidance on Saylor’s course standards. This course in many ways mirrors Saylor’s full suite of courses, so as you work through this course, you’ll begin to get a sense of the Saylor student experience.

Completing this course should take you approximately 4 hours.

This unit will provide you with important big-picture information on Saylor Academy and its role in the open education space before explaining how you, as a course developer, fit into our overall initiative.

Completing this unit should take you approximately 15 minutes.

All Saylor Academy courses have similarities in their organization and share common features. In this unit we’ll explore the “anatomy” of a Saylor course and the online environment in which Saylor courses “live.” Understanding the constituent parts and how they function online will help you contextualize the specific development activities you’ll conduct, which will be covered in Unit 3.

Completing this unit should take you approximately one hour.

During your engagement with Saylor Academy, you may be asked to complete one or more related course development projects for any particular course. These projects generally fall into several categories which are focused on 3 general areas: improving course resources, incorporating and/or improving assessment opportunities, and implementing general course improvements based on course reviews. Your engagement letter will provide many of the specifics for the projects you will undertake.

Completing this unit should take you approximately one hour.

In order to complete the development tasks identified for your course, you’ll need to be familiar with our development standards. These standards are based on our experience providing open courses, feedback received from peer and external reviews, and principles of instructional design and professional test development processes.

Completing this unit should take you approximately one hour and 30 minutes.