Breaking Rocks with Sisyphus: Keeping up with the Changing Demands of Online Education

I have been involved with online education in some form or fashion since January 2008. My duties initially included acting as the (adjunct) Instructor of Record for a pre-determined course with no leeway to make changes in either content or assessment. More recently, I’ve been charged with developing survey-level offerings from the ground up. Both ends of this continuum resulted in courses constructed according to “best practices,” each intending to survive well into the future with only minor tweaks along the way. In reality, no online course can remain static if it will be effective for multiple semesters. The process of revising courses evokes the image of Sisyphus, pushing his burdensome rock uphill only to repeat the process for eternity as it rolls down. This paper hopes to help break the boulder, making online course creation and revision a more manageable process rather than Herculean task. I will share the challenges I have faced over the years in teaching and creating online courses as well and the techniques and tools discovered to mitigate some of the frustrations.