Captivate is a great tool for developing online material for a University course. However, a good course is not just one that leverages high-end tools. It requires some pedagogy too. Here are some tips more on the pedagogical side for those developing online HE courses.

Research has shown that online courses must have been fully developed and completed before the first day of class. During this emergency, that might not be feasible. The next best thing is to have the entire course structure finished before the first day of class. And a very critical part of the structure is some pedagogy. You should try to divide your course into (weekly) modules. Each module should be self-contained. Each module should start with the module learning goals (outcomes or objectives). These learning goals must be measurable. And these module learning goals must be aligned with the course learning goals. It tends to be very useful to indicate right where you list the module learning goals, which are the corresponding course learning goals for each of the module learning goals (maybe add in parenthesis at the end of each module learning goal something like CL1 or CL4). After you have done this, check to see if any of the course learning goals are not aligned to any module learning goal. If that occurs, you know that your course has a hole and needs to be fixed. Moreover, if you have a module learning goal that does not align with any course learning goal, you should ask yourself if that module learning goal is appropriate for the course or not.

The next step is to start adding the learning activities and the assessment activities to each module. As you add them, you might benefit from indicating how they align with the module learning goals. There must be learning activities for each and every module learning goal. If there is no learning activity for a given learning goal, how do you expect your learner to learn that? In a similar trend, you should also add assessment activities with the corresponding learning goal. If there is no assessment activity for a given goal, the learner might wonder why they should learn that if you did not find it important enough to assess it. Students try to maximize their time and effort. They read between the lines (even if they do not read the lines they read between them). The grade points that you assign to something signal to them the importance of the topic. Be mindful of that.