Academic authors' perceptions of the instructional design and development process for distance education: A case study

Abstract

The role of the instructional designer in the development of distance education materials is a theme commonly addressed in the literature. However, most such commentaries come from instructional designers themselves. One exception to this prevailing state of affairs was the study by Roberts et al. (1994) that investigated the perceptions of academic authors who worked with instructional designers at the University of Tasmania (UoT). A similar investigation was recently carried out at Central Queensland University (CQU) where academic authors work with instructional designers from the Division of Distance and Continuing Education. This paper reports on the results of the survey. For example, in regard to the locally contentious issue of whether instructional designers should remain in the current centralized distance education facility or be located in the faculties, three quarters of the authors surveyed considered that the decentralized, faculty‐based model would be an improvement. The significance for CQU of these and other data is discussed as are some of the comparisons that are made with the UoT findings. For example, despite some differences in context, authors at both universities considered advice in the area of student assessment to be the least important of a range of roles for the instructional designers with whom they worked.