A project I enjoyed immensely during my time at the Savannah College of Art and Design was the development of the massive online open course (MOOC) titled ELRN 100: The SCAD eLearning eXperience. I had the distinct honor and pleasure of serving not only as instructional designer for this course, but also subject matter expert and project manager.

 

The goal of this course was to allow potential students to:

• experience what it is like to be a student at SCAD eLearning before making the time and financial commitment to our university;

• to peruse a comprehensive set of sample course units from each of the degree programs offered at SCAD eLearning;

• to narrow down their learning interest, determining exactly which program is most align with their interest;

• to speak with an admissions advisor about what it takes to get started with us.

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In designing this course, my team had to rethink how we enroll these prospective students in our MOOC, since they were not yet in our system. We devised a custom intake form and integrated it with our learning management system.

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We also had to make a call as to what may be the best way to present the content in a manner that is attractive to prospective online learners. I recall one day when I had printed out the cover page of each online course and laid out all those printouts on the floor, to be able to visualize the big picture and determine what to include as most representative samples. I could no longer see any of the wall-to-wall carpet in my big office. Launching the course was a department-wide celebration!

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What we came to realize later was that this MOOC has a tremendously positive impact on first-term student retention and success. When we took the first group through this course, we observed that 83% of those who took ELRN 100 actually applied and were admitted into their online program of choice. 98% of those enrolled completed their semester with us. With the second group, 93% of course participants became SCAD eLearning students, with 100% semester 1 retention.

 

The course went on to earn the 2014 CASE SW District III  Recruitment Website Award of Excellence as well as the 2014 OLC Institutional Strategies & Innovation Best in Track Award. I could not be more proud of our team and of how the fruits of our labor had such a huge impact on our brand-new students.