Beginning the Course Development Phase Taking Inventory - Once the course outline has been prepared it is a good idea to take inventory of what materials already exist in a digital format and what needs to be created.  This will help you determine where the majority of your efforts should be focused during the course development cycle.  It can be helpful to go module by module and create a checklist with all the course materials that you will need (handouts, lectures, assignments, web links,  etc). Types of Content - Once the checklist is created, review and organize all those files in one central location.  As you review the files, make sure that the quality is acceptable and that they are in a format that is easy to access.  Some things to pay particularly close attention to are: Scanned Articles – Many faculty have handouts that are scans of  an article that has been converted into a PDF file.  If so, you will want to make sure that the article is legible and that the file size is not too large (anything over 20 megabytes may be difficult for students to download).   PowerPoint – If you plan on using PowerPoint to create online lectures, it may be helpful to provide students with the slides so that they can take notes.  Many instructors choose to distribute their PowerPoints as PDF files.  The benefit of taking this approach is that slides can not be edited by students.  If you have a particularly large PowerPoint file, converting it to a PDF can also make it easer to distribute.  Word – Word files can be uploaded directly into WebCT or Moodle.  As with PowerPoint, some instructors convert their files into PDFs.  Excel – Excel files can also be uploaded into WebCT or Moodle. Preexisting NJIT lectures – Some courses that were previously taught online have lectures that are already in a digital format.  However, the delivery method and course content are frequently out-of-date so any preexisting materials need to be closely reviewed. Movies or Lectures – Occasionally,  faculty have movie clips or videos that have been used for face-to-face courses.  The biggest concern with these materials is copyright violation.  Before those materials can be uploaded to a course you should make sure that  they are covered under the fair use doctrine http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html.  If you have material that you are not sure about using please contact instruction@njit.edu.  Once you know what materials already exists, you can focus your efforts on creating what you need.  Scanning Documents - If you have an article that needs to be scanned you can do so in ITMS’s Instructional Resource Center (IRC) Lab located in the Basement of GITC - room 0300.  ITMS has scanners available with document feeders that can scan multiple pages at once.  There are also STARS students (http://media.njit.edu/IRC/pages/stars.php available - please call ahead 973-596-3005 to make sure that someone will be available.  Creating PDF Files – While Adobe Acrobat http://www.adobe.com is one of the most popular tools for creating PDF files there are free options available (http://www.cutepdf.com).  When converting a PowerPoint to a PDF, we recommend that you create handouts with between 3-6 slides per page to make it easy for students to print the slides out and take notes.  If you prefer, Adobe Acrobat is available in the IRC lab and STARS students are available to provide help.  Tutorials are also available at the Teaching Learning and Technology site: http://www.njit.edu/tlt/resources/animations. PowerPoint – Even if you already use PowerPoint for face-to-face courses, you will want to make sure that your presentations work well for distance learning.  In a face-to-face classroom slides are typically displayed against a wall or screen using a projector.  If slides have too much information they may difficult to read when they are shrunk to fit on a computer screen.  You may need to break busy slides up so that the information is displayed on two or three different slides.  If you would like the ITMS Instructional Video Services (IVS) department to review your slides before-hand they will be happy to do so instruction@njit.edu.         External Links – Organize any external links that you want to send students to.  While you should send students directly to the online article, it is a good idea to create a PDF backup for your own records.     Staying Organized – As you go through and organize/create materials, you should place all of your files into one central location.  Create a folder for your course and then organize things into subfolders that are based on modules.  Make sure that file names are short and descriptive.  When naming files, it is a good idea to keep everything lowercase and avoid spaces and illegal characters (such as & * $ %).   This will make it easy to stay organized and find files as necessary.  Next Step: Creating Digital Lectures