The design of a web‐based course for self‐directed learning

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore how to design a web‐based course in the context of China for self‐directed learning from four perspectives – i.e. pedagogical, psychological, social and technological – and also to summarize the design principles for the web‐based course.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper reviews literature related to: self‐directed learning, with a view to bringing out its capabilities and capacities for use in a web‐based environment; theories and pedagogies of learning with a view to imbuing them for the design of web‐based courses; and challenges of the design of web‐based courses with a view to gauging its acceptability.

Findings

The development of a successful web‐based course needs to focus on multiple perspectives — pedagogical, psychological, social and technological – in order to contextualize it for learner‐centeredness. The results show that the course designed based on these dimensions was flexible, useful and welcomed.

Originality/value

This paper describes a conceptual framework for designing a web‐based course from four perspectives and also presents a series of design principles for a web‐based course.

Citation

Liu, M. (2009), "The design of a web‐based course for self‐directed learning", Campus-Wide Information Systems, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 122-131. https://doi.org/10.1108/10650740910946846