The experience of collaboration: Writing and instructional design in distance education

Abstract

The instructional design process in a distance education context has been well documented within the distance education literature, although most of this literature is written from the perspective of the distance education specialist. There have been few explorations of the experiences of the academic teacher in the writing process and the relationship between an instructional designer and the writer/teacher has seldom been explored from the point of view of the writer/teacher. This paper documents a collaborative process of preparing course materials for a distance education subject on curriculum. The process is described through the eyes of both the instructional designer and the writer/teacher, so capturing the procedural aspects of the event as well as the interpersonal aspects. Many facets of the process which are normally hidden from view are included in the paper as are some of the less obvious outcomes of the collaboration. The literature which calls for a consultative relationship between instructional designer and teacher is used to analyse the observations made.