Title: Designing Content
Course: Dev_TOPKIT_SAMPLE_COURSE_Bauer_S_67

Chunking

The template files, whether in Webcourses@UCF or Word, are already chunked and divided into smaller sections. This creates more manageable "bite size pieces" for your students to absorb and requires less page scrolling.

For instance, you may have extra information in your syllabus that is not included in our syllabus template file. You may choose to add this information to the Syllabus template however we recommend that the Microsoft Word documents be no longer than 3 to 4 pages. You will need to decide where you would like to assign the extra information. This extra information may fit well in the course expectations page or, create additional pages, such as assignments, bibliography, or resources depending on the size and complexity of your syllabus. Consult your instructional designer if you have additional pages.

Document Formatting Guidelines

When you create course materials, please follow the formatting checklist provided in the Document Formatting Guidelines. By properly formatting your documents, your materials will be created efficiently and ensure that your course materials are accessible (Section 508) to all students.

Please review the formatting checklist to become familiar with the important formatting elements including headings, tables, bulleted/numbered lists, etc. that are needed to make your course materials accessible.

Accessibility of Online Course Materials

It is important to consider the types of files you upload to your online course and whether these files will be accessible to all students.

Pages are the preferred format to present content in your online course since they can be opened quickly using any Internet browser, do not require additional software, and can be easily navigated by screen readers. For more information regarding various file types, visit the Creating Accessible Course Content page on our Teaching Online website.

Formatting Reminders

As you begin to create your course materials, please keep the following formatting elements in mind:

- Use bold or italic text to display emphasis in documents on the Web, instead of underlined words. Pages hyperlinks are in blue text.
- Place more than one column of text into a table, as tabbed columns do not convert correctly into Webcourses@UCF.
- If your document has images, add a brief text description called alternate text (Alt text) to comply with federal accessibility requirements. Detailed directions on how to add Alt text to images are provided in the Document Formatting Guidelines.

TOPKit Sample Course created by Sue Bauer, John Raible, and Jessica Tojo. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.