Title: Options for Building Course Content
Course: Dev_TOPKIT_SAMPLE_COURSE_Bauer_S_67

There are two preferred options for building content in Webcourses@UCF. The first option is to create content directly in Webcourses@UCF using Pages. The second option is to create your content in a Microsoft Word document following document formatting guidelines, and then copy and paste that information into a Page. Both options are explained below, along with the benefits and challenges of each option.

Option 1: Create content directly in Webcourses@UCF

The first option is to create content directly in a Webcourses@UCF Page. Pages allow you to create new content or edit existing content using the Rich Content Editor. We have provided pre-formatted Pages in your development course to assist you with creating your Syllabus, Course Expectations, and your Course/Instructor Introduction.

Benefits of this approach:

- The Rich Content Editor is easy to use and allows you to format Pages for accessibility (e.g., apply heading styles and bulleted/numbered lists).
- You can easily record audio/video, insert hyperlinks to external websites, and insert images and files using the Rich Content Editor.
- Your development course comes with several pre-formatted Pages (e.g., Syllabus, Course Expectations, Course Introduction) that contain the appropriate styles and formatting (headings, tables, lists, etc.) for accessibility. You may edit these Pages directly in your course using the Rich Content Editor.

Challenges of this approach:

- When you create content directly in Webcourses@UCF, you do not have a backup of the content outside of the course. If you forget to save the Page and go to another page in the course, your work will be lost. Also, if the system goes down while you are working, you could lose your work.
- If you choose this option, remember to save often! Pages has a revision history, so as long as you save frequently, you can go back to an older version of the Page.

Option 2: Create content in a Word document

The second option is to create your content in a Microsoft Word document following document formatting guidelines, and then copy and paste that information into a Webcourses@UCF Page. We have pre-formatted Microsoft Word template files (.docx), available on the Teaching Online website, to help you create your Syllabus, Course Expectations, and your Course/Instructor Introduction. These files will be available for you to use during and after the IDL6543 course. You may want to bookmark this website for future reference.

Benefits of this approach:

- If you properly format your content in Word, you can copy/paste the content into a new Page in Webcourses@UCF, and the formatting will carry over.
- You will always have a backup Word document of your content on your computer that you may refer to in case you lose work while editing in the course.
- Most of the formatting styles are already applied if you use the provided Word template files.
- You may find this to be a good option if you are developing a lot of new content from scratch.

Challenges of this approach:

- You may need to do some additional formatting in the Rich Content Editor for the new Page after pasting the content you copied from Word.
- When you are working with these template files, be careful not to overwrite the formatting. If you remove the formatting, you will have to reapply.

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.