Online Course Development Timeline
For those creating fully online courses, especially those in completely online programs, the design and development process is fairly structured but don't worry, your instructional designer will help you through this process. A six-month period is usually sufficient to design and build an online course. At the initial meeting with your instructional designer, a timeline will be established, including the projected dates for the milestone reviews, working backward from the go-live date of the course.
You will notice that there are two intermediary milestone reviews in addition to the final review: design of major assessments and build of a single, representative module. At each milestone, you and your instructional designer, will check the work before continuing. This ensures that content is covered at an appropriate depth and breadth and all stakeholders are satisfied with the direction of the course.