This case study describes a combined graduate and undergraduate instructional design studio that introduced undergraduate students to instructional design in a multifaceted, holistic, and applied way. Reviewing the experience of the undergraduates in the course, this design case describes four learning interventions used to create this applied experience: (1) instructional design team projects—one non-profit and the other in higher education, (2) weekly seminars and biweekly training sessions from field experts, (3) an experiential out-of-state trip, and (4) weekly reflection journals. These studio-based learning interventions are presented within the context of the Experiential Learning Theory and Model-Centered Instruction. Overall, the course introduced the undergraduate students to the field of instructional design in an applied and experiential format.

At times, universities’ structures for quality assurance can impede professors’ sense of autonomy. This descriptive qualitative study examines factors that contribute to stakeholders’ perceptions regarding standardization and autonomy in the realm of course design and delivery. The central understanding of this study is that stakeholders are keen to adopt standardization when they perceive those structures to be advantageous for faculty, students, and degree programs. Yet stakeholders imagine the borders of these structures to be flexible, thus creating a space for autonomy. As administrators explain quality assurance structures to professors, they should leverage the perceived advantages and demonstrate to faculty how they will retain the required flexibility.

The purpose of this research was to study what university faculty valued when working with instructional designers and instructional design teams to develop educational simulations. We did this through a case study of three faculty, where we analyzed what they discussed among themselves or communicated to other team members about what mattered to them about their team relationships or the design processes they employed. We structured our case report around three thematic issues that expressed how our participants depicted good relationships and processes. Our report concludes with a discussion of how instructional designers could use our findings in their practice.

This paper presents the evaluation and reflective implementation of iteratively designed and developed online open educational resources (OER) for geoscience undergraduate classes in the context of a long-term educational design research project. The results indicated that the use of free and open software and social media allowed low cost in video content hosting and broadened cross-disciplinary review and evaluation. These methods provide insights for scientists, teachers, instructional designers, educational researchers, and librarians in the use of social media and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for OER implementation and reuse. Pros and cons of using these evaluative and reflective methods, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the sustainability of maintaining OER are discussed.

This case study explores a type of educational simulation, an alternative reality game we call a playable case study (PCS), and how its use influenced student engagement in an online writing classroom. The goal of the simulation was to help students create professional communication artifacts and experience real-world professional communication situations. This article reports the effectiveness of the playable case study as a tool specifically for online writing instruction (OWI). The context of our research was a PCS called Microcore. Acting as interns for a company, students are asked to investigate a serious problem that occurs and present a solution to ensure similar problems do not occur again. Forty-seven students in two sections of an online professional writing classroom responded to pre- and post-survey questions and prompts that gathered their perceptions about writing, understanding of workplace communication, and levels of engagement. Responses were coded and analyzed for thematic trends. Results suggest that playable case studies like the one reported here may be effective in countering primary OWI difficulties, including disengagement; lack of social presence; faltering self-efficacy; and unclear, unproductive perceptions about writing assignments. Students responded positively to the simulation and appeared to develop more realistic views about workplace communication.