Project Management for Instructional Designers in Higher Education: Best Practices, Strategies, and Tools

Concurrent Session 7
Leadership

Session Materials

Brief Abstract

This panel session will explore how IDs working in and for higher education institutions manage projects in practice. Through exploring a variety of perspectives, the participants will be able to compare different ways of managing projects and tracking time, explore best practices for using project management software, and discuss possible ways of improving IDs’ project management skills.

Presenters

Lead Presenter: Jiaqi Yu, University of North Texas Health Science Center

Dr. Yu is an experienced designer with a demonstrated history of working in higher education and e-learning. She received her Ph.D. in Instructional Technology and Human-Computer Interaction from Iowa State University and her M.Ed from the University of Toronto. Her research has been focusing on online learning, peer mentoring, and communities of practice. As a QM coordinator and peer reviewer, she enjoys collaborating with faculty to improve course design and incorporate experiential learning strategies.

Co-presenter: Lynn Wahl, UNC Charlotte

Lynn leads the Course Production Team in UNC Charlotte's Center for Teaching and Learning in the School of Professional studies in their work with faculty in the redesign and development of blended and online courses, the development and implementation of media and interactive learning objects, and quality assurance efforts and initiatives. Lynn is passionate about creating successful faculty and student learning experiences in online and blended learning and growing as a leader. Lynn received her M.Ed. in Instructional Technology from Idaho State University and M.A. and B.A. in English Literature from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. With over 15 years of experience in higher education, Lynn is a two time OLC Best in Track award winner, frequent volunteer with OLC Accelerate, Innovate, and IELOL, a thought leader in instructional design, and is a graduate of the Online Learning Consortium's Institute for Emerging Leadership in Online Learning.

Co-presenter: John McKenzie, University of North Texas Health Science Center - Fort Worth

Co-presenter: Jessica Zeitler, University of Arizona

I am a multilingual Agile Instructional Designer, project manager, and foreign language faculty. Originally from Arizona, I am an avid runner and soccer player, I am also passionate about learning languages and helping people learn. This includes helping institutions create engaging learning experiences and lowering barriers for all learners. In addition to collaborating with faculty on course mapping, ideating, and building courses and interactives, I also design templates. I value diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging and iteratively integrate these values across all of my project collaborations and courses that I teach. When I am not designing, presenting, or collaborating with colleagues, you can find me running, traveling, or continuing my learning through reading, writing, or coding activities.

Co-presenter: Edward Queen, Johns Hopkins University

Edward Queen is a Quality Assurance Manager at the Center for Learning Design within the Whiting School of Engineering. His career in education, which spans almost 20 years, began as an elementary school teacher after graduating with his BA in Elementary Education from Purdue University (#BoilerUp). During his 5-year teaching career, he obtained his MS.Ed. in Learning Design and Technology, also from Purdue (#HammerDown). He subsequently worked as an instructional designer at the National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he developed e-learning objects for globally dispersed government foreign language and intelligence analysts. He joined the Johns Hopkins University in August 2010. Since then, he has designed and developed more than 100 online courses and has developed and delivered a wide range of faculty development opportunities. In March 2022, he was accepted into Indiana University's Instructional Systems Technology Ed.D. program. Ed lives in Lafayette, Indiana with his wife Kelly (also Hopkins staff), three children (two boys and a girl--all teenagers), two golden retrievers (Strider and Hugo), and one orange tabby (Milo). He enjoys reading, playing Overwatch, watching TV and movies, and flying his DJI Mavic 2 Pro drone.

Co-presenter: Kiran Budhrani, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Kiran Budhrani is the Director for Personalized and Adaptive Learning at the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Extended Abstract

Introduction

This panel session intends to explore how instructional designers (IDs) working in and for higher education institutions manage projects in practice with a special emphasis on time tracking and management. 

Key Takeaways

By the end of this panel session, the participants will be able to:

  1. Compare different ways of managing projects and tracking time

  2. Explore best practices and strategies for using project management software

  3. Discuss the implications of strengthening project management knowledge and skills for instructional designers in higher education

Potential Panelists

This panel session will include 4-5 IDs with various professional backgrounds and experience in higher education:

  1. Panelist A: An entry-level ID in a community college who has 2-3 years of experience designing online courses and managing projects.

  2. Panelist B & C: Two experienced IDs in a research institution who has 5-6 years of experience using 1-2 project management software.

  3. Panelist D: A director or assistant director of instructional design who has 7+ years of experience sharing the benefits of using project management software and reporting data and analytics. 

  4. Panelist E: An instructional designer working for a corporate online program management company with mainly higher education clients. 

Significance of the Study

Prior studies have identified the gap between the PM skills required in the workplace and the limited preparation in the formal education of IDs (Allen, 2020; William van Rooij, 2010). Scholars have been focusing on identifying essential PM competencies for instructional designers (William van Rooij, 2011; 2013). Very limited studies have examined how IDs manage their projects in practice, for example, how they use a PM software/tool, streamline their workflow, and establish their own processes in the workplace. 

The difficulty of higher education instructional design projects is an often discussed topic amongst instructional designers. Higher education clients for IDs are typically made up of faculty, who typically have many competing responsibilities that limit their time and availability for course design work. Additionally, many traditional faculty either do not have access to or the time to complete training on how to more effectively develop online courses. Identifying the strategies that higher education instructional designers use to collaborate with faculty, tailor processes to fit faculty availability, and bring projects to completion is a valuable exercise for both new and experienced instructional designers.

This panel session could be viewed as a starting point for exploring IDs’ efforts on project management with a particular focus on time management in the higher education contexts. Through exploring different perspectives from IDs with various backgrounds, the participants will be able to recognize the benefits of using project management software, intentionally reflecting on project management processes, and customizing the workflow based on their specific professional contexts.

Plan for Interactivity

To improve the participant-speaker interaction, we plan to adopt an interactive presentation tool (e.g., NearPod, Mentimeter, Slido) which will allow us to integrate polls and activities throughout the session. We plan to use quick polls at the beginning of the presentation to help us get to know the audience and also incorporate other activities to help reinforce the key takeaways. Additional handouts and infographics will also be provided to facilitate the Q&A section and allow the audience to delve deeper into the topic of this session. 

References

Allen, S. A. (2020). Project Management in Instructional Design (Doctoral dissertation, Franklin University).

Williams van Rooij, S. W. (2010). Project management in instructional design: ADDIE is not enough. British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(5), 852-864.

Williams van Rooij, S. (2011). Instructional design and project management: complementary or divergent?. Educational Technology Research and Development, 59(1), 139-158.

Williams van Rooij, S. (2013). The career path to instructional design project management: An expert perspective from the US professional services sector. International Journal of Training and Development, 17(1), 33-53.