Building Better Online Courses Through Collaboration

Jeremy Bond, Director of Online Learning and Meredith Killgore Villa, Assistant Director of Instructional Design, Alliant International University

Dr. Jeremy Bond is Director of Online Learning at Alliant International University and adjunct faculty at multiple institutions. With over 25 years in e-learning, he teaches diverse subjects and supports educators in digital pedagogy. Outside work, he’s a devoted family man, numismatist and lifelong advocate for learning and technology integration.

Meredith Villa is the Assistant Director of Instructional Design at Alliant International University. With over 25 years in instructional design and more than 15 years of online teaching, she specializes in developing accelerated online courses that combine academic rigor with learner engagement. Beyond her professional endeavors, she cherishes time spent with her family on their Texas farm, finding balance and inspiration in the rhythms of rural life.

Bridging Gaps through Mutual Design Collaboration

Compelling online learning experiences are built on genuine partnerships between instructional designers (IDs) and faculty—relationships grounded in mutual respect and shared expertise. However, the reality at some institutions can reveal a challenging gap: faculty may view IDs primarily as technical support rather than pedagogical collaborators, while designers may struggle to communicate their full value beyond LMS troubleshooting.

Drawing on more than fifty years of combined experience in the field, we’ve seen firsthand how transforming this relationship not only improves course outcomes but also elevates the role of the instructional designer within academia.

Building Stronger Courses with the TRAC Model

Strong collaboration between faculty and IDs directly enhances student learning—and it also shapes the day-to-day professional experience of those doing the work. That’s why our approach is anchored in four core tenets: Transparency, Rapport, Access, and Collaboration (TRAC). These pillars create the foundation for effective communication, shared ownership, and a more fulfilling design process for everyone involved.

“We’re not just here for your content we’re here to bring your vision to life, shaping how students think, feel and grow through intentional, accessible and collaborative course design”

To promote transparency, we encourage real-time meetings, cloud-based collaboration, and asynchronous feedback via tools like Microsoft Teams. Organizing design projects into clear cycles—aligned with course start dates— helps streamline timelines and encourages faculty-to-faculty engagement across departments.

Thanks to a culture that values relationship-building, we make space to genuinely connect with our faculty partners— as experts, educators, and human beings with competing priorities and varying comfort levels with online learning. Rapport fosters trust, and trust creates room for experimentation, innovation, and honest conversation—even around emerging challenges like generative AI.

Access goes beyond calendars and shared documents. We believe in open, ongoing dialogue, where key academic partners such as librarians and assessment colleagues are just one “@mention” away. Our ID team also uses a shared email account to handle urgent support needs—allowing us to separate reactive requests from the more focused work of instructional design.

The fourth pillar, collaboration, is where it all comes together. While IDs often adapt to meet faculty where they are, our work is guided by a phased instructional design process rooted in backward design (with a nod to Wiggins and McTighe). We don’t just build courses—we co-create learning environments that reflect the faculty’s goals and values.

A Real Story of Pedagogical Transformation

When a tenured professor at a private university learned his program would be moving online, he was understandably apprehensive. He thrived in the energy of his in-person classroom, and the shift to online learning felt—at best—like a compromise, and—at worst—a threat to academic quality.

Soon after, he was introduced to an instructional designer from the university’s new Online Learning Team. With more than a decade of experience, the designer worked with faculty across a wide range of readiness—some eager, others skeptical.

Their first meeting was respectful but cautious. After reviewing project timelines, the ID introduced the TARC framework and explained the team's role: not just to build a course, but to help translate the professor’s vision— “We’re not just here for your content,” the ID explained. “We’re here to help bring your vision to life—how you want students to think, feel and grow in your course. Our job is to make that happen in a meaningful and accessible way.”

When Collaboration Transforms Teaching Mindsets

As the project progressed, so did their working relationship. With regular check-ins, flexible feedback loops using Microsoft Teams and support from other partners (e.g., library and assessment colleagues), the professor began to see that course design didn’t have to be a solo effort. It was a shared process— collaborative, intentional and rooted in the same academic values he had always held. What surprised him most? After launching the online course, he started applying the same intentional structure and clarity to his in-person classes—integrating clearer learning objectives, regular feedback loops, and more thoughtful organization.

In short, the experience reshaped how he approached teaching altogether.

Stories like this aren’t the exception—they can become the norm when institutions embrace a framework that supports both faculty and instructional designers as co-creators of learning. The benefits go beyond strong online course design—they ripple outward, enhancing face-to-face instruction and building a stronger culture of teaching and learning.

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