During the Develop phase of instructional design, a number of administrative issues merit your consideration. In some cases, the issue may require you to work with individuals or departments outside of your course-development team.

Some administrative issues relate to course management. For example, relevant institutional policies, guidelines, and timelines must be identified and incorporated into your course syllabus. Other issues relate to providing student support, both online and offline, for problems with content, technology, and logistics. Additionally, if your institution provides a course management system, you need to become as familiar as you can with the system (through training classes and practice) so you can take advantage of its capabilities and offset its limitations.

The most successful online courses have good administration of all facets, including the management of files, communication, and workload. Some issues that are pertinent to these aspects of online learning will be explored in this section.