12.2. PLAN FOR TECHNICAL SUPPORT
The time to plan for technical support is while you are designing the course, not after the network crashes during the final exam. A plan for technical support need not be complex, but it should cover the main issues likely to arise as you introduce and conduct your course.
12.2.1. Consider all issues
What should your support plan include? The rest of this chapter can serve as a general checklist. But first, here are a few general issues for the list:
How will learners obtain the tools and technologies they need for your course?
Who will answer questions about them?
Who will help learners when they have problems?
How will instructors and administrators receive training on the tool or technology?
Do not proceed until you have answers to these questions.
12.2.2. Plan for disasters
Put on your most pessimistic, cynical, jaded attitude and list all the disasters that could befall your course. The server breaks down, the network fails, and the database crashes. The Tourette5 virus changes every fifth word in your course to an obscenity. The company decides to replace high-performance workstations with television sets running WebTV™. For each plausible disaster (and some of the implausible ones) create a plan of action:
How will learners recognize the problem and know how to act?
How long should they wait for the problem to be corrected by someone else?
What action should learners then take on their own?
How do learners continue to learn while the problem ...
Get Designing Web-Based Training: How to Teach Anyone Anything Anywhere Anytime now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
