PROXIMITY ONLINE
COURSE DEVELOPERS

We are an online course design and development service. We create ready-to-use e-learning courses to your specifications that are engaging, interactive and effective. They can take the form of fully online or blended courses, or a downloadable learning guide, reader, workbook, etc.

Do you need a diploma- or post-graduate-level academic course? Or a short in-service professional development course? We have experience covering the entire range. We design and develop: 

• academic modules at certificate, diploma, degree and post-graduate levels
• stand-alone continuous professional or occupational development (CPD) courses (for example teachers, honorary rangers, tour guides)
• employee and other training for NGOs and small businesses
• short courses in areas where you have expertise, that may serve as digital products to bring in a passive income.

Is your budget tight? We also generate highly effective individual course components that will add to the professionalism and effectiveness of your lectures, distance education or blended learning classes, such as: 

• simulations, scenarios or other interactive learning activities
• gamified knowledge-building activities or knowledge checks such as quizzes or drag-and-drops in a variety of imaginative formats
• student assessments that are fun or challenging (or both) for learners – and either self-assessed or labour-saving for the lecturer
• wiki-based or other peer-learning activities (asynchronous or synchronous)
• effective rubrics that genuinely support learning as well as making your marking less of a burden. 

  1. Programme and course content writing and design 

We can: 

1.1  develop a new fully online or blended course from basic curriculum documents (i.e. ‘from scratch’)

1.2  adapt an existing face-to-face course to produce an exciting, interactive blended or fully online offering, 

or 

1.3  collaborate with subject experts to design courses in a variety of content domains (collaboration can be as close or as limited as you wish).

Each of these options may entail: 

• conducting the necessary desk-top research
• submitting a draft course outline to match your specifications
• after receiving your feedback, submitting a course ‘storyboard’ for your comment
• searching for appropriate learning resources, especially free, adaptable open educational resources (OER)
• if necessary, commissioning and overseeing artwork from trusted and talented illustrators and graphic artists
• designing learning activities and formative assessments, using a range of digital teaching/learning tools
• submitting first-unit drafts for comment
• submitting final drafts for peer review, and
• re-working drafts in response to trialling or other feedback from the lecturer.

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The course package 

Whichever of the three options you choose, your course can be rendered as: 

• A text version in MS Word or PDF suitable for presenting as an online learning guide (which can of course be downloaded or printed out by the student)                                                                                              Or
• An interactive SCORM or Moodle package suitable for uploading on to any of the learning management systems (LMSs) in common use.¹

If any additional material is required, such as a course reader, lecturer's guide or separate workbook, these will be listed as distinct items in our quotation.

Please see the Copyright page for further information.

¹ We don't host an LMS ourselves, or upload courses or other materials on to your institution's LMS.

Who we are: Proximity Online Course Developers is a new start-up enterprise drawing on the proven talents and expertise of a small team of highly experienced writers, learning designers and e-learning developers. All of us have worked on contract to universities, colleges and NGOs over the past twenty years, developing a wide range of courses up to post-graduate level. We have also kept abreast of new developments in educational technology and online course design approaches. We understand: 

• The critical importance of teaching/learning texts being understandable and engaging, especially where the subject matter is unavoidably complex, or involves fine distinctions

• The different level descriptors associated with different academic levels on national qualification frameworks 

• The centrality of Shulman's concept of pedagogic content knowledge - employing those active learning approaches and technologies that are most appropriate to each particular subject or content domain – approaches that will challenge students and help them to achieve understanding, insight, and an ability to apply, evaluate and use knowledge in new situations

• That there are academically legitimate ways to ensure that students don’t have to struggle to familiarise themselves with terms and language that are new to them, especially if they are studying remotely. And that some of these ways (but not all) depend on the skillful use of digital learning technologies.