The Course is online : why aren’t the students learning?

Despite literally hundreds of thousands of courses being transferred wholly or partly to an online mode of delivery over the last decade, many institutions continue to get it badly wrong. This paper draws on the literature to highlight some important aspects of online learning implementation that are often overlooked or given little attention. One common thread throughout is the major importance of good communication to the success of any online course. The authors distil the essence of good practice to present ten guidelines for effective online learning, in the hope that some of the more prominent pitfalls and disasters can be avoided.