Portfolio

The university sought a state-of-the-art AI curriculum that would attract students in an increasingly competitive market. Because artificial intelligence evolves rapidly, the program also needed a sustainable design that would support frequent content updates without requiring extensive redevelopment.

Approach: Partnered with recognized subject-matter experts in artificial intelligence, generative AI, machine learning, and hybrid intelligence. Applied backward design by establishing program-level outcomes and then aligning the outcomes, content, activities, and assessments for each course. Designed and developed six courses, including course and lesson architecture, learning outcomes and instructional content, applied assignments and assessments, multimedia and interactive learning experiences, and faculty resources and implementation support.

Challenges and Solutions: To handle rapidly changing subject matter, content was designed as focused three to five minute microlectures, a modular structure that allows individual topics to be replaced or revised without rebuilding an entire lesson or piece of multimedia. Assignments and assessments were built to be updated as AI tools, capabilities, and professional practices evolve. To ease long-term maintenance, the program transitioned from specialized authoring tools such as Articulate 360 to more flexible platforms such as Genially, enabling faculty to make routine content updates with less reliance on instructional design or technical support.

Outcome: Successfully launched the full six-course certificate program. The first completed program cycle received student evaluation scores that were notably higher than those typically earned by technical courses in the university's MBA portfolio.

When the university identified online course quality consistency and accessibility as a legal and equity risk, this initiative was commissioned to build a systematic remediation pathway, establishing consistent course quality standards and achieving full accessibility compliance across all online course Blueprints.

Role & Contribution: Collaborated in the design of a comprehensive, multi-tiered Quality Assurance process and checklist, leveraging Quality Matters (QM) certification expertise to ensure alignment with Canvas best practices, the QM Higher Education Rubric (7th Edition), and 100% accessibility compliance standards.

Approach: Developed a tiered QA Checklist spanning two core domains:

• Blueprint Design: Course Design, Syllabus Design, Policy Rules, Writing Mechanics, and Graphics & Multimedia
• Canvas Course Site: Course Navigation, Organization, Assignment & Assessment Alignment, Rubrics, Accessibility & Inclusivity, Course Tools, and Technology

To support quality at every stage, a two-phase review workflow was established: the assigned Instructional Designer conducted a self-assessment during the design and build process to identify and resolve issues proactively, followed by an independent final review by a Senior Instructional Designer to verify resolution of all flagged items and catch any remaining gaps.

Tools & Frameworks:

• Canvas Accessibility Reports
• Ally by Instructure
• Adobe Acrobat Accessibility Checker
• Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Guidelines
• Quality Matters Higher Education Rubric, 7th Edition

Outcome: The QA process had a 100% adoption rate for all current course developments, and it is embedded into the workflow for all future projects. The checklist and rubric are now also being applied retroactively to 100% of existing Blueprints. Combined with tools such as TidyUp, all prior courses are on track for full compliance, with a target completion date of within one year.

When the university migrated its full online course catalog from Blackboard to Canvas, pre-existing inconsistencies in course design were exacerbated. The absence of a unified style guide had produced a fragmented student experience. Issues included mismatched homepages, buried instructor contact information, inaccessible video content, and module pages with no common structure. This multi-year project addressed those gaps through a comprehensive redesign effort, with two clear targets: achieve 100% conformance with a new institutional style guide, with a secondary goal of integrating at least one Universal Design for Learning (UDL) enhancement into every course.

Role & Responsibilities: Collaborated to produce a visual and structural redesign style guide for the course catalog, coordinated cross-functional collaboration with faculty and staff, facilitated student focus groups, and built reusable templates and interactives to support scalable implementation.

The project began with a systematic audit to identify the most critical pain points. Key problem areas included:

• Inconsistent homepage layouts that varied course to course, making orientation difficult for students
• Critical information, such as instructor contact details and synchronous meeting times, was difficult to locate
• Module pages had no shared structure, creating confusion as students moved between courses
• Videos were hosted on Vimeo without captions or accurate transcripts, creating accessibility barriers

To address these issues, a unified design framework was developed. Student focus groups were central to the process. Participants reviewed multiple homepage concepts, and their feedback directly informed the final selection. A clean, consistently structured layout was created, with clear instructor information and meeting times built directly into the page rather than buried in syllabi or announcements.

For module pages, a standardized tab-based interface template was developed that organized large volumes of content into an intuitive, scannable structure. This template was adopted across the catalog.

Video accessibility was addressed by migrating all course video content from Vimeo to Kaltura, where accurate transcripts were created and embedded directly within the video player interface, making them immediately available without requiring students to locate a separate file.

UDL Integration: Beyond visual consistency, the project served as an opportunity to meaningfully embed UDL principles into course design. Most courses were updated to offer students structured choice within modules. As an example, rather than a single prescribed assignment, students could select from different topic options, each designed to satisfy the same learning objectives. This approach honored learner autonomy while maintaining academic rigor.

Interactive learning elements were initially built in Articulate, then later migrated to Genially to lower the barrier for editing and ongoing content maintenance. This decision extended the sustainability of the work beyond the initial rollout.

Outcomes:

• Style guide successfully launched and applied catalog-wide
• All course blueprints updated to the new homepage design within the project timeline
• All video content migrated to Kaltura with embedded transcripts and closed captions
• All module pages transitioned to the standardized template
• Multiple courses received more than one UDL enhancement, exceeding the minimum goal
• Interactive content transitioned to a more editable platform, reducing long-term maintenance burden