ABSTRACT
Davenport University (DU) is a private, nonprofit university serving approxi-
mately 13,000 students at multiple locations across Michigan. Students earn
degrees in health care, business, and technology. DU uses predesigned courses
(PDCs) in most of its online offerings. These courses offer a consistent navi-
gational structure across the institution and help to ensure pedagogical consis-
tency across multiple concurrent sections of the same course. This desire for
consistency mirrors in-seat practices (such as using a common textbook) designed
to ensure students across multiple sections are given equal opportunity to meet
learning outcomes. Davenport implemented PDCs with the goal of enabling
instructors to focus expertise on teaching rather than the “click and wait” com-
ponent of building an online course.
