ABSTRACT

Instructional design (ID) today is an established profession, as well as an area of study. As a profession, it consists of a series of well-defined competencies, and an active group of practitioners who work in increasingly complex and sophisticated environments. As an area of study, it has a rich and growing foundation of research and theory viewed from increasingly diverse points of view. Both the practice and the study of ID can be seen in two ways: as strategies for creating particular products and as the implementation and management of the overall design process. In either of these orientations ID is a planning process. As such, it is distinguished from development processes, the actual production of instructional materials.