Grow Your Business with Online Courses: An illustration of Instructional Design for Infopreneurs

Grow Your Business with Online Courses: An illustration of Instructional Design for Infopreneurs

By Amy Ferguson

Trying to turn your expertise into a marketable online course? As information professionals who curate knowledge for a living, building and selling online courses is a natural next step for many of us. But without a plan, creating an online course can feel overwhelming. Where do you start?

That is where instructional design comes in.

What is Instructional Design?

Instructional design is the art and science of creating engaging, effective learning experiences. It involves understanding how people learn and structuring content to improve learning.

At its core, instructional design involves:

• Defining the knowledge and skills learners should have acquired by the end of the course.
• Creating learning materials that capture attention and encourage learning.
• Assessing whether learners have achieved the intended goals.

Several instructional design models guide course development. ADDIE is one of these models. ADDIE stands for Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate.

Analyze

In this phase, you identify your audience and their needs. You define your main goals for the course and consider possible delivery methods. Perform an instructional analysis by identifying the skills and knowledge students need to reach the course goals.

By the end of the Analyze phase, you will have

• Instructional goals
• An instructional analysis
• A learner analysis

Design

The next step is to create a roadmap. Many instructional designers use a “backwards design” approach. This means starting with the end goal in mind. Before creating course content, think about how you will know that students have achieved the goal. Begin the design phase by deciding how you will evaluate students and work your way back from there. Think about how you will deliver content and what types of activities students will complete. This is your instructional strategy.

By the end of the Design phase, you will have

• Assessment plans
• A course format
• An instructional strategy

Develop

In the Develop phase, you create content and collect assets specified in the Design phase. For an online course, consider delivering content in various formats, such as text, videos, and hands-on activities.

By the end of the Develop phase, you will have

• Detailed lesson plans
• Course materials

Implement

Now that you have developed your course materials, you prepare them for delivery. For an online course, this could consist of uploading learning content into your course delivery system and setting up assessment functionality.

By the end of the Implement phase, you will have

• A delivery method
• A mechanism for student assessments

 Evaluate

During this final phase, you review the effectiveness of your course and pinpoint areas in need of improvement. Your review will rely on student assessment results, your experience delivering the course content, and the challenges students faced. A survey is a great way to gather feedback about your students’ experience with the course. Use this information to improve student outcomes by updating course content, activities, and/or assessments.

By the end of the Evaluate phase, you will have

• Course assessment data
• A strategy for improvement

From this brief description, you might think that ADDIE is a linear process. Instead, it is a cyclical model of continuous improvement. Just like our students, we are learning throughout the process. Each phase informs the next, and each phase helps clarify the previous one. 

Creating an online course without using an instructional design model is possible. However, it often results in a learning experience that feels disjointed and chaotic for the learner. The ADDIE model offers a structured framework to help ensure your course is well-planned and effective.

A thoughtfully designed course benefits your learners and boosts your credibility, something that is always a benefit to your business.

Amy Ferguson holds a Master’s in Library Science and a Graduate Certificate in Instructional Design. She founded Evidence Search Lab in 2025. The company helps healthcare providers and researchers navigate biomedical literature. Recently, she expanded her business by launching Course Creator Secrets, an online school for course creators who want to develop online courses that lead to meaningful change for students.