Getting to Know Us

The Center for Learning Design (CLD) and the Center for Digital and Media Initiatives (CDMI) at the Whiting School of Engineering (WSE) support instructors with online course design, development, maintenance, and pedagogical matters. It’s likely that you have had contact with individuals on our teams through course developments or queries to the Engineering for Professionals (EP) Help Desk. In recent years, our teams have expanded in both size and scope. In this article, you will learn more about our organization, our roles and skill sets, and how we have rapidly grown in recent years to meet the increased demand for the services we provide.

EP’s first foray into online education were humble beginnings. Our combined groups grew from several outsourced instructional designers to the creation of an in-house instructional design team in 2006. The team consisted of two-full time instructional designers. In 2009, we experienced more growth. In addition to instructional design support, we began offering faculty development and support for specific technology platforms and applications. We began adding staff specialists in instructional technologies as well as hiring more instructional designers. As the number of online courses continued to grow, some different support models were explored, all data-driven, to determine the best way to support increasing demands while maintaining high-level services to EP faculty and the programs at large.

In 2016, we split into our current configuration of the CLD and the CDMI. During 2019, we were further integrated into WSE and began offering support for undergraduate engineering courses and programs as well as providing leadership in the development of alternative educational products such as MOOCs and offerings requiring partnerships with industry leaders.

Center for Learning Design (CLD)

We are a team of instructional designers, currently consisting of two leadership/managerial roles, eight instructional designers—three employed in senior roles—and two course support specialists. You may know us best as the point people in course developments and redevelopments.

What We Do

The role of instructional designers is to provide guidance in best practices in online education and technology and to help in the creation of materials for online courses. Instructional designers also serve as project managers in course developments. As the volume of supported courses and programs has grown, we have developed internal procedures to disseminate some specific course development tasks among our team. This helps us maintain a highly individualized level of support for course developments while at the same time keeping up with volume.

Instructional designers also provide leadership for faculty development initiatives. In 2018, the CLD launched the Faculty Forward Academy, which provides a wide range of development opportunities including an annual by-admission-only, two-month, mixed modality training program, webinars and workshops throughout the year, two faculty meetings annually, and online resources.

Instructional designers also lead special projects related to online learning. These may include campus-wide liaison roles, initiatives related course quality standards, and analytics projects to support data-driven policy choices to enhance teaching and learning.

Center for Digital and Media Initiatives (CDMI)

We are a team of instructional technologists, media producers, and multimedia specialists. We evaluate, implement, and support educational technology and multimedia production tools and services at the Whiting School of Engineering. You may know us best through interaction with the instructional technology Help Desk and our development of the WSE instructional studios. We also help maintain the tools and platforms used to deliver learning at Johns Hopkins University, including Blackboard, Kaltura, and Zoom.

What We Do

Our responsibilities fall into three areas: educational technology, media production, and technology training and support. In the area of educational technology, we help faculty explore, develop, and implement effective ways to use technology in courses. In the area of media production, we assist faculty who want to enhance lessons, presentations, and research with audio, video, and new media. In the area of technology training and support, we provide remote and onsite support to faculty throughout course development and delivery.

We accomplish our mission through:

• Leadership in evaluating and implementing instructional technologies.
• Investing in products and services that align and integrate with the goals and needs of WSE students and faculty.
• Maximizing the School’s investments through user support, training, and resource maintenance.
• Enabling the delivery of online learning content through purpose-built studios and classrooms.

During the pandemic, the CLD and CDMI, found themselves well-poised to meet the challenges of the shifted academic environment. This is in part due to outstanding Whiting and EP leadership with a broad vision for the relevance of our groups in a digital educational landscape. An effective foundation was in place when the pandemic hit that enabled our groups to scale up quickly and apply our expertise to support an almost three-fold increased demand for our expertise and services.

The world only moves forward. At the CLD and CDMI, we will continue to embrace change as necessary to serve the faculty and programs of the Whiting School in an exemplary manner using our wide variety of skills, talents, and interests.

Contact Us

Want to get in touch with our teams? Here’s how:

• CDMI:
  • [email protected]
  • https://support.ep.jhu.edu/
• CLD:
  • [email protected]
  • https://facultyforward.jhu.edu/
  • Book a consultation with an instructional designer