Balancing the quality and financial sustainability of online courses in higher education has been challenging. The ultimate goal for the US online higher education is to build self-sustaining online courses, in which the quality is assured as it is continuously offered, and to attain net revenue. This paper advocates that the impact of contextual influences on online higher education should be assessed when an online course is first initiated. Three instructional design guidelines—building a knowledge-based course structure, preparing flexibility in design, and promoting adjustability in modular design—are introduced in this paper. An example of how a first-year English composition (FYC) fully online course design applied these guidelines is introduced. A checklist of designing self-sustaining online course is suggested for designers. As online courses are not inherently self-sustaining, the tradeoffs and limitations of self-sustaining online course designs in different disciplines, programs, and technology integration will be further studied.

中文翻译：

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美国推进自我维持在线高等教育的教学设计指南

平衡高等教育在线课程的质量和财务可持续性一直具有挑战性。美国在线高等教育的最终目标是建立自我维持的在线课程，在持续提供的同时保证质量，并获得净收入。本文主张，应在首次启动在线课程时评估情境影响对在线高等教育的影响。本文介绍了三个教学设计指南——构建基于知识的课程结构、准备设计的灵活性和促进模块化设计的可调整性。介绍了一年级英语作文 (FYC) 完全在线课程设计如何应用这些指南的示例。为设计师推荐了一份设计自我维持在线课程的清单。