The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health Distance Education Group’s course demo is a truly first-class and professional web-based demonstration of how teaching and learning works in a particular online program. Subtitled “What are Courses Like at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,” this online presentation in Macromedia Flash has slick audio, animation and background sound conveyed in a eye-pleasing and easy-to-navigate format divided into four sections: Course Content, Course Activities, Course Communications and More Information. Student audio testimonials with photos are interspersed throughout this presentation, which is comprised of well-scripted demonstrations of the variety of teaching and learning environments featured in the Bloomberg School.

When visitors get to the section for obtaining more information, they are directed to a list of available web courses with in-depth course descriptions (many with video highlights); an easy-to-follow online registration page; and a free non-credit, web-based “Introduction to Online Learning” course that is a prerequisite to all courses offered by the Bloomberg School of Public Health.

According to Sukon Kanchanaraksa, director of the Bloomberg School’s Center for Teaching and Learning with Technology, the Introduction to Online Learning course has gone through “many revisions,” since it was first introduced to students when the Internet-based Masters in Public Health Program launched in 1999. About 200 people enroll in this course on a monthly basis. Kanchanaraksa says it’s a two-week course that can really be finished in five to six hours, and that “people from outside (JHU) who want to learn about what we do enroll in it. It’s free.”

Overall, online learning providers can look at the complete online course demo as a great best practice that can be emulated - provided that they have the infrastructure and funding to create something this sophisticated - for showing students, online, how online learning works, as well as for getting students to ultimately enroll in a program.