Converting classroom based courses to web based delivery can be difficult, time consuming, and costly. Classroom instructors often lack the skills needed to develop online materials using traditional development tools. The U.S. Coast Guard is facing these challenges as they work to convert courses to web based formats. The problem is often complicated by reductions in instructor staff and small development teams. Faced with these challenges the Instructional Support Team at U.S. Coast Guard Training Center Petaluma developed a template based approach to course development that allows instructors and subjects matter experts to populate course content using Microsoft Word. The Web Development Template was initially developed to assist in the conversion of one course to web-based training. The template sought to meet very specific criteria for the course and the instructors. However, once the project began the team quickly realized how the template could be applied to other courses to reduce development time.

This paper will describe the goals of the template, the processes employed to develop courses using the template, how the template works, and the requirements for implementing this approach. Also discussed are the skills required by instructors and the amount of assistance required from media developers. Data on the development time of the template and development for courses will also be presented.