[Hiring] Instructional Designer @Nectar Inc

Role Description

Alchemy designs and builds online courses for universities and workforce education providers. You would work on a per-course basis alongside a faculty subject matter expert, taking a course from the first conversation through to a finished build the client signs off on. Engagements are contracted per course, so you can take one course or several depending on your capacity. Most courses run eight to fourteen weeks of development. This is a collaborative role. You will work directly with your SME on a regular cadence, and there are project and client calls from time to time. If you are looking for work that can be done entirely asynchronously with no contact with faculty or the client, this is not that role.

Qualifications

• Experience designing courses in higher education, K-12 or workforce learning and development, with at least one full course taken from outline to delivery.
• Fluency with learning management systems, Canvas and Brightspace in particular.
• The ability to work with a faculty subject matter expert who is an expert in their field but not in course design, and to lead that relationship without taking it over.
• Comfort in client-facing conversations, including ones where you have to say no or explain why something will not work.
• Clear, structured writing and the discipline to follow a style guide and a template rather than your own preferred format.
• The self-management to hit dates in a distributed team without being chased.
• A degree in education, instructional design, instructional technology or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Candor about what you have not done. We would much rather know at the application stage that you have never built an interactive or never worked in Brightspace than find out when it blocks a deliverable.

Requirements

• Partner with a faculty subject matter expert to develop the course plan: learning outcomes, assessment map, and the overall shape of the course.
• Write the course guide or blueprint, the document that contains everything that will be built in the LMS.
• Review and write learning outcomes using Bloom's Taxonomy and related frameworks.
• Design formative and summative assessments, knowledge checks and learning activities.
• Draft a media plan with the SME, specifying what each asset is for.
• Work to the client's templates, style guide, terminology and design standards.
• Hold the standards: accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA), the client's style guide, and the design standards for the project.
• Meet regularly with your subject matter expert through the design phase.
• Attend additional project and client calls as necessary.
• Keep your own task status current in the client's project system (usually ClickUp).
• Run the review and approval process for your courses.
• Review the built course in the LMS against your approved blueprint.
• Raise problems early.

Benefits

• Contracted per course under a work for hire agreement. Deliverables are owned by the client.
• Paid a fixed fee per course at defined milestones, on acceptance of each deliverable.
• A defined number of review cycles is included in the fee.
• Revisions requested inside the window are included.
• Course assignments can change; courses get added, removed, delayed or reassigned by the client.
• You will work in our systems and the client's: Google Workspace, Slack, the project system, and the client's LMS.
• We use AI tooling in our process, including our own platform.

Nice to Have

• Experience with Articulate Storyline or Rise, H5P, or other interactive development tools.
• Familiarity with Quality Matters or similar course design standards.
• Experience picking up a partially built course from another designer and finishing it.
• Experience using AI tools as part of a design workflow.
• Experience in a specific discipline area: business, criminal justice, education, psychology, health sciences or data analytics.