Instructional Designer- Partner Specific

iDesign • Dallas, TX

1d • Remote

About The Position

This is an instructional design role focused on making specific revisions to existing courses based on a provided charter. The work involves closely reading the charter, translating it into precise course modifications, and executing these changes within a fixed timeframe without altering content outside the charter's scope. The role requires a full instructional design skill set, including learning theory, alignment, assessment design, accessibility, and SME collaboration. Key challenges lie in scope management and defensibility, accurately interpreting the charter, documenting design decisions, and resisting the urge to overhaul the entire course. The Instructional Designer will collaborate with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and internal teams like Editorial and Quality Review to ensure all revisions meet research-based practices and partner quality standards. A critical restriction for this engagement is the prohibition of using any AI system for processing partner course content or information.

Requirements

• Advanced degree in Education, Instructional Technology, or a related field.
• Current, in-depth knowledge of instructional design and learning theories, with expertise in online learning, instructional design and technology, adult learning theory, and andragogy/pedagogy.
• Demonstrated experience (3-5 years) collaborating with SMEs on online course development in higher education or corporate environments.
• Proven ability to build strong working relationships with SMEs while moving projects forward and meeting deadlines.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, with a demonstrated ability to lead and influence collaboratively, including holding a scope boundary professionally.
• Ability to read a scope document and identify not just what it says, but what it means in practice: what it touches, what it doesn’t, and what’s ambiguous.
• Strong independent judgment: the ability to make a clean, documented, defensible decision on an ambiguous question without needing every call reviewed.
• Experience with ADA compliance and quality standards for course design (e.g., Quality Matters, OLC).
• Competency navigating various LMS systems such as Brightspace, D2L, Canvas, Moodle, etc.
• Ability to recognize AI-generated material in SME submissions and evaluate it critically against design standards and learning objectives.
• Ability to pick up a revised standard or specification between projects and apply it accurately, without a ramp-up period.
• Strong organizational skills, excellent follow-through, and exceptional attention to detail.
• Must be located in the Eastern, Central, Mountain, or Pacific time zones.
• Not open to applicants residing in or otherwise based in California, New York, Illinois, or Massachusetts.

Nice To Haves

• A proven track record of working with academic and business partners to create engaging and effective online courses.
• Excellent oral/written communication and presentation skills.
• Background in Learner Experience Design.
• Expertise in competency-based learning.
• Comprehensive knowledge of available open educational resources (OERs).
• Quality assurance training and certification (QM, OSCQR, other).
• Post-secondary teaching and learning experience.
• Trust that addressing what’s in scope serves the student better than expanding into what isn’t.
• Naturally front-load your prep, arriving at meetings with a plan rather than still forming one.
• Can hold a professional boundary on scope with a SME without straining the relationship.
• Comfortable working without AI assistance on partner content.
• Deliver complete, accurate work on a hard deadline, consistently.
• Communicate proactively, especially when something is going wrong.
• Pick up a revised standard between projects and apply it, without defaulting back to the previous version.

Responsibilities

• Complete a scoped review of the assigned course and map the charter to specific course locations, documenting cascading effects, assumptions, and ambiguities before development begins.
• Deliver a specific list of items requiring SME input before the first working session.
• Collaborate with SMEs to revise instruction and assessments in scope, aligned to learning outcomes and the charter, while documenting anything outside scope rather than addressing it.
• Suggest relevant open educational resources and instructional methods appropriate to the revision.
• Maintain comprehensive documentation of design decisions to support partner review and approval.
• Incorporate partner and stakeholder feedback through agreed revision cycles.
• Facilitate SME working sessions to obtain the approvals required to complete deliverables.
• Coordinate with internal teams at defined handoff points to ensure deliverables are completed on schedule.
• Complete self-QA before each handoff and deliver complete, accurate work by each fixed milestone.
• Submit a status update with each milestone deliverable, and flag anything that's off track as soon as you identify it, so downstream stakeholders aren't caught by surprise.
• Work from the version of the design standards and charter in effect for your project. Both may be revised between projects as the program evolves.

Benefits

• Independent contractor engagement (1099)
• Contractors are free to work with other clients
• Meeting times are set in advance around each project’s milestones.
• Outside of those scheduled meetings and agreed deadlines, you determine your own working hours and process for completing the work.

What This Job Offers

• Career Level: Senior