Should IDs Have Skills in Areas Other Than Writing/Design?

To answer this question, let’s first understand what is “Instructional Design” and who is an instructional designer. (too basic, huh? well, I thought of starting at the basic level!)

As stated in Wikipedia, “Instructional Design is the practice of arranging media (communication technology) and content to help learners and teachers transfer knowledge most effectively.”

If we simply keep that definition in mind, what skills do you think an Instructional Designer should have to transfer the knowledge most effectively to their learners? Do you think an ID who knows how to design a product or how to write well, can transfer or deliver knowledge in the most effective manner to its learners?

I really don’t think so.

In my opinion, an Instructional Designer is one who has a “holistic” picture about the product he/she is designing. The IDs knowledge should not be limited to design or writing skills only. Let’s see why.

The involvemnet of an ID begins even before a project is kicked-off. The ID is the one who needs to understand the client requirements, do a detailed analysis of the client’s needs, create an overall solution that will fulfill the client’s requirement, and so on. Not just this, an ID should also understand the “technology” aspects involved in creating a course/product – a basic knowledge of the templates that would be used for constructing the product/ course or a specific engine or tool that is being used to develop the product/course. The ID should also be aware of the kind of medis that is being used for the product/course.

“Designing” or “Writing” cannot happen in isoltaion without the knowledge of most of these things. Ultimately, this would only give the ID, an edge over all others who simply focus on a particular aspect of “Instructional Designing”.

Having said all of it, I would not say that an ID has to be an “expert” in all of these areas; but an ID should definetely have some basic skills in most of these areas for him/her to come up with something worthwhile that is of value for the end user.

From that perspective, I definetely think that IDs should have skills in lot many other areas than just writing and designing.

However, I would like to point out one of the the bigger questions for me here is not whether the IDs should have skills other than writing/designing; rather, the point is whether an average ID (mainly referring to number of authors/designers working in the organization who are designated as “IDs” or rather call themselves "IDs") even understand that he/she is supposed to have skills outside the “writing” that they do. The pity is that for much longer periods of time in their career as “IDs”, they understand only a perspective of what instructional design is and what all constitutes a role of an instructional designer. In my opinion, an instructional designer should be exposed to much more variety of work rather than making them work in a “factory mode” for churning out one project after the other. Well, to think of how this can be done? This could be taken up in another subsequent blog!

Till that time, it would be good to hear what others think of this issue.