Baku, Azerbaijan | 637 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL Of ACADEMIC RESEARCH Vol. 3. No. 1. January, 2011, Part II COURSE BOOK EVALUATION THROUGH INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN PARAMETERS IN THE SYSTEM OF DISTANCE EDUCATION Dr. Muhammad Ajmal 1 , Dr. Hafiz M Hamidullah 2 , Fazalur Rahman 1 , Basharat Ali Khan 1 1 Allama Iqbal Open University Islamabad. 2 Riphah International University Islamabad (PAKISTAN) E-mails: drajmal@aiou.edu.pk, hameedullah@riphah.edu.pk, fazalaiou@yahoo.com ABSTRACT The focus of the paper was to report the findings of the study examining course book design at the Allama Iqbal Open University, Pakistan. It was an evaluation study conducted through a questionnaire. The data collected from 7 tutors and fifty students enrolled in the course literacy and mass education in semester spring 2009. The tutors and students found book according to their needs. However, the study recommended revising the course book according to the emerging trends of instructional design. Key words: Course book evaluation; instructional design, distance education 1. INTRODUCTION Instructional design is a part of a technology, the steps of which should meet the structure of cognition and the processes of knowledge development and learning. According to Gagne (1997, p.1) “Instructional design is a field of study concerned with improving student learning. As a field of study, it provides a theoretical foundation to principles of instruction design. Smith (2005, p.1) states, “Instructional design, the idea of instruction design is presented the concepts of instruction is compared with related concepts such as education, training and teaching.” While glossary of terms commonly used in Distance Education by IGNOU (1997, p.29) defines Instruction Design as, “It is generally refers to planning, delivery and evaluation of instructional system.” Instruction design is a working model that one can use to manage the concepts and tasks that are part of successful training process. Analysis →Design→ Development →Implementation→ Evaluation (George, 2006, p.2). Silmens (2002) narrated that it is a systematic process of translating general principles of learning and instruction into plans for instructional materials and learning. It includes the development of instruction materials and activities and try out and evaluation of all instruction and learner activities There are three main purposes of instructional design (a) to identify the outcomes of instruction (b) to guide the developing the instructional content (scope and sequence) (c) to establish how instructional effectiveness will be evaluated. Instructional design is a systematic approach to designing instruction and instructional materials to achieve specific learning objectives (Gagne, 2006, pp1-26). Braden (1996, p.5) “Instructional design improves the teaching learning process. It has following characteristics: 1. It emphasizes structure of the task. 2. It analyzes learner’s response in view of objectives and levels of learning. 3. It considers entering behavior for providing new stimuli to have desired responses of the learning. 4. It involves selection of appropriate teaching strategies, techniques and tactics for generating desired learning structures. 5. Employ the technique of motivation for leading the teaching. 6. It involve the construction of measuring instrument for evaluating the performance level of the learner (Aggarwal, 1997) Most instructional theorists agree that instructional design (ID) can be traced to roots in behaviorism and related learning theories the use of the model of instrumental conditioning to describe and interpret all learning, the use of five rules for the programming of instruction based on that model, and the development of a teaching machine were soon abandoned. The application of the rules led to a splitting up of the subject matter into a huge number of instructional frames that were even able to prevent the integration of the concepts and methods involved. 2. PARAMETERS OF INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN Stage 1: Define instructional goals A goal may be defined as a general statement of desired accomplishment. It does not specify exactly all of the components or steps or how each step will be achieved on the road to accomplishing the goal. Example Goals: (1) Students will master the procedure of a generic history and physical. (2) Students will understand the biochemistry of diabetes.