Instructional Designer- Partner Specific

iDesign; United States; Remote; USD 70,000 - 100,000; Part time

Job summary

iDesign is seeking an experienced instructional designer to translate course charters into precise revisions, coordinating with SMEs and internal teams to deliver high-quality online courses on fixed milestones.

You will balance scope, learning theory, and accessibility to ensure outcomes align with charter requirements, while avoiding scope creep and documenting decisions for partner review.

Qualifications

• Advanced degree in Education, Instructional Technology, or a related field.
• In-depth knowledge of instructional design and learning theories, with expertise in online learning and andragogy/pedagogy.
• 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 meeting deadlines.
• Strong communication and leadership skills, including scope boundary management.
• Ability to read a scope document and identify what it means in practice, including ambiguities.

Responsibilities

• Complete a scoped review of the assigned course and map the charter to specific course locations, documenting cascading effects, assumptions, and ambiguities.
• 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.
• Suggest relevant open educational resources and instructional methods.
• Maintain comprehensive documentation of design decisions for partner review and approval.
• Incorporate partner and stakeholder feedback through agreed revision cycles.
• Coordinate with internal teams at defined handoff points to ensure deliverables are completed on schedule.
• Submit a status update with each milestone deliverable and flag issues early.

Skills

Instructional design

Learning theories

SME collaboration

Communication

Scope management

Education

Advanced degree in Education or related field

Tools

Brightspace

D2L

Canvas

Moodle

Job description

This position is not open to applicants residing in or otherwise based in California, New York, Illinois, or Massachusetts. Additionally, applicants must be located in the Eastern, Central, Mountain, or Pacific time zones. Note to Applicants We’re looking for professionals who take pride in their work. We know your resume tells part of the story, but our application questions help us understand how you think and work. Because we receive a high volume of applications, only applications with complete, thoughtful responses will be reviewed. Given the AI restriction on this engagement, described below, we ask that your responses be your own work.

Engagement Details

This is instructional design work, with a twist. Every project starts with an existing course and a charter that defines exactly what is changing about it. The work is reading that charter closely, translating it into specific revisions in specific places, and executing them cleanly on a short, fixed cycle, without drifting into the parts of the course the charter does not cover. It calls on the full instructional design skill set: learning theory, alignment, assessment design, accessibility, and SME collaboration. What is distinctive is where the difficulty sits. The hard calls here are about scope and defensibility: deciding what a charter line means in practice, and documenting why you drew the line where you did. It also means finding things you would want to change and leaving them alone. If your instinct when you open a course is to fix everything you find, this engagement will frustrate you. If you can see all of it and still deliver only what the charter covers, documenting the rest for the partner, you should do well here. You will work with Subject Matter Experts and coordinate with internal teams, including Editorial and Quality Review, ensuring every revision adheres to research-based practice and partner-defined quality standards. This engagement carries a partner data restriction. No partner course content, materials, or partner-provided information may be entered into, uploaded to, or processed by any AI system, internal or external, at any point during the engagement. This is an independent contractor engagement (1099). Contractors are free to work with other clients, and accepting one project carries no obligation to accept another. 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.

Scope of Work

• 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.

What You Need to Get the Job Done

• 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.

Is This Engagement Right for You?

• 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.

What Will Make Us REALLY Love You

• 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.

iDesign is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building an inclusive environment in which everyone is a valued member. At iDesign , all hiring decisions are based on business needs, job requirements, and individual qualifications. We seek applicants of diverse backgrounds and hire without regard to race, color, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, or any other characteristic protected by law. To help us get to know you beyond your resume, please answer the application questions fully. Incomplete responses will not be reviewed. Originally posted on Himalayas