Although many online instructors have varying degrees of classroom experience, limited experience with the online environment makes them novices in this teaching and learning context. This paper, which is aimed at the novice online educator, articulates a unified online learning framework that: describes the higher education online instructional environment in terms of student inputs, institutional influences, and student outcomes; describes the relationship between student inputs, instructional strategies, and instructional outputs; and provides instructional prescriptions to guide the practice of the online educator. Prescriptions are based on an authentic example of a research methods course taught at multiple virtual universities over a five year period. Future research includes broader application of this framework and gathering feedback on its efficacy from instructors with different experience levels.
