The About.com Desktop Publishing site offers a variety of free courses for learning desktop publishing. Classes are offered as self-paced online lessons and email classes.
Instructor:
Unless otherwise noted, lessons are written by Jacci Howard Bear. Classes do not include personalized feedback. Participants are welcome to discuss classes, individual lessons, assignments, and quizzes in the forum.
Lessons and Assignments:
Most classes and assignments are ungraded (some may include quizzes to test yourself), do at your own pace. Assignments included with several classes can be posted to the forum for peer critique but that is not a requirement.
Structure - General:
In general, classes consist of a series of related lessons of 1-3 pages. Most lessons also include a suggested assignment that draws on the principles or techniques covered in that lesson.
Structure - Email Classes:
Several classes are offered via email. Those who sign-up receive daily or weekly email newsletters with pointers to specific online lessons at About.com Desktop Publishing. Before You Sign Up for an Email Desktop Publishing Course details what you need to know about the delivery, structure, and content of the email courses.
The lessons may duplicate information found in other courses or in standalone articles within the site but each class may have its own internal navigation and associated assignments and contain information not found in other versions of this material or the email lessons may serve as a roadmap for the course material.
Structure - Online:
Online courses are a group of related articles, tutorials, and other content assembled into a step-by-step series. Most of the online courses do not currently incorporate standard navigation but do include an outline or other means of tracking individual articles and tutorials in a course.
