Online instructors often provide instruction in a variety of ways, including a textbook, PowerPoint presentations, links to websites, lecture notes, outlines, and multimedia. For example, a course may be richly garnished with external links to Internet resources, but it should be made clear whether those resources are for background information, additional personal enrichment, or required for an assignment.

Instructors should ensure that the level of difficulty of supporting materials is appropriate for the level of the course. Students should be able to easily determine the purpose of all materials, technologies and methods used in the course and know which materials are required and which are recommended resources.

Technology considerations
Given the required hardware and software, instructional materials should be easily accessible and usable by the student.

At some time during your course, technology may fail unexpectedly, e.g., a student's computer may crash, the network may go down, an online video won't play, or online quiz questions won't display. Provide contingency plans to deal with technology issues and include your plans in your syllabus or orientation sections.