Online Role Play 
Designer’s Template 
CONTENTS   

1.	Purpose
2.	Learning Objectives
3.	Suitability for Online Role Play
4.	Scenario 
4.1	Stakeholders
4.2	Story
5.	Resources 
6.	Roles 
6.1	Roles Overview
6.2	Role Character Description
6.3	Individual Role Information
6.4	Relationship between Roles	
7.	Meeting Places
8.	Events 
8.1	Formation
8.2	Development
8.3	Closure
9.	Duration
10.	Assessment
11.	Evaluation
12.	Moderator Support

1.	Purpose

This template is designed to guide you through the thinking process of creating an educationally meaningful online role play. After working through the template you will have made a written plan to create a role play for use with your students. It should be used in conjunction with our Designer’s Guide, which contains more comprehensive guidance and examples for each of the sections in the template. 

Beware this template is very comprehensive and covers almost every conceivable feature that an online role play might have.  However, every role play does not need to have every conceivable feature – a smaller, shorter design may suffice for your curriculum need and may better suit the time you have available for the design task!  

The key sections of this template are:
•	Scenario
•	Roles
•	Resources
•	Events
but if these four sections seem daunting then try one of the Quick Start Role Plays.

2.	Learning Objectives 
Aims
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Purpose
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At the end of this activity students will know or be able to…
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Are the learning objectives applicable to all the learners? 	
 Yes  No

If no… _____________________________________________________________

Is the role play activity stand-alone or part of a sequence of learning activities to fulfil your learning objectives? Where does it fit in your course? 
 an introduction to the subject 
 a follow-up to a topic 
 a central feature of the subject 
 an interlude 
 a revision activity 
 the final assessment task 

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What subject and year is this activity part of?         _______________________
   	
What is the topic of this activity?                             _______________________

What would be the keywords other trainers/teachers would use to find this activity, if you were to make your role play available for re-use? 

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3.	Is this activity suitable for online role play?

The following questions serve to filter out activities that are not suitable for role play as well as an advance organizer for planning.

1.	The activity involves more than one learner interacting with other learners.
	 true 
 false	
2.	The participation you have in mind is NOT "acting" out as in drama or play in which part of the message is embedded in the body movement nor is it therapy. The task is mental and the demonstration of doing the task can be done via writing.	 true 
 false	
3.	The learners and teachers have access to the Internet.  They may be geographically scattered. The learners, teachers and moderators are able to log onto the web site regularly in order to participate effectively. 	 true 
 false	
4.	The learners and moderators are able to commit a definite amount of time. 
	 true 
 false	
5. 	The activity involves several "stakeholders" and these stakeholders have different points of view.  None of the points of view are black and white.	 true 
 false	
6.	The scenario that sets the roles in context contains sufficient conflict to spark debate between the stakeholders. 	 true 
 false	
7.	The learners are mature enough to handle the topic and the issues that may arise from discussion of the topic in “first-person” mode.	 true 
 false	
8.	The scenario is manageable. The conflicting issues in the scenario are to some extent resolvable. You have some possible resolutions in mind in case your students are not forthcoming with their own resolutions.	 true 
 false	
9.	The activity does not contravene any privacy issues for the students or for real-world characters that may be modelled in the role play.	 true 
 false	
10.	You have access to appropriate technology for hosting an online role play.
Read our Platforms Checklist for further information.	 true 
 false	
11.	The learning objectives are achievable via role play.
	 true 
 false	
12.	You have adequate time available before the first class begins to design and pilot your idea for a role play.	 true 
 false	

If you have answered "false" for any questions above, you may have to rethink the learning design you have in mind or otherwise redesign the activity to better suit online role play.  

4.1	Scenario – Stakeholders 

Stakeholders are not the same as roles as there may be more than one role for each stakeholder.

Stakeholder		Stakeholder viewpoint

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4.2	Scenario – Story

Decide whether you want to be faithful to the existing story or let your learners' imagination guide how the role play may develop.
 Faithful to original story lines	 
 Let imagination flow 

What are the issues? What are the areas of conflict (conflicting emotions or motives; perceptual differences; divergent goals; competition; scarce resources…)?

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What are the circumstances that created the issues?

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Where does the story happen?
This can help you develop the environment of the story.  Sample answers may include "a small town", "in the playground of our school", "in the castle".  For a soft skills training role play, the answer to this question may be a description of the environment of the organization.

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When did the story happen? 	

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Is this choice of time period important? 	
 Yes  No

	If it is a historical role play, the time during which the story happens is important.  Otherwise, choose a time period so that the players can apply their imagination. 

What potential resolutions to the conflict could occur during the role play?

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Draft a short introduction to the role play.  This not only helps clarify the scenario in your mind but helps you decide on the manner in which you’ll be introducing your students to the role play. Generally the introduction is in two parts: the first fills in the broad background and is often written in the past tense; the second provides the immediate problem and should be written in the present tense.

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Format of background information in the introduction?
 Newspaper 
 Prospectus 
 Letter 
 Set of official documents 
 Other format 

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5.	Resources

What resources can you provide to students so they can better understand the scenario and/or the stakeholder positions?

Print Resources:

Generic

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Subject Specific 

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Online Resources:

Generic

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Subject Specific

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6.1	Roles Overview 

What roles represent the various stakeholder viewpoints that you have listed? You may like to revisit your learning objectives at this point to check if the story will provide the environment for your learners to experience the things you want.  You will write more detailed role descriptions are in the next section.  Just some overall thinking is necessary here.

How many roles are there in the role play? 	_________________________

What sort of roles will you design?	     

Organization 
 real organization 
 real historical organization 
 name changed or removed or composite to protect identity 

Human 
 real living people 
 real historical people   
 name changed or removed or composite to protect identity 
 imaginary people 

Animal 
 real living animals 
 real historical animals   
 imaginary animals 

Inanimate 
 historical objects 
 currently available objects 
 imaginary objects 

Do the following areas of description help to clarify/avoid role stereotypes? 	
 Gender  
 Age 
 Body shape and physique 
 Looks and style 
 Race 

Will all the roles have equal opportunity for participation?	
Yes  No 

If no, can you justify this imbalance? 
Modify the story to run with more threads to give most roles roughly equal participation opportunities, or remove some roles.  Or learners could be allocated more than one role, balancing workloads.  Or create a role which encompasses more than one stakeholder position eg as often occurs in real life, one role is both a school teacher and a parent.

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You may need to make a few copies of this section, one for each character.
6.2	Role Character Description

Role name (e.g. CEO, President of USA): _________________________________

It is good idea to have a given name and family name.  In communication and depending on status, the salute part of the message gives important cues to the relationship.  (Even if your characters are not human, you may still like to give them some form of name to help the players to communicate and address each other.)

Given name: 	_________________________________________

Family name: 	_________________________________________

Title (if desired): 	_________________________________________

Character Description 
ONLY fill in those that are relevant.  The more detail you give, the less imagination the player can apply!  Do you want the learner to research their character?  It is a good opportunity for the learners to pick up some facts.

Personal characteristics (e.g. temperament)

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Social status in the role play (e.g. highly respected)

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Circumstances of this role at the start of the role play

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Public agenda in role play
What is the role trying to achieve within the scenario? eg, achieve agreement to buy the company. This public agenda will be available to other roles.

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Private agenda in role play 
What are the goals of this role unknown to other roles? eg bring down company xyz

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You may need to make a few copies of this page, one for each role.

6.3	Individual Role Information

One technique in creating a need for authentic communication is creating information gaps between the roles.  In this section you can outline what kind of information should be available to which role.

Role Name: _________________________________________________________

Global information 
Information common to ALL roles. Note the key points that ALL roles need to know here. These may change when you’ve completed this sheet for every role. 

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Role specific information 
Note the key points that each specific role needs to know. These may change. You will do the final write up later.

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Resources specific to this role 
You can either create the resources, or locate them in the web and provide pointers.  Better still, you can make this a task for the learners.

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6.4	Relationship Between Roles

It may be helpful to have a diagram or organization chart showing the relationship between the roles you have created.  

You may need to make a few copies of this section, one for each conference/meeting place.

7.	 Meeting Places

What are the natural meeting places in your story?  Will there be different access rights to these meeting places for different roles? 
 Do you want different venues/vehicles for different types of discussion? 	 
 Do you want to allow your players to use chat rooms?	
 If yes, do you want your players to be able to limit the chat room 	to be "by invitation only"?
 If yes, do you want your players to be able to choose whether entering the chat room is anonymous?	

Conference Name/Meeting Place/Vehicle: _____________________________

A short description of the conference:

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Which roles are allowed access to this conference?

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For those roles who have no access to this conference, do you want to let 	them know about the existence of this conference?
 Yes  No

What are the rules governing this conference and its interaction with other conferences, for example:
 enable voting 
 enable invitation of new member by some roles 
 temporary meeting places set up by roles 
 meeting place for a team playing one role 

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8.1    Events – Formation Stage

How long is the formation stage expected to last? ______________________

What are the tasks the players need to do during the formation stage, for example?
 Demonstrate ability to log onto the system? 
 Send a sample email to moderator 
 Read the role description 
 Research the stakeholder position and/or role character 
 Publish the public agenda of the role 
 Send the private agenda of the role to the moderator 
 Write a self-introduction in the Café conference 
 Are any of these assessable tasks?
 Establish communication with some roles (if yes, which roles?) 

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What are the criteria that a moderator can use to determine that the students have completed the formation stage and are ready to enter the development stage?

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You may need to make a few copies of this section, one for each event.
8.2    Events – Development Stage

The development stage consists of several kick start events.  This section helps you to design the events.

Event Number: ___________

Event Description
What is the new information roles need to know now?

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Trigger Point
What will create the need for role(s) to react?

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Execution of Trigger
How are you going to trigger the event in the role play?
 Broadcast to the whole role play 
 Through a news release
 Ask a role to make a news release 
 Tell _____________________ (role names) some "secret", to do something 

What is this "something"?       _______________________________________

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What do you expect from this event? 
Some learning outcome achieved? A step to arrive at some learning outcome? An important experience for the learner? Part of the development into the next event?

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What is the criteria that a moderator can use to determine whether the students have completed this event and are ready to enter next event?

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Is this event part of the assessment?  If yes, what is assessed and how?

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What are the criteria that a moderator can use to determine if the players are ready for the closure stage? It can be a practical reason such as the end of semester.

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8.3	Events - Closure Stage

What are the tasks the players need to do during the closure stage, for example?
 Write the role experience reflection 
 Compare the experience with some theories 
 Critique some theories in the light of experiences in the role play 
 Preparation agenda for debriefing 
 A face to face act out of the final event(s) of the role play 

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Questions for learners during debriefing:

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Evaluation criteria for the learning experience:

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Assessable tasks for this stage:

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9.	Duration

How many weeks are needed in order to cover each of the stages?

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Do you need computer laboratory time to bring students up to scratch with the technology?

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How many face to face classes do you need, if any?

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How many hours per week on line should each student allocate to the role play and/or how many times per day?

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10.	Assessment

How are you going to assess the achievement of the learning outcomes for each participant?

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Assessment Criteria (and marking scheme):

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What are the ratios in each part of the assessment?

Formation:	______________________

Development:
	Event: ____________________________	______________________

	Event: ____________________________	______________________

	Event: ____________________________	______________________

	Event: ____________________________	______________________

	Event: ____________________________	______________________

	Event: ____________________________	______________________

	Event: ____________________________	______________________

Closure:	______________________

11.	Evaluation

Was the role play an effective learning experience?

What are the questions you’d like to ask the students and/or your moderator/s?

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What method will you use eg paper survey, online survey, individual interview, focus group, external observer…

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12.	Support material for moderator

Brief description of your role play 

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Time commitment for your moderator/s

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Subject matter expertise required of your moderator/s

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How will you train your moderator/s?

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