You have mentioned the primary strategies for gaining an understanding of your students. The only addition I would like to suggest surrounds the entry-level skills of your students. I have trained a Professor a few months ago who would be developing an online version of his course. There is another course in the program upon which his course builds. In addition, he acknowledges that the expectations of students enrolling in his course can vary from one student to another; nevertheless, he wants to strike a balance in the content domain of his course so that he can fulfill the majority of his students' expectations. He decided to conduct a survey to identify the expectations of his online students. He also reviewed the student course evaluation of the course to which his course is related. Although time and budgetary constraints can pose an obstacle to these measures this professor want to take to ensure that his online course is in sync with the expectations of his students, I commended him for this effort; as having evaluated the conditions under which he would be developing his course, I believe the data he receives would be of value to him. Not very often are some Professors able to clearly define the entry-level knowledge and skills of their students. A properly designed survey can help them to gain an understanding of the entry-level knowledge and skills. By reviewing other courses that are related to their courses, including prerequisite courses, they would have a better foundation upon which to develop a course to match the needs of their students.