In the following paper, the author identifies two overarching challenges in developing effective online learning courses and provides an easy to implement framework to address them. The first challenge is that social activity, a key aspect to learning, often falls short in the development of online learning courses. The second challenge is student readiness to be a self-regulated learners. This framework offers faculty an easily adoptable course development approach that through a sequence of activities and deadlines, supports collaborative learning and scaffolds student’s self-regulation. It is platform independent and can be adapted to the most basic capabilities of any Learning Management System (even none at all). To date, this framework has been successfully used by the author to design several asynchronous online courses for higher education