Control channel information is formulated for transmission in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. In an example embodiment, a method entails formulating control channel information for a transmitting device operating in an OFDM system in which a control channel spans n OFDM symbols, with n being an integer. The method includes acts of allocating, creating, and mapping. Control channel data is allocated to at least one set of resource element groups. At least one order for the set of resource element groups is created in accordance with one or more permutation mechanisms that involve at least one interleaving sequence having a low cross-correlation property. The set of resource element groups is mapped to resource elements of the n OFDM symbols of the control channel responsive to the order that is created using the permutation mechanism(s). The permutation mechanisms may include interleaving sequence(s) and/or cyclic shift(s).