20 Collaborating effectively

When working with academics and subject-matter experts to develop a script for your course, be mindful that this may be the first time that they have developed learning activities for the online environment. It’s important that whoever is supporting and working with them on the creation of the course establishes a good working relationship so that the collaboration is as effective as possible.

Listed below are some recommendations for effective collaboration based on our Learning Designers’ experience of developing Open courses at Leeds.

Your learning designers[1] might provide the following to the authors:

• An explanation of their role, their understanding of online pedagogy and how they help coordinate activities to create the course.
• Illustrative examples of activities and pages to help connect what they are writing with how it will appear on the hosting platform.
• Guidance on how to write for the target audience. This might include tone of voice (e.g. writing conversationally rather than more formally), being inclusive (e.g. avoiding idioms and cultural references that international learners may not understand) and other advice on what works well online.
• How to use version control and why it’s important.

To familiarise authors with the process, you might ask them to draft an initial section or topic that the learning designer can review and, if necessary, make suggestions on how it might be enhanced. This approach can then be followed during the remainder of the content authoring process.

One of the benefits of working with learning designers who are experts in online pedagogy (but usually novices in the subject matter) is that they will view the script through the eyes of learners. They can ask ‘naive’ questions and identify inconsistencies in what authors have written; if they don’t understand it, it’s likely that learners won’t either.

Learning designers can also work with authors to help manage the total word count. It’s good practice to limit the amount of text presented, otherwise learners will need to scroll which can negatively affect comprehension, engagement and completion of the page[2]. They can also suggest ways in which authors can communicate complex ideas in a visual way e.g. images, diagrams and infographics.

In addition, learning designers can support the design and development of multimedia assets that support the explanation of specific topics, concepts and theories. They will help script videos, identify supporting images and footage that develop the narrative, and specify any interactive elements that will enable learners to apply their learning.

To support collaboration, you may want to set up a shared workspace to allow learning designers and authors to work together on documents and keep each other informed of progress. Regular work in progress (WIP) meetings also help to promote effective collaboration between and across teams.