6 Exploring key considerations
| What do you want participants to learn during this course? | Aim to provide up to four clear learning outcomes that describe the skills, knowledge and competence a learner will develop from completing the course. Use action verbs, one for each outcome. Avoid having too many learning outcomes – aim for a maximum of four. |
| What do you plan to name your course? |
The title only needs to be indicative at this stage, but it should clearly communicate what the course is about. Keep it short and avoid existing course titles. |
| What topics does the course focus on? | Aim to draft a brief description of what the course will cover, perhaps providing a bullet for each section or topic. This information will form the course syllabus and can be developed at the high-level design stage later. |
| What is the primary objective or key performance indicator (KPI) of the course? |
Detail the main reason for wanting to develop the course. You may aim to recruit to a specific programme or school to disseminate some important research or to connect your learners with a global cohort. Consider too how you will measure success. |
| Why should learners join the course? | Explain what the course is about and why it is important. Try to explain the following: The main aim of the course. How learners will benefit from taking the course. What skills learners will develop. What learners will create, produce, practise or develop during the course. The course’s unique selling point. |
| What evidence is there to justify the work taking place? | Try to justify committing the resources necessary to develop the course. If you have evidence to justify its creation, cite it here and explain how it supports the key considerations in earlier sections. For example, how does it align to business or your institution’s strategic priorities? How will it meet your primary objective? |
| What is the target audience for the course? |
Describe the characteristics of the target audience that will benefit from completing your course. You should consider: learner age, educational status, profession or career stage, personal interests, geographic region. If your primary audience is students at your institution, be explicit about this. If available, you can make use of research or information you have about the size of the target audience or location. |
| Is the course primarily new material or a conversion of existing material to a new format? | If you have existing material, even for face-to-face delivery, this can speed up development, although care is necessary to ensure that materials are fully accessible. |
| Can you incorporate OERs? | There may be suitable existing resources available under Creative Commons licences. You should ensure that these are fully accessible and that they are sufficiently reliable to support learning for the lifetime of your course. |
| What strategic objective(s) will the course contribute to? | Provide an overview of the rationale for your course in terms of how it aligns with what your school, faculty or service aims to achieve. |
| Do you have endorsement or sponsorship for the course from senior stakeholders? |
Developing an online course is a considerable commitment, so it’s important to get backing from the appropriate sources before proceeding. This way you can ensure that sufficient time and space is provided to those working on the project and align the investment to strategic objectives. |
| How do you plan to market or promote the course? | Provide up to a suggested maximum of four marketing/promotional objectives aligned to your strategic goal, together with your target audience and proposed KPIs. We recommend that you seek early guidance from marketing or communications colleagues. |
| Do other courses that address similar concepts or topics already exist? | Offering something unique, current or future facing, or treating a topic in a novel way, will help to make your course appeal to a wider audience. |
| How will you evaluate the success of your course? | Before you start to draft the proposal, determine what success looks like. Is it student numbers, engagement or another factor aligned to the school or University’s strategy? |
