4 What should you consider before developing an Open course?

Before beginning a project of this nature, you should engage with senior stakeholders and obtain their support. Creating an Open course will take time and effort, so it’s important to seek agreement from senior stakeholders to protect time to create the course.

Creating an Open course isn’t something you can do in your spare time. Given the number of people involved in the process, it’s only fair to them and to yourself that you’ll be able to give your full focus to the project. This approach will help you lead it to a successful outcome.

It’s a good idea to align your planned course with the strategic aims of your school or faculty. Consider too whether it will appeal more broadly so that it is attractive and relevant to a wider learner population, both across your institution and beyond it.

An Open course could also function as a ‘taster’ that supports recruitment of a particular cohort to a specific programme. It could also present your discipline to an international audience. Equally, it might demonstrate the positive work that you are undertaking in a specific subject area.

Whatever topic you are planning address in your Open course, it’s important to ensure that you undertake some initial analysis before beginning development to ensure that what you would like to achieve is viable.

You can begin by gathering detail on the intended learning outcomes and establishing the topics that the course will explore. You will also need to specify the strategic justification(s) for undertaking the work, along with key performance indicators (KPIs) that will enable its impact to be assessed.

We also strongly recommend identifying the target audience for the Open course and undertaking market analysis of what already exists. Unless there are compelling reasons to do so, creating a duplicate of an existing Open course in unlikely to result in a return on your investment.