Online Learning Design: What the data told me

How do we know that what we're doing works?

As a designer of online learning experiences, learning analytics and data are my best friends.

Working with the FutureLearn platform to produce courses from University of Sheffield academics gives me access to a world of data stories. We have evaluated and reshaped our course design using this data to publish our short courses (aka MOOCs) and our practice as supporters of the FutureLearn activity has improved no end over time using this approach.

I spent last year drilling into a new set of data that we had previously not analysed and came up with some new and informative results for future learning design.

Are MOOC learners potential online degree students?

I wanted to know if people who take our short courses seriously enough to complete them are also likely to be interested in other online learning experiences we might offer now or in the future, like online degrees.

And, if so, how do they compare their experiences and what do they think about the way we design both types of courses?

I asked those who had completed our short courses about their experience of the learning design and about their experience and interest in online degrees. 

The report is a brief summary of some of the key findings and illustrates what elements of learning design help our learners the most, from their perspective. 

Download the report.

The learners told us that they appreciate bite-sized content, instant feedback on assessment tasks, video demonstrations, insights form experts working in the field and more. They also overwhelmingly advocated for this type of learning design for online degrees, stating that the bite-sized nature of the courses and the design would help them to learn and that previous experiences of degrees had been 'overwhelming' in comparison.

I hope you'll find something useful within the report. If you'd like the full findings, you can request a copy here.