To achieve The Data Lab’s vision to showcase Scotland as an international leader in Data Science, we have launched our online learning call for 2022.
Funding is available for colleges and universities for the development of online courses that contribute to the requirement for more flexible high-quality data science training and education. Find out more
The deadline for expressions of interest is Tuesday 26 April at 5pm.
Lessons learned from creating an online course
As we open our call for 2022, we wanted to share some of the brilliant insights that our Executive Education Adviser Craig Paterson put together after developing The Data Lab’s online course Driving Value from Data a couple of years ago.
1. Think like a learner
Create an intuitive and enjoyable way for the learners to get the skills they need to succeed. We were our own harshest critic, so we kept checking that the course we were writing was one that we would actually want to do. Questions I asked myself included, “would this hold my interest?” and “was that enjoyable?”. We really wanted to create a course that people would actually want to do all the way to the end. This gave us the confidence to keep our content as concise as it could be and stopped us from writing down everything, instead we focused on what the learner needed to know to succeed.
2. Surround yourself with people that have the right skills
As the lead educator, compliment your skills by surrounding yourself with an experienced team that you trust. You will have enough to do as the primary content creator, so don’t take on tasks that you don’t need to do. This should include experts in:
• Online learning (and the project management of course creation) – our online learning experts guided us to create a mix of content that focussed on learning as opposed to telling. Also, bringing in professional project management skills resulted in a realistic plan that produced valuable outcomes in short timeframes.
• Video production – for most people video is an immediate and engaging medium.
• Image design – professionally designed visual signposting and relevant images can really lift the way a course feels.
• Testers – the patient testers of the course turned a good product into one that we could be really proud of.
3. Be passionate, engaging and authentic
People are giving up their limited free time to learn with you, make it worth their while. We wrote and spoke in a way that was how we would naturally communicate in person. So feel free to let your passion for the subject flow and that way you will come across as genuine. For video content, we went for partially scripted with keywords when it was us talking straight to camera so that we could cover all the points without looking like we were just reading. We would also recommend getting a mix of voices.
4. Don’t underestimate the time commitment
You won’t be there in person, so take the time to get it right. Presenting in-person is very different from remote learning. You won’t be there to read reactions and answer questions, so you really need to have enough detail so that each section is unambiguous and digestible. Invest time in variety, this is key to increasing completions, as are activities to reinforce learning. Design time is critical – I found Post-it notes great here. This allowed us to “see” the course in its entirety and it gave us the flexibility to move things around quickly before committing to the platform.
5. Make the right amount of time to engage during the course run
Interactions during the course is critical. How would you feel if your comments were ignored and your question left unanswered? Where possible recognise and encourage high quality interactions. If you can cross reference learners’ comments so that they build a cohort that supports each other then you will have less to do. So, don’t ignore them, but also don’t overdo it, if you like everything then there is no reason for learners to write quality comments.
Thanks to Craig for pulling together his thoughts on this process of creating an online course. You can see the full resource we created on developing an online course.
View details of our current funding call and how to apply – remember the deadline for expressions of interest is Tuesday 26 April at 5pm.