Degrees

Leading universities create online degree courses with FutureLearn to offer learners flexible learning opportunities. Degrees include undergraduate to postgraduate. Specialised support is offered to partners creating degrees - with an assigned Partnership Manager. 

Building degrees uses the same features as short courses, see course development build.

Create a Degree Description Page

Degree Description Pages are where prospective students can see all the relevant information for your degree/s. 

These pages are also referred to as Disciplines and can contain multiple degrees, e.g. Project Management (Discipline) - Masters, PGDip, PGCert (Degrees).

• In Course Creator select the Degrees tab and Create a new Discipline
• Complete the questions paying attention to the character counts, and insert a logical slug (URL). 
• Open for applications: this box can be checked later if required. If not checked learners can request information about the degree rather than apply.
• Listed: ensures the page is publicly available on FutureLearn
• Trailers: to add a trailer, first upload this to a sandbox course and inform courses@futurelearn.com who can upload this for you. This video link will use up 41 characters from the description field.
• External enrolment URL: this URL should be hosted on your university website describing the degree and providing links to enrol. This URL will be the destination for a ‘Study at [Your University]’ button on the page.
• Taster courses: we recommend at least one taster course per degree - these courses are on the upgrade model and available to the wider FutureLearn cohort. These can be part of the degree itself or standalone. They help widen your recruitment funnel by giving learners an idea of what the degree is like. Contact courses@futurelearn.com to add these to the page.

Add a degree to the Degree Description Page 

• Creating a Degree adds a degree-specific fact sheet to the page (see below).
• Under the Degrees tab in Course Creator next to your discipline, select Add Degree.
• Number of programs: you may refer to these as units or modules - this number will be displayed on the degree factsheet. The names of your programs will begin to appear once you’ve set these up. 
• Programs: programs are added in another area. 
• Learning Outcomes: learning outcomes on FutureLearn start with a verb such as ‘apply’, ‘respond’, ‘react’.
• External URL: this URL will be the destination for ‘Apply now’ and ‘View degree at [Your University]’ button on the degree description page beneath the degree factsheet. The target page should take learners to a page on your institution’s website that talks about the specific degree in question. Learners should be able to find out more about the degree there, as well as how to apply.
• On pages which list more than one degree, the degree which has the most degree programs attached to it is the one that is shown in the key details banner component at the top of the page.

Copywriting and publishing

Once your draft page is complete contact courses@futurelearn.com at least two weeks before you’d like the page published.

FutureLearn’s copywriters will take a copy of your content and provide a suggested version optimized for SEO including keywords. This is shared with you for approval.

Once you have reviewed and approved these changes FutureLearn will update your Degree Description Page and publish it.

Once published, Degrees are also open for enrolment.

Degree programs

Courses can continue to be added or removed from programs before learners have enrolled, but not after.

Prior to your program page being published, FutureLearn will work with our Product Team to run a programmatic script across the programs that you have asked to be published. That script will check some of the key set-up details such as start dates, number of courses and spot any errors that require fixing before publishing.

Once any errors from this script are resolved we publish the programs allowing learners to click on the name of the program via the degree page to find out more information.

Terminology on this page that you aren’t familiar with? Check out our glossary. 

Contact FutureLearn