Review and improve course performance

The final stage of course development is to review and improve. 

On demand courses require periodical content updates. Review course performance and utilise our top tips (below) before creating new course runs.

Where to begin 

There are three types of information you can use to measure your course performance. 

1. Learner ratings, reviews and survey results. Get these, plus enrolments, completions, and upgrades from the stats dashboard of Course Creator.
2. Stats on enrolments, completions and upgrades. Access these and more via Looker. 
3. Learner interaction within your course. Via the facilitation dashboard. 

Collate this information to determine what has worked well, what needs improving, and what can be reported to your key stakeholders. 

• Consult with all stakeholders who were involved in the build, what went well and what would you do differently next time in course design or course build? 
• Can you design courses to reduce workload and budget? Use our course templates. 
• Aim to create clear and measurable objectives for the review - i.e. I want to increase completions in the next run of the course. 

Top tips to increase enrolments 

Does the course have lower enrolments than you expected? 

1. Select great open steps

Make your courses more discoverable through organic search. Courses with open steps get 375% increased enrolments on average.  

2. Include links in the final step of your courses

Include links to your other courses! Learners who have completed one course are seeking further learning.  

3. Market your course  

Use the demographics data in the stats dashboard to understand your audience. How old are the learners on your course and where do they live?  Do the stats align with your target / originally intended audience? If not, can the content be adapted to better suit those who are taking it?  Consult our marketing toolkits.

4. Request an updated CDP 

Contact your Partnership Manager to request improvements to the Course Description Page, especially if it was written a number of years ago. This is not a guaranteed solution, especially if the original page was written in line with the course audience.  

5. Seek accreditation

Endorsements from professional or reputable organisations could boost learner trust in the course. Do you have networks who you can share the course with? Would they be willing to have their logo listed as supporter on the Course Description Page and certificate? Can they also promote the course? Contact your Partnership Manager to request the addition of a new organisation to your course description page. 

Top tips to increase completions 

Does the course have high enrolments, but low completions and upgrades? This could be an indication that there are issues with the educational content and structure. 

1. Improve step 1.1

The first step of a course (step 1.1) has two purposes: tell learners they are in the ‘right place’ and reassure them about the course they are about to take. It should also be engaging and interesting content so learners feel compelled to continue to the next steps. The first step is where you introduce educator ‘presence’ via a conversational tone of voice. 

Avoid filling the step with course-related instructions, academic bios, and what feels like admin. Also, avoid introducing the course with a question or content that is too broad or confusing. Learners may believe they are not suited to the pitch and ability of the course.  

2. View the steps where most learners dropped off

If a later step saw the largest drop off consider why? View course comments on that step and the steps beside it to help find out.   Consider 

• Was the task confusing? 
• Did the narrative before and after this step not flow? 
• Was the content difficult or sensitive?

3. Improve assessments

Do your quizzes and tests include encouraging and thorough feedback? Learners respond well to challenging and supportive assessments. 

• View learner comments on the subsequent steps. Learners are likely to have shared their views on the assessment.
• Have learners indicated in their comments that any questions are flawed? 
• Does the course contain too much assessment? Learners will reflect on this in the reviews and surveys.
• Tests are only available to learners who upgrade, this impacts completions and upgrades. 

4. Improve your weekly emails 

Follow our top tips to make great weekly emails to encourage continued engagement on the course. Catch learner's attention with subheadings and links to further learning. 

Top tips to improve learner reviews and ratings 

Learner ratings, reviews and survey results are shared in the stats dashboard of Course Creator along with enrolments, completions and upgrades. 

If learner reviews reflect that the course was too difficult or too easy this is worth considering. Look for trends in their reviews and post-course surveys. Be careful not to make sweeping changes based on the views of just one learner, and never add or remove a step to a live course run. If you want to add or remove steps you will need to open a new course run. 

1. Correct length, pitch and readability 

Do learner reviews indicate that the course is of the correct length, that the content matches the description on the Course Description Page, and that it is pitched correctly for the audience?

2. Improve video steps 

All video steps require accompanying text and subtitles. Did you proofread your subtitle files? Poor subtitles frustrate learners.  

3. Review your original Quality Assurance document. 

If you still have it. Which recommended criteria did you not follow at the time but could do now? 

4. Add ‘Tips’ to existing steps

A subheading of ‘top tips’ within a step with guidance on study skills or subject-specific guidance are always popular with learners. Even better if you can make the step ‘open’, to attract more learners (open steps can only be video or article steps).

5. The most recent course reviews 

Will likely tell you if any exercise steps are no longer working, if the topics or references are outdated or if links are broken. Be sure to review course content and include practical examples from around the world. Our global community of learners appreciates a breadth of examples and case studies.  

Top tips to increase social learning 

Review the social comments on the course via the facilitation dashboard (permission required). Low social engagement is below 20%. On average 38-50% of learners engage in courses via social learning.  

Which steps had the fewest comments? 

Comments will always drop off later in the course, consider some of the things you can do to keep engagement high. 

1. Does your course contain at least one discussion step a week? 

2. Are your social prompts misleading? 

• Are they friendly enough, or clear enough? 
• Are you encouraging conversation peer to peer? 
• Are instructions clear and in a conversational tone? 
• Are learners understanding the questions? 
• Are you prompting the value of learning from others? 

Why not try inserting our ready-made social prompts? 

3. Review roles, permissions, and facilitation 

• View roles and permissions in the team tab of the course. 
• Remove staff who have left, ensure the right people are involved and can access the course for review. Check who is the lead educator for the course. 
• Did the previous run include educators facilitating learner comments? If you would like to do this for a short period you can promote the dates as facilitation windows on the Course Description Page. 
• Ensure any new facilitators understand what is required. Provide them with the link to our exclusive facilitation course. See facilitation top tip 8.  
• Is there a pinned note on step 1.1 explaining if any or no facilitation will be taking place and encouraging peer-to-peer learning? Pinned notes can be added by educators after the run is live.  

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

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