Once you have submitted your ExpertTrack proposals and they have been approved you can begin to design.  

Explore our learning design guidance, and consider different learning types.  

Top tips

1. Share your course outlines with our Learning Designers. They can provide feedback and help to avoid common issues. Continuity between courses is key. Planning the course structures will result in a more coherent learner experience. Utilise our ExpertTrack course outline template 
2. Consider your organisational aims - to increase monetisation ExpertTracks should provide enough course content to last longer than the seven-day free trial and provide sufficient value to learners to encourage them to uphold their subscription. 
3. ExpertTracks are unfacilitated. Spend time designing strong discussion prompts, instructions and other calls to action to support peer-to-peer social learning. Create educator presence through a conversational tone of voice. See our Template ExpertTrack Discussion Prompts. 
4. Encourage learners to ‘Follow’ each other, to develop learner community.  
5. Inform learners of the required hours per week including off-platform tasks (reading, assessments, commenting, reflection, research etc).
6. In an early step of each course tell learners how they going to be assessed, how many courses there are in the ExpertTrack, and the preferred order to complete them. Step 1 ExpertTrack template.  

ExpertTrack assessment

Each ExpertTrack must contain at least one form of summative assessment: either a Test (multiple choice questions) or Peer Graded Assignment (PGA) (which includes one submission and reviews of two other learner submissions as essential criteria). Assessments within ExpertTracks allow learners to evidence the skills they develop. 

Learners must achieve at least 70% overall grade in all summative assessments in order to complete each short course. Completing all short courses earns the learner the overall ExpertTrack achievement. 

Assessments can appear at any point in the course. 

Assessments should also build upon each other, and demonstrate that learners meet the target learning outcomes through the course weeks. We recommend mapping the assessment journey across the courses, making sure to include regular, low-stakes assessments which are constructively aligned with the learning outcomes. You may choose to incorporate a final assessment that assesses the learning across the entire ExpertTrack.

Assessment considerations

• Ensure there is an assessment journey - a considered distribution across all courses.
• Build-in simple revision reminders -  steps where learners are instructed to revise/prepare for summative tests. 
• Consider the connection between the time on a task and the number of marks available. Overly complex and time-consuming PGAs will potentially be off-putting unless they’re a significant contribution to the entire overall mark. 
• Keep in mind that assessments will increase the overall course learning hours.

Calculating course scores within ExpertTracks

Courses that form part of an ExpertTrack use the 'weighted step scores' calculation.

All steps that are able to generate a score* are assigned relative score weightings as part of the course design process. These weightings are then used to calculate the overall course score as a weighted average of the percentage scores from the steps.

For example: 

• A course contains two tests, each with a score weighting of one, and a Peer Graded Assignment with a score weighting of eight. The overall course score for a learner who scored 50% and 60% for the tests, and 70% for the assignment would be:

Learners can see how much each step contributes to their overall score on the step itself and on the run progress page. Learners are not awarded an overall course score until they have received a score for all of the scored elements. If any scores are missing, the run progress page shows what needs to happen for those scores to become available.

Edit score weightings

Score weightings can be edited by any partner with organisation admin permission by clicking ‘score weightings’ on the Course Content tab

Edit each weighting field for each scored step in the course. The equivalent percentage contribution is displayed alongside each weighting.

All new tests and Peer Graded Assignments are given a score weighting of one by default. This means that, unless the weightings are modified, each assessment is worth an equal proportion of the overall course score (for example, if there are four assessments in the course, by default each will contribute 25% towards the overall score). Each weighting must be a whole number. Steps that have zero weighting don't contribute towards the overall course score.

Can learners retake tests?

Yes! It is currently only possible for learners to reset their own tests in ExpertTrack courses but if a learner scores less than 70% and 8 hours have passed since they last completed the test then they will be able to try again. For other courses the learner will need to write to our Community support team to request a test score reset.

Convert, combine, migrate or unbundle courses into an ExpertTrack

You may also convert, combine migrate or unbundle existing content from another platform or VLE.  If planning to do this, start by considering: 

• Are the courses sufficiently connected to form a narrative? 
• Is there any duplication of tasks, content, learning outcomes or assessments that needs removing when combined into an ExpertTrack? 
• Discussion prompts and assessments will need to be adapted to reflect on-demand unfacilitated model.
• Remove links to resources that are only available to learners at their respective institutions.
• Run two or three ExpertTracks (at different levels or focus) if you have six or more existing courses. 
• Increase or reduce the number of hours as required. Unbundling usually requires reducing the number of hours.
• Ensure learning outcomes, content and assessment are still aligned and learners have access to all relevant materials to complete the course. 

To increase learning hours:  

• Consider using peer-graded assignments. These will require much more in-depth learning than a test or quiz. 
• Consider off-platform tasks that can be completed by the learners, for example, reading, practical tasks or theoretical work.
• Add social learning prompts that are learner-led to encourage participation, reflection, and sharing of knowledge.

To decrease learning hours: 

• Reduce the volume of content in courses or weeks, maintaining the overall level of the ExpertTrack.
• Adjust the learning outcomes and assessment to be pitched at a lower level than the previous collection of courses.

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

Contact FutureLearn