Alongside some of the quantitative data we can provide you from your courses, testimonials can be a fantastic qualitative way of illustrating to prospective learners, course sponsors and steering groups the impact that your course has had on individuals. You might wish to use some of the most interesting and inspiring comments from your courses as testimonials for purposes outside of the course, such as for external marketing, or when sharing course reviews with relevant stakeholders.

Seeking permission from learners

When learners create a FutureLearn account, they are offering FutureLearn consent to use their comments across the platform in accordance with our Terms and Conditions and Privacy policy. However, we must also consider comments that learners leave in courses to be potentially personally identifiable information, even when given anonymous attribution.

To ensure that your use of comments is GDPR compliant, please contact any learner whose comment you would like to use via the ‘reply’ function and request permission to use the comment, describing how and where you plan to use it.

For example:

‘Hi [learner name], thanks for your comment on our course. We would love to use it to promote the course on the FutureLearn website and in our newsletter. May we have your permission to do this?’

Please note we are unable to contact learners on your behalf for this purpose due to GDPR.

Where you could use testimonials

On your course description page: If there was a comment on the first run of the course that you think might inspire others to enrol on the next course run, you can add this to your course description page.

To demonstrate the impact of your course to relevant stakeholders: Perhaps you need to evidence the impact of your course to a steering group, sponsor or accreditor in order to retain or increase online course development funding, or to attract funding to support developing more FutureLearn courses or programs. Including qualitative feedback and testimonials from learners can add emotional impact to your pitch.

In your organisation’s marketing materials: If you are promoting your FutureLearn courses via your organisation’s website, physical marketing or social media profiles, you might like to integrate testimonials from learners to add relatable real-life stories to your marketing materials.

Attributing a quote to a learner

The quote should be attributed to the learner as the learner prefers – using their profile name, or with anonymised attribution eg. Anonymous or A previous learner on this course. 

If you are using the testimonial outside of the course description page, you should mention the title of the course, that it is a FutureLearn course, and if online, provide a link to the course description page.

Adding the testimonial in Course Creator

You can see the option by going to the ‘Edit course’ button on any of your courses.

Scrolling to the bottom of the ‘Edit course’ view, you will see a ‘Testimonials’ section.

Clicking ‘Add testimonial’ will take you to a view where you can add the detail of your testimonial.

You will need to add the source name (learner name). For GDPR purposes, you will also need to add their User ID, which will verify the name you have indicated. You can find the User ID by taking the digit string that appears in the URL of the learner’s profile. 

You also have the option of adding a short descriptive phrase for the source (e.g. L&D Manager).

Finally, add in the direct quotation.

The testimonials will then appear on the course description page for every run of the course:

Using Weekly Sentiment Survey responses as testimonials

When learners complete the Weekly Sentiment Survey, they have the option to add a free text response to explain their satisfaction rating. As partners, you may wish to use positive learner feedback as testimonials in promotional activity. You can now do this without seeking permission from the learner, as this is covered by the disclaimer below. As feedback is shared anonymously by the learner, the attribution for the testimonial will be anonymous.

As with all testimonials, if you are using the testimonial outside of the course description page, you should mention the title of the course, that it is a FutureLearn course, and if online, provide a link to the course description page.