FutureLearn can send course- or partner-specific emails to its learners with a variety of purposes.

Weekly emails

Since the introduction of Learn At Your Own Pace on 18 January 2023, learners on Upgrade model courses will no longer receive Weekly emails. Instead, these learners will receive automated emails, triggered throughout the learning journey and personalised to communicate the value exchange of learning at their own schedule, with timely prompts to encourage upgrading.

On other types of course, weekly emails are sent to learners on Monday mornings (UTC), during a course run at weekly intervals based on when the learner enrolled. Enable weekly emails for your course and choose to write your own copy, or if you do not write your own copy a generic email will be sent. Alternatively, you can disable weekly emails so that no email is sent.

Weekly emails are "signed" with the name and job title of the primary educator listed within the team tab in Course Creator.  

Additional emails

Partners can manually schedule additional emails on an ad-hoc basis to send important updates to learners, such as a reminder of an upcoming live event. Additional emails can be sent to the following groups of learners:

• all learners 
• fully completed learners (≥90% of course steps marked as complete)
• fully participated, but not completed learners (>50% but <90% of course steps marked as complete)
• fully participated learners (≥50% steps completed)
• learners who have not visited a step 
• learners who have visited a step 

Please note that, especially on an on-demand course, learners will rarely be studying at exactly the same pace as each other. We do not recommend using additional emails to send an ‘end of week 1 email’ as this creates a confusing learning experience.  

Automated intervention emails

Sent to learners based on their progress learning on an open course. They are not sent to learners on invite-only (private) courses. A description of what is stated in the intervention emails can be downloaded at the bottom of this page. 

If a learner unsubscribes from the automated intervention emails they will also stop receiving any other emails related to the course run (all the emails described on this page).

Marketing emails

Use marketing emails to promote your other FutureLearn courses. In compliance with the GDPR, they are only sent to learners who have opted in to receive marketing materials relating to your course or other relevant courses or products.

• Populate the email in the emails tab in Course Creator, within your course run. Select the section ‘marketing emails’. Any email sent for marketing purposes must be sent via this tab to ensure GDPR compliance.
• On an on demand course run, you can send a maximum of one promotional email per quarter, per run. 
• On a limited run course, you can send a maximum of one promotional email per run.
• You may mention specific commercial and non-commercial events or products that relate to the FutureLearn course.

Marketing emails must not be used to send surveys or questionnaires to learners.

Research emails

If you wish to send an email to learners as part of a research project, a targeted email is required. You will not be able to send this email via Course Creator, but get in touch with partner.support@futurelearn.com and we can help. See our research survey guidance. 

Drafting, submitting and scheduling emails

Organisation admins and authors can draft and submit emails by going to the relevant course run and clicking on the emails tab in the top right of the screen. From there, they will see a screen with tabs for Scheduled weekly, Automatic, Additional emails, and Marketing emails, as shown below. Each tab shows a reminder of the email's purpose.

Schedule weekly emails

• Select a weekly email to edit under the title 'scheduled weekly'.  
• Select edit and preview to populate and review your emails. 
• Click save at the bottom of the screen. This will leave your email in draft. 
• Once finalised click the pink button ‘submit’ on the manage course emails page. 

If an email has not yet been approved by a FutureLearn Admin, anyone with the Organisation admin permission can return an email to draft if you need to make any changes. You will need to resubmit it at least one week before it is due to be sent.  

Your emails will show in Course Creator with one of these four statuses:

• Approved - Your email has been reviewed and approved by FutureLearn.
• Submitted - Your email has been submitted and is awaiting approval by FutureLearn
• Draft - Your email has been edited but not submitted - any emails not approved by before their send date will be sent out with the default template 
• To do - Your email has not yet been edited 

Schedule an additional email

Click on the emails tab when in the course run in Course Creator. Select 'additional emails' and ‘create additional email’. If you have sent additional emails on a previous run, the existing copy will have been transferred over. You can edit and resubmit. 

Write a subject line for the email. Specify which recipients will receive the email: 

• all learners
• fully completed learners (have completed 90% of steps in a course)
• fully participated, but not fully completed learners (have completed more than 50% of the available steps) 
• fully participated learners (have completed at least 50% of the available steps)
• learners who have not visited a step
• learners who have visited a step

Select a date and time when you would like the email to be sent, as shown in the screenshot below. Times are displayed in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time).

If you check the "Or send this email immediately box", your email will be sent as soon FutureLearn approves it

Whenever possible, allow at least one week's notice for us to approve and send the email. If your request is urgent, forward the email link to courses@futurelearn.com and ask for it to be approved sooner.

Our team works Monday to Friday between 8AM and 6PM UK time. If you would like the email sent on a Saturday, Sunday or Monday, please submit it no later than 16:00 GMT on the preceding Thursday.

Add a pink button to an email

The following code will allow you to add a pink button to the course email with some custom text and a link to your course. 

<table class="six columns">

<tr>

<td class="primary-button">

<table class="button">

<tr>

<td>

<a href="YOUR LINK HERE">YOUR TEXT HERE</a>

</td>

</tr>

</table>

</td>

<td class="expander"></td>

</tr>

</table> 

Top tips

1. Comply with GDPR 

• Do not add any text about upgrading on the course. If a learner has not upgraded their course, but has opted to receive marketing from FutureLearn a prompt encouraging them to upgrade will appear below the email signature automatically.
• Do not include promotional copy or links to any other FutureLearn or non-FutureLearn courses (even if the course is invite-only) unless you are specifically sending a marketing email. This is marketing.  
• If the course is part of an ExpertTrack you can acknowledge this. Be clear and informative not promotional.
• Do not add any survey links - create a targeted research email instead.
• You can link to resources and websites where the main visual element is educational as long as learners can access the site without needing to create an account, subscribe, or provide personally identifiable information (PII). Do not link to resources or websites where the main visual element is promotional. 
• Do not include any direct contact information, such as educators' personal email addresses.

2. Submit weekly emails on time to be approved 

• Populate and submit your weekly emails by 16:00 UK time (GMT) the Wednesday before the course start date. Be sure to click submit. Author or organisation admin permission is required to submit emails. 
• If your emails are not submitted on time we cannot guarantee that they will be sent. 

3. Reap the benefits by making them great  

• Put the most important information at the start of the email. 
• Great emails continue the educator presence and ‘voice’ from within the course. Include additional top tips, links for further learning, or personal stories.
• Use markdown to include subheadings to improve readability and appearance. 
• Copy our template weekly email text or take a look at some example weekly emails that focus on continuing educator presence. 
• Weekly emails encourage learners to begin or continue their learning. Build suspense, include some teasers about what is coming up. In week 2 or 3 remind those who have not yet joined that it is not too late. Keep it short, be encouraging and supportive. Consider your desired audience.  Keep each weekly email relevant to the related week. 
• Preview the activities in the upcoming week of the course. Make learners aware of any new types of step (e.g. exercises, peer reviews) they may not have encountered so far.
• Don’t include too many links they can be distracting. 
• Avoid acronyms, abbreviations, colloquialism or slang - global audiences may be unfamiliar with. 
• If your course is not being facilitated, say so explicitly and avoid any suggestion that your team will read or monitor comments. Instead, encourage peer to peer learning. 
• Include course hashtags and links to social media profiles directly relevant to the course subject. 
• Link to Educator(s)' FutureLearn profiles.

Further guidance 

• Partner logos are automatically displayed in the bottom right-hand corner of weekly emails. This displays adjacent to the email signature. If you wish, we can remove the logo from these emails.
• Co-creator and supporter logos etc do not appear on weekly emails and cannot be added. 
• See our re-run checklist for guidance on populating emails for reruns.  
• If your course contains sensitive course content, remind learners in your weekly emails that any personal information they have disclosed in their comments, as well as their FutureLearn profile, will be visible to all other learners on the course for the duration of the course run.

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

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