Course outline

Take the time to create a plan for what will happen in your course before developing long-form learner-facing content. 

This is a crucial starting point in your course development. It should be an overview of what will happen in the course, similar to a curriculum or lesson plan.

Create a course with a coherent look and feel, and clear outcomes which progress from step to step, activity to activity, and week to week. 

In the video below we: 

• describe how courses are structured on FutureLearn
• explain the different sections of a course outline
• demonstrate what a completed course outline looks like.

Top tips

1. Utilise our Course Outline/QA document. Plot your structure in tab 2 and review all the Quality Assurance criteria in tab 3. 
2. Share your course outline with a Learning Designer at Futurelearn for review before you build. This can be in any format, provided it is editable or allows comments (not PDF). This can save time later, and lead to a smooth Quality Assurance review. You can also share sample content, when you start writing up your course, with Editorial and Media specialists at FutureLearn who can provide feedback before you build. 
3. Review our learning design top tips and our four pillars of social learning. 
4. Plot out a variety of step types and learning types. 
5. Don’t underestimate the importance of week, activity, and step titles. They tell a story and help learners orient themselves. Plan them while plotting your outline. 
6. Create learning outcomes at course level as well as more granular outcomes at week and activity level. 

Find out more about creating course outlines in Week 2: Design and try out of How to Create a Great FutureLearn course.  Contact your Partnership Manager for access. 

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

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