Course development FAQs
Find the answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about our course design and development services.
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Find the answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about our course design and development services.
Who is on your team and where is your team based?
In the UK, we have learning design, digital production, editorial, technical solutions and customer experience teams. This structure is mirrored by our global partners in Australia and North America, with whom we collaborate frequently. Learn more about the UK team.
It is up to the institution what resources they contribute. In our experience the most successful course development projects stem from true collaboration between ourselves and the institution. Depending on the capacity of the institution, it would contribute subject matter expertise, content authoring or scripting, learning design ideas, multimedia development, VLE integration, quality assurance testing, training, technical support, or learner outcome analytics. If the institution does not have in-house capacity, its stakeholders will approve work at all development stages.
What experience do you have in online and blended learning?
We've been working in course development with UK, USA, Middle East and Australian institutions since 2004.
We've worked with 80+ higher education institutions, for example Birmingham City University, Leeds Beckett University, George Washington University, Cornell University, Babson University, Taibah University, Higher Colleges of Technology, Monash University and Griffith University.
What are the student experiences on courses you’ve helped develop?
Having completed the first module of the Executive MBA with Leeds I would thoroughly recommend the course. Initially I was unsure of what to expect, but the tutors at Leeds Business School are really supportive and the course is really well designed, with clear weekly goals. I can already see the benefits in my own work performance.
Tim Gale, Student, Leeds Beckett University, UK
We have anonymised student achievement data that has been shared with us by some of the institutions we’ve worked with. We would be happy to discuss this with you in person.
Why should we work with you? What distinguishes Pearson?
We offer a unique combination of collective learning design research, course development experience, digital innovations and world-renowned content. We make design suggestions that promote your desired learner outcomes and track metrics so you can evaluate course success.
Working with Pearson’s experienced team will ensure that elements of the course development process such as content sourcing, multimedia production and course setup are managed efficiently and effectively without detracting from your day-to-day activities. As a result, courses will be delivered on time, to budget, and be of the highest quality. Our courses bring learning best practices and your desired learner outcomes together to create an intuitive and engaging student and staff experience, which you can reuse on-campus and edit going forward.
Our customer experience team creates bespoke training in response to your faculty’s needs. Our training consultants will ensure that your instructors feel confident about teaching the new course. They offer remote support for ad hoc questions throughout the semester and will meet instructors to review progress at midterm and/or end of term, using bespoke reports.
What content can we use to create our course?
How much new or existing content you use on your course, as well as where that content comes from, is up to you. Some institutions have their own banks of instructor content, some use third-party content, others want to create content from scratch. Often courses are developed using a mixture of all of these.
If you want us to source content for your course, we have a wealth of high-quality resources to choose from (10,000 textbooks, 500 professional business and careers books, 6,200 case studies, tens of thousands of multimedia assets and 20+ online homework and assessment products in 44 disciplines). If you have permission to use content from third parties or open education resources, we are happy to include that content in your course.
We have developed courses in Blackboard, Moodle, Canvas, Desire2Learn, Sakai, and several custom platforms. That hands-on experience enabled us to learn how to utilise VLEs' varying features and functions as well as build bespoke functionality so the university leverages the most from its chosen platform.
How many courses can you develop at one time?
Our ability to scale enables us to develop multiple courses timed for the same launch date. In the past, institutions have requested we develop anywhere from 2 to 12 modules simultaneously.
Each course has a bespoke project plan to match the institution’s availability to make their contributions. After contract signature and once all programme requirements have been agreed we have developed modules in 4-10 months.
As above, costs are specific to each project and cannot be estimated until the solution is fully scoped. The variables include: which services the institution is contributing, how much development work the content needs, how complex the solution is, what source content is used, and what support services are requested.
How does Pearson develop courses?
We use the ADDIE (analysis, design, develop, implement, evaluate) model when developing courses.
How do you make accessibility provisions?
We ask for the institution’s accessibility requirements from the outset and adhere to them (including transcripting audio, selecting contrasting colours, writing image descriptions, and ensuring compliance with screen reading software).
How do you incorporate my institution’s brand in the course?
We ask for the institution’s branding guidelines from the outset and adhere to them (including proofing, referencing, VLE layout, image style, colours and fonts).
How do you make sure your courses are different for each institution you work with?
Each solution is bespoke because it's backwards-planned from in-depth conversations with a variety of institutional stakeholders (executive, academic, programme-level, module-level, design and technical leads). Those requirements and priorities determine the unique course structure and learning journey.
Our Technical Solutions Manager has in-depth knowledge of each VLE’s reporting capabilities and can add technical applications to visualise additional course data if the learner outcomes you would like to see are not tracked through your VLE. Our Customer Intelligence Agent then generates a research plan to measure agreed learner outcomes so that at the end of the term, we can analyse the data and write an evaluation report for your consideration.
Who owns the copyright for the courses we’ve developed together?
The institution will own all intellectual property rights to the course with the exception of existing copyright for specific assets (for example, if an institution includes a case study from a third-party content provider, the institution would not own that case study). This means that the institution can repurpose learning assets in other courses as well.
The institution can edit the content directly in the VLE or we can assist the institution in this way. To satisfy the institution's desire to edit content, we will agree file formats with you to ensure you have the means to edit as desired. If you require us to make ongoing changes, we design a service level agreement.
What happens if students and staff have questions on the course once it has launched?
Our Technical Support Team is available 12 hours a day (7 a.m. to 7 p.m. GMT), seven days a week for your staff and students to contact directly via email, phone, and live chat to answer any technical questions.
The University VLE team will maintain day-to-day technical support of the courses as they do with campus-based programmes.