Learn checklist
This checklist is designed to provide guidance and assistance on setting up your Learn course by following good practice and University policy.
Having an institution-wide approach to basic course structure, and course terminology, will help to alleviate needless confusion caused by basic inconsistencies. It will also mean that there is still the required flexibility to structure good teaching within courses. This checklist is not intended to be prescriptive, it is designed to be used as both a prompt and guide for developing your course. Although they may be associated with the use of a template the headings are general and will be relevant to any course.
The following guidance may be helpful when using the checklist:
Welcome Message: The welcome message should be used to introduce your students to the course by providing helpful information important to the course, such as: an introduction to the teaching staff with a short biography, photo or video message.
Learning Outcomes: All learning outcomes for the course should be added in this section (as defined in Degree Regulations & Programmes of Study), providing your students with what they should expect to learn throughout the course.
The following information could be included to support your students in being able to locate course specific details easily:
Course Outline: a course outline, if not already present, could be created to provide students with an overview of the course (in line with both the ‘Accessible and Inclusive Learning Policy’ and IAD course outline guidance)
Timetable: The timetable link should be to the outlook 365 calendar for all users.
Folders: Where content needs to be organised the use of folders is encouraged and these could be set up as weekly, by topic or using any other convention that would be more appropriate to your delivery method.
Lecture Recordings: If you are on a course which has lecture recording the tool for that should be in the Course Materials section as part of your School’s template. However, if you are on a course which does not currently have any recorded lectures, please ensure that you hide or remove the Lecture Recording tool to prevent any confusion for students. If you are unsure on how to remove or hide the Lecture Recording tool, please see our guidance on how to hide Lecture Recordings.
Assessment Information: The Assessment area has been designed to contain all resources and information relating to assessment and feedback. To support students with this, consider including relevant detail that could support students when submitted any assessments or assignments (i.e. important dates to be aware of, which common marking scheme is used within your School, what the assignment submission and assessment criteria are etc.)
Assignment Submission: Along with an assignment brief it is good practice to also include the assessment criteria.
Learn Feedback and Feedback about your course: The 'have your say' section utilised various tools to collect feedback from students about their experience in the School, of Blackboard Learn and the University in general.
Placeholder Text: If your course has placeholder text provided, this text will always be within squared brackets [ ] and should be replaced with the suggested content or deleted.
Resource List: Is the link to the course Resource List active?
Course handbook: If you have a course handbook, has it been added to the appropriate section?
Uploaded Files: We'd strongly recommend that any file uploaded to Learn should follow University Naming Conventions as closely as possible.
Accessibility: The Accessible and Inclusive Learning Policy should be applied throughout a course. In order to aid compliance with this policy, SensusAccess, an accessible format tool, is available to all staff and students.
Copyright: All reproduction from published material is subject to Copyright law, information on copyright is available on the Library Website.
Click on the link below to download the checklist.
For further information contact the ISHelpline