Course types and considerations

• Have you identified a need in the industry?
• Will this be of interest to an organisation to purchase for their staff/members?
• Have you identified a significant potential market?
• Is there an opportunity to build confidence and generate interest in prospective students to study at Charles Sturt?
• Is there an emerging opportunity that strongly aligns to our mission or will contribute to our strategic objectives
• Have you got an industry partner wanting to co-design a micro or short course with us?
• Has your research uncovered a need for further learning in a particular cohort?

To be suitable for this distinctive type of learner that has quite different needs, expectations, and motivations from our degree students, micros and short courses need to be easy to digest, very accessible to participants that are usually time poor and able to be very focussed to efficiently deliver on the practical skills the learner is looking to obtain.  For example it must be at an appropriate level and volume of learning for this short form of educational product. It must also be open access and meet copyright requirements for micro-credentials and short courses. As learners enrolled in micro-credentials or short courses are not considered to be award students of Charles Sturt it is not permissible to reuse copyrighted materials or Leganto reading lists.

Ideally you have identified existing content that can be drawn from.

The preferred method of delivery for these courses is asynchronous, ensuring maximum flexibility for the learner and minimising costs to support increased viability for the university. The design will include engaging activities and resources in a variety of formats such as short, sharp videos (3-5 minutes), podcasts, interactive activities, recorded guest presentations, quizzes, practical and reflective exercises.

The number of topics and concepts covered will need to be appropriate to the total volume of learning the participant is expecting to undertake to successfully complete the micro or short course.

Once the micro has the green light to progress to design stage, you will need to commit to a minimum of around 50 hours.  This includes one full week for the design sprint and time in the following four weeks of the development phase. This includes approximately six one hour meetings to work with your Educational Designer to finalise content, and a weekly sprint team stand up meeting to track progress and address blockers and issues to finalising the course and course site, enrolment and pricing information and marketing and communication strategy.  Additional information and input may include communication with external stakeholders, sourcing industry partners, drafting welcome and marketing video scripts, providing content for marketing assets such as the online course brochure, providing meta data for badging and governance documentation. You will also be required for some initial consultation, and to review and QA the course and marketing material. Depending on the final course design and schedule you may also need time to deliver the course.

The micros team will lead and support the process. In addition to an academic lead you may also have industry partners co-designing or other internal stakeholders participating in some way. We consult with industry experts and prospective learners through a series of 15-30 minute interviews during the design sprint week.

A deliverable in the design sprint is undertaking viability modelling.  Costs for design, development, marketing, payment to additional guest presenters and other associated activities are including in this modelling.  The likely revenue able to be generated is estimated based on market analysis and learnings across the week and factored across a three-year lifecycle for the product and becomes a key performance indicator for the course.  The breakeven point, margin and total profit or loss is considered as part of the business case presented to the DVC (Academic) for final approval. The general principle is that the course must cover costs and generate a profit. Revenue is allocated under the University’s approved funding model.

As part of your formal proposal, you will need to:

• Have Head of School endorsement
• Complete the initial brief

A "student" is a person who applies to study an award course on the HESF basis of admission. The university assesses the application and makes a formal offer accepted by the applicant. In making an offer there are a range of criteria the university must apply. Students are recorded in our Student Management System and are entitled to full access to applicable university support and resources.

A "participant" is any person who chooses to register and pay for a non award micro, short course or other professional development activity such as events and webinars.  In the case of our micros and short courses they register through our payment gateway in Bright Space and on this basis are granted access to their course. They have access to a range of support and resources, however will not have access to some copyrighted materials or Leganto reading lists in accordance with the university's licensing agreements.

Participants of our micros and short courses are looking for bite sized, skills focused learning that can be easily accessed, engaged with and digested.