How To Do An Effective Course Content Audit
The creation of educational products bears significant risks. Indeed, you can sink in negative reviews within a month or two after the start in case of failure. Therefore, the course audit is a kind of insurance against mistakes and a measure of the quality of education. Let's figure out how to effectively and adequately audit an educational product.
Why Audit Is Needed
The main goal is to reduce the risks of failure and increase the possibility of a successful launch of an online course. You need to find the weak points and remove them.
Many producers pay attention to the promotion, not the product itself. It's the pursuit of short-term success, and no one can prove great business results in 3-5-7 years. Therefore, it is crucial to focus on quality educational writing and content creation.
Product analysis must be performed before and after the first launch. Let's go through each of these stages.
Pre-Launch Analysis
After the first launch, the audience's feedback becomes an effective indicator of quality. However, it's possible to check efficiency and logic already in the stage of development. So what should you look out for first?
Setting Goals for Students
Often, the creators of online courses represent the program, and only then - the middle and final goals. It doesn't seem right. First, you need to show what the students will be able to do after completing the training, and only after that - to build a curriculum.
What the description of the result might look like:
- at the end of the editing course, students will present an edited music video, a commercial, or a short film (depending on the final task);
- at the end of the course of the sales, trainees must agree to call from 50% of the cold base;
- at the end of the marketing course, clients should provide a holistic strategy for small or medium-sized businesses.
In addition, it's necessary to conduct an audit of personnel training. It may include comparing the results of graduates and those who didn't pass the training course. For example, students' revenue in a month should be 15% higher than that of colleagues.
Number of Modules
Courses are divided into modules - separate sections, which end with a midterm. The optimal module duration is up to 10 lessons.
ТIt's also worth paying attention to the total duration of the training and the workload distribution. For better results, it's enough to set up to 10 modules (for courses lasting up to 1 year). If there are more modules, it's worth changing the program.
Another thing to analyze is the names of the modules. They shouldn't overlap with the titles of the lessons.
Difficulty Change
The time to master a new level of difficulty depends on the target audience of your online course. So, you can increase the difficulty for young people after 1-2 lessons, but for students of 35+ category - after 3-4 weeks of training. Therefore, it's imperative to track the assimilation of the material.
Variety of Formats
You won't surprise anyone with the standard "video + homework" format. Interest disappears after a couple of lessons. Therefore, it's worth adding other formats: tests, checklists, recommendations.
Learning Environment
It's also essential to understand how easy it is for students to use online courses. It includes many factors:
- general design style;
- the standard structure of the lesson;
- availability of practical examples;
- video quality;
- the presence of typos in the text;
- presentation of material by the teacher and his interaction with students;
- and much more.
Analysis After the First Launch
The first launch of the product already gives some information about its quality. At the same time, an unprofessional but high-quality presentation is enough - without a Full HD camera, studio light, and sound.
Often, a small focus group is gathered for a trial run. After testing the material on a small audience in "combat" conditions, you can get feedback.
But clients often share what they like or dislike. There is little accurate advice on how to improve the product. Therefore, you can approach testing the effectiveness of an online course differently.
Understanding Of the Target Audience
Here we review the profiles of the students, feedback from alumni, and how much the product solves the client's problem. It will show the effectiveness of the course for a target audience.
Testing the Teaching Methodology and Logic
First of all, it's worth paying attention to the intelligibility of the training's logic and structure. It includes:
- the division into themes and modules;
- style of headings;
- defining goals;
- duration of training.
These are the first indicators of the quality of the course. After all, if there is no logic, then there is no result.
Checking the Data Received During the First Editions
First of all, you should pay attention to:
- execution of midterm and final tests created to check the achievement of educational goals (it's crucial to have access to high-quality analytics);
- speed of feedback to students' questions;
- speed of homework checking;
- attendance of lessons or webinars;
- CSI - Customer Satisfaction Index. Satisfaction with the learning process, lessons, or results can be measured;
- NPS - customer loyalty index. The willingness to recommend an online course depends on it;
- COR - the completion rate;
- return rate. The reasons may be different - the course is not suitable, the format doesn't fit, etc.;
- % of employed graduates or those students who launched their project or left positive feedback.
You can look at this data and make the first predictions of the development of the project. If the metrics don't meet expectations, make some changes. For example, improve the course format.
Conclusion
Auditing is essential when it comes to the success of an online school. Most often, problems are discovered even at the idea stage. Most of the ideas are overrated and not finalized to a minimum viable product.
If you don't regularly review your content and analytics, you might miss out on a decline in course effectiveness. Therefore, it's vital to monitor all indicators and correct weaknesses in time.