Core standards for online course spaces

This page provides guidance on the effective design of online course spaces. All such spaces should adhere to the baseline level, detailed below, as a minimum, unless there is a good and validated reason otherwise. There are also suggestions for enhanced approaches, which can provide a richer experience for students. This document is intended to support and guide staff during course (re-)design. Key criteria, along with guidance on techniques you can use to enhance online courses, are organised into several categories.

The aims of the core standards are to:

• improve consistency across online courses, while supporting variation where appropriate
• improve the staff and student experience of online courses, for example by making course materials easy to find, update and re-use
• ensure that students feel supported when undertaking online or blended learning activities
• fully exploit opportunities to use existing technologies where these are beneficial to staff or students. 

This guidance is for use with any units and programmes which have online spaces, not just those in Blackboard. It is primarily designed for blended learning (which includes some face-to-face components).

Key

The criteria have symbols next to them to indicate their applicability: 

• Baseline criteria, which should be achieved by all courses
• Enhanced approaches, which may not always be applicable, but can provide a richer experience for students
• Baseline criteria which are automatically fulfilled in Blackboard

Categories

Organisation, navigation and design‌‌	Course information and objectives
Instructions and support for learners	Activities and tools
Materials	Accessibility
Communication and collaboration	Assessment and feedback