How to Create an Online Course (FutureLearn)

How to Create an Online Course (FutureLearn)

Discover key skills to create engaging online learning experiences. Learn how to design and develop online learning materials. Digital education is expanding faster than ever before, and learning online has become an essential part of how we teach and learn. On this two-week course, you’ll learn how to create online learning materials that are open, accessible, and engaging.

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see FutureLearn's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

You will complete practical activities to explore key topics such as target audience, writing style and narrative, active learning, and digital tools.
You’ll be equipped to create targeted, interactive, and inclusive content to thrive in the eLearning sector. The knowledge and skills you develop will enable you to confidently begin your own course design process.

What topics will you cover?
Understanding Your Learners- Discover what a persona is, what the characteristics of a typical online learner are and the differences between them. Identify how to create content that is targeted to your learner audience.
The Power of Active Learning and Narrative - Learn the differences between passive and active learning types, and examine storytelling techniques like narrative and readability.
How to Make Content Engaging - Explore ways to create content that is engaging to online learners. Practise techniques for producing materials that are bitesize, open and accessible.
Your Digital Toolbox - Find out how to use digital tools and media to enhance your learning materials, and explore useful resources for creating an online course.

What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

  • Create personas to gain a clear understanding of target audiences for short online courses.
  • Describe the value of active learning and narrative in digital education, and write concise content using appropriate language and tone.
  • Identify suitable formats for creating engaging online materials in line with accessibility and open licensing guidance.
  • Evaluate a range of current digital education tools and explain some of their benefits and limitations.
Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

Digital Tools for Efficient Clinical Trials (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of Southampton,National Institute for Health Research - NIHR

Digital Tools for Efficient Clinical Trials (FutureLearn)

Discover how digital tools can be used for the recruitment and retention of participants within clinical trials. Learn how digital tools can be used throughout clinical trials. This four-week clinical trials course is designed to create awareness about the availability and use of digital tools for the recruitment and retention of participants within clinical trials.

Self Paced
4 Weeks
Introduction to Digital Transformation (Coursera) Coursera
Siemens

Introduction to Digital Transformation (Coursera)

This course is primarily for professionals, college students, and advanced high school students who are interested in driving the digital transformation by integrating automation, software, and cutting-edge technologies. This course represents a foundational introduction to Digital Transformation, appropriate for learners with a basic familiarity with common business terms and concepts and an interest in digital technology.

Jul 27th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Marketing no mundo digital (Coursera) Coursera
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Marketing no mundo digital (Coursera)

Este curso analisa como ferramentas digitais, por exemplo, a Internet, os smartphones e a impressão 3D, estão revolucionando o mundo do marketing ao mudar as funções e práticas das empresas e dos consumidores. O Marketing no mundo digital é um dos cursos mais procurados da Coursera com mais de 250 mil alunos e ele foi classificado pela Class Central como um dos 50 melhores cursos on-line abertos e massivos (MOOCs, na sigla em inglês) de todos os tempos.

Jul 27th 2026
4 Weeks
Digital Transformation in the Classroom (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Digital Transformation in the Classroom (FutureLearn)

Adapt your teaching methods to the digital world and enable digital transformation in schools with this digital learning course. Discover digital learning and accelerate digital transformation in the classroom. How can teachers adapt their classroom practice to a developing digital world? On this course, you will explore the opportunities and challenges of moving from using long-established print technologies to new working principles introduced by digital technologies.

Available now
3 Weeks
Introducción a las redes sociales. Sus objetivos y métricas. (Coursera) Coursera
Tecnológico de Monterrey

Introducción a las redes sociales. Sus objetivos y métricas. (Coursera)

En este programa se hará, de manera holística, una revisión del uso e implementación de redes sociales. Se provee de un conocimiento sólido en el desarrollo de estrategias requeridas en una organización para involucrar a los consumidores y miembros de la misma en un ambiente de social listening.

Jul 27th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Web Science: How the Web is Changing the World (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of Southampton

Web Science: How the Web is Changing the World (FutureLearn)

Explore how the web has changed our world and what the future might hold, with this free online course introducing Web Science. You may already be an avid user of the Web, but this introduction to Web Science will help you better understand it as both a social and technical system - a global information infrastructure, built from the interactions of people and technologies. This free online course is based on our experience of trying to understand how the Web has grown and changed through technical innovation, economics, politics and everyday use.

No sessions available
2 Weeks
Innovative Teaching: Engaging Adult Learners with Active Learning (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of Padova

Innovative Teaching: Engaging Adult Learners with Active Learning (FutureLearn)

Discover the power of active participation in adult learning, encouraging teamwork and collaboration among students. Explore the power of teaching and how interactive learning can aid the classroom. Active learning is the leading innovative teaching approach in education today. It encourages teachers to foster a more student-centred, interactive and participatory approach to learning.

Self Paced
4 Weeks
Blended and Online Learning Design (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University College London

Blended and Online Learning Design (FutureLearn)

Learn to develop the best pedagogy for your students using blended and online learning methods. Develop the skills you need to teach blended and online learning. Online learning is the future of teaching. This three-week teaching course aims to support teachers’ own innovations in teaching and learning online, whether you teach in a school, college or university.

Self Paced
3 Weeks
Get Started with Online Learning (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
The Open University

Get Started with Online Learning (FutureLearn)

This free online course will explain how you can study online without putting the rest of your life on hold.The internet is playing a bigger role in our lives, as we buy our groceries, manage our finances, share social experiences and otherwise live our lives online. But how many of us have considered studying online? In this free online course, you will find out what online learning is and what it can offer you.

Available now
2 Weeks
Learning Online: Managing Your Identity (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of Leeds

Learning Online: Managing Your Identity (FutureLearn)

Reflect on how you want to present yourself online and take positive steps towards these goals. Many of us now have an online identity running alongside our everyday lives. In this course you’ll consider your online presence; you’ll discover how what we say and do online can have major implications for our real lives, and those of others.

Jun 29th 2026
2 Weeks
Digital Learning Toolkit: Resources for Successful Online Teaching (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
Eindhoven University of Technology,EIT Climate-KIC

Digital Learning Toolkit: Resources for Successful Online Teaching (FutureLearn)

Learn how you can devise and lead a digital learning experience with the help of these online teaching tools and resources. Convert your face-to-face teaching into digital learning. In the light of the global COVID-19 crisis, much face-to-face (F2F) education and training is being transformed into online and digital formats. But, you can still engage your students with today’s technology.

Available now
5-12 Weeks