Structuring and Scheduling Content

The structure and schedule for release of course content are inherently interwoven, and for that reason this analysis looks at both areas together. The course format and structure for a platform serves essentially three purposes:

• Structuring content for presentation - How the course content is delivered to learners provides an inherent hierarchy that determines the relationship between content and its importance. For example in this case, this page helps to contextualise the content found at a lower level.

• Shaping the way content is delivered - The course structure itself can influence how content is designed for the platform. For example, if all section content were required to sit beneath an introductory page, instructors would naturally include that page in their plans. The technology can essentially incentivise and enforce adherence to standards defined by the platform (for better or worse).

• Scheduling the release of content over time, allowing instructors to stagger the release of content to either ensure that learners do not skip ahead, or simply to provide instructors with more time to work on the future sections of the course.

In the following docs, we’ll look at how our platform and others currently do these three things.