Free guide

This quick-start guide takes you through the simplest route to build a course on OpenLearn Create and features a series of checklists of what you need to include. There are also links to the platform's more complex features. 

There is a number of things you need to consider before you start to build a course on OpenLearn Create.

Applying good accessibility practice consistently can help all learners.

Find out how to create a space on OpenLearn Create for your course or resource.

Every course on OpenLearn Create must include the following features:

You can invite colleagues to collaborate with authoring and editing the draft course.

To help your course become the best it can be, we’ve shared some of our tips in this section on setting up the structure of your course.

For more in-depth guidance and production support, email openlearncreate@open.ac.uk for a quote.

The various resources available mean that almost any kind of web content can be added to the course.

Activities, such as forums, quizzes and wikis enable interactive content to be added to the course. Some are only suitable for a tutor/teacher-supported course.

The activities in this section are only available if you have either the Course Manager or Teacher role. To gain these roles you would need to complete a data declaration form – please contact openlearncreate@open.ac.uk to request one.

You can reorder the activities or resources on your course homepage and add links to navigate between them

Do you want your course to be freely available to everyone or to a specific group of people?

If your course has a statement of participation, custom Moodle certificate or a badge, you will need to set up completion tracking in the Settings. This should only be done after everything else in the course is ready, including the quizzes. Some of this configuration (badges) can only be set up by someone with Course Manager permissions for a course. If you are your course’s Owner, you will need to request the Course Manager role from openlearncreate@open.ac.uk. Please provide the URL of the course for which you are requesting Course Manager permissions.

Before requesting publication, it is sensible to test that everything is working as you expect. Note that your course will not be published if it does not meet OpenLearn Create’s publication criteria.

When you decide to publish your course, a message will be automatically sent to openlearncreate@open.ac.uk for the platform managers to check that it’s ready for publication.

Guidance that you may want to copy or adapt for your own forum.