Behind the Screens: The Making of a Yale Online Course

By Abigail Titus

Have you ever wondered just how a Yale Online course goes from idea to reality? What has to happen, logistically, and how long does it all take? In this blog edition, I will walk you through the steps required to develop an online course. 

Initially, a professor or staff member from a professional school or Yale College will reach out to our team at the Yale Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning with a concept for a new course. Maybe they have a super popular on-campus course, or teach a discipline with common 101-level content. Perhaps they have recently written a book on a topic, or have published papers, and wish to teach about their recent work. Whatever the case may be, we will meet with the instructor to talk about how they’d like the course to look and feel, where they’d like to shoot their lectures, how they want to approach assessments, and how much content they are talking about. We pride ourselves on taking an individualized approach and tackling just about any project that comes our way. 

We encourage instructors to consider whether they have taught the content before, whether the course is being offered for credit, whether there is a specific audience for whom the course is intended, and whether they have any strict deadlines for when the content needs to be available. All of these factors will influence how we design the course, and how we prioritize this course’s production schedule.   

From here, we will start a course outline, grasping exactly how the content will break down into lessons and videos. We work with the team at the Yale Teaching Studios to shoot video content either in the studio or in the field, often a combination of the two. We review video edits and work with the instructor to get their videos to a solid final form. Now, the content is ready to upload. 

Many of our public courses are on Coursera, and some online courses are offered on Canvas. We work with the instructor to determine the appropriate location for the course, and build it with them accordingly. We set up course readings, videos, assignments and quizzes, discussion forums, and instructions to keep learners on the right track. We set up the grading formulas, get course certificates, and ensure all the details are buttoned up.   

Finally, once we are confident that the course is in its final form, we get our launch plan together! This often includes mentioning the course in our Yale Online newsletter, posting on social media, coordinating with the instructor’s department if possible, and having the instructor post on LinkedIn as well. We want to get the word out as broadly as possible, and to target the right audience for the course as much as possible. Once the course is up and running, we monitor the course for learner feedback, and periodically work with the instructor to update the course content. 

I hope this explainer has helped demystify how online course production works! We are constantly refining and reworking our processes. Thank you for taking the time to learn more about our work. If you’re interested in exploring our current offerings, check out Yale Online—or reach out to us at onlineprograms@yale.edu.

Abigail Titus is the Assistant Director for Digital Education at the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning. She collaborates with schools across Yale to develop online courses in partnership with Yale Teaching Studios and plays a key role in sustaining our collaboration with Coursera. To connect with Abigail about bringing your course to life, you can reach her directly at abigail.titus@yale.edu.