Have you ever wondered how EU projects approach and build learning courses? The answer may surprise you. You may think that creating learning content (and the LMS to host it) is work typically framed in weeks — not months. Yet, the reality is that within an EU project, multiple weeks and often months are spent evaluating learner needs, uncovering existing resources, analysing the current research and deciding on the creation tools and formats — all of which have to occur before a single keystroke can be applied in the creation of the learning content. These are not optional steps but required actions to ensure that the project meets its goals and satisfies the commitments made in the project’s grant agreement. Want to learn a bit more about how this process actually works? Then read on. Where to Start? Most projects start by taking stock of what's come before. For a project like Tech4Impact, that means asking what learners need, what educators are missing and what practitioners say is broken. We begin the process of answering these questions through something projects refer to as desk research. Desk research is an all-encompassing term that typically involves the partners conducting systematic reviews of the existing research and associated projects, learner and practitioner surveys, group interviews and any other tasks that can surface issues or help the consortium members better understand the existing gaps or challenges. This process alone can take several months with each partner participating under the leadership of a lead partner responsible for aggregating the data. Once completed, the surfaced insights typically find their way into a report summarising the findings and providing guidance or recommendations that the project will continue to lean on through multiple years of work. With the desk research complete, the focus shifts to connecting the recommendations to actual content. For our project, this means putting together a workshop where all the consortium partners come together to lend their expertise in the creation of two distinct curricula — one supporting social venture founders and the other supporting those seeking to work in those social ventures. Where the Work Takes Shape Tech4Impact leans heavily on an iterative design approach where each cycle of the process builds upon the previous one, producing a solution that is responsive to the recommendations, while keeping the student at the centre of the learning experience. With eleven total partners, this can be messy work as each partner brings their own knowledge, experiences and biases to the process. Yet, it is exactly these differences, and the work done in the margins to find alignment, that are the real strength of any consortium and highlight the collaboration and trust shared amongst the partners. From a practical standpoint, the workshop is where the consortium decides on the curricula’s learning objectives, identifies what exact knowledge needs to be conveyed, and agrees upon the number of modules and under which topics they will fall. Attention is also given to how the modules should be created, naming conventions, content formats and a dozen other related considerations that seem trivial but all play a role in producing quality outcomes. Building and Submission With the topics determined, modules assigned and the quality assurance guidelines agreed upon, partners go away and are charged with producing the actual content. This means creating interactive activities, producing video and other multimedia material, and developing the quizzes necessary to deliver and assess learning. This part of the process typically takes months with periodic check-ins along the way to address lingering questions and surface issues before they become genuine roadblocks. As the deadline draws near, content is uploaded to a shared Google Drive where the work package lead can evaluate the delivered content and provide feedback to the creators if necessary. This is also the stage where substantial translation activities occur. As good as current automatic translation apps are, there always seems to be one or two languages where the technology definitely falls short of expectations. Eventually all the created learning content will be approved and the process of uploading it to the project’s learning management system (LMS) can begin. There is a logic and rhythm to that process as well, but perhaps we’ll save that for another post. With the learning content completed, translated and uploaded, all that is left is a final sign-off from the consortium’s coordinator before the LMS is published and made available to the public. Want to Learn More? So, did anything in that summary surprise you? As you can see, long before any content takes shape, months go into listening to learners, mapping research, deliberating on topics and building alignment across eleven partners. The work that goes on behind the scenes is not inconsequential, but precisely what allows Tech4Impact to build something that genuinely responds to the learners we aim to serve. Curriculum design done well is slow by design, with the idea that care taken during the beginning of the process will lead to learning environments that individuals feel are ‘worth the click’. We’ll be back soon to peel back the curtain on other aspects of the project, so be sure to subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn.