5 QUALITY ASSURANCE Practices to IMPROVE Your Course Content
Ask an Expert
Quality assurance reviews of your content is one area that is often overlooked or not on the priority list, but producing content that is of high quality is essential.
One of the most effective ways to know if your course content is truly hitting the mark is to ask for feedback from an expert in your field.
Find someone you trust - preferably someone who has had success in creating and selling courses themselves. Their insights can provide the constructive criticism you need to refine and improve your content.
I recommend giving them access to some or all of your material and asking for an honest review. Their fresh perspective can help identify areas for improvement that you might have missed.
While beta testers are also important (and I’ll dive deeper into that in a future blog), an expert reviewer will give your content that essential "sanity check." Having someone with experience validate your course will give you greater confidence, knowing that you’re delivering valuable content that resonates with your students.
Student Feedback
Receiving feedback from your students is essential for refining and improving your course content. It’s the best way to gauge how well your material is resonating with learners and where you may need to make adjustments. But here's the key: in order to get valuable, actionable insights, you need to ask the right questions - not just the ones that make you feel good or provide answers that reinforce what you already think.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of asking leading questions that push students toward giving you the feedback you want to hear. For example, asking "Did you enjoy the course?" or "Did you find the material helpful?" may give you positive responses, but they don't offer much in the way of constructive criticism or areas for improvement.
The questions you ask will depend on the various aspects of your course such as:
Completion rates;
What section are they stopping in the course;
Have they started the course (what has stopped them from starting the course?);
Have they started the course (what has stopped them from starting the course?).
I know firsthand that receiving feedback can be tough, especially when it’s not all positive. But let me tell you, the hardest feedback is often the most valuable.
Constructive criticism, even if it's difficult to hear at times, is a golden opportunity for growth. It helps you pinpoint areas that need improvement, refine your content, and enhance the overall student experience.
Remember, no course is perfect, and continuous improvement is key to staying competitive in the ever-evolving world of online education. By actively seeking and embracing constructive feedback, you're not only improving your course, but you're also showing your students that you care about their learning experience and are committed to providing them with the best possible content.
In the long run, the feedback you receive - especially the critical kind - will help you build a stronger course, retain more students, and establish a reputation for delivering high-quality, responsive content that meets your learners' needs.
Professional Editing
Proofreading is an essential step in creating high-quality course content. It may seem like an extra task, but I can’t stress enough how important it is to ensure your work is free from errors. I highly recommend either hiring a professional editor to review your course or dedicating a significant amount of time to carefully go over it yourself, topic by topic. And just to be extra thorough, I’d even suggest double-checking your content before finalising it.
We’ve all been there, you purchase a course, eager to dive into the material, only to notice glaring spelling mistakes or formatting issues that distract from the content. Have you ever experienced that feeling? It’s frustrating, and frankly, it undermines the professionalism of the course. If you’re serious about delivering value to your students, this is something you can’t afford to overlook.
When you’re charging people to purchase your course, the quality of the content reflects directly on your brand. Mistakes can happen to anyone, but it’s crucial to approach your work with care and attention to detail, especially when students are paying for it. A sloppy, error-riddled course can harm your reputation and make students question the value they’re receiving.
Taking the time to review and polish your course not only demonstrates professionalism, but it also shows your commitment to delivering the best possible learning experience.
When your content is polished, your students will have more trust in you as an instructor, and they’ll feel confident that they’re investing in quality material.
In the end, the effort you put into proofreading and refining your course will pay off. After all, when your content is error-free, your students can focus entirely on learning the material - without being distracted by unnecessary mistakes.
Track Student Progress
Tracking your students’ progress will help improve areas such as:
Where students are stopping in your course;
Where they are spending the most time;
Will also help with collecting student feedback.
Reviewing this data you can determine things such as:
Are the students only interested in certain sections of your course;
Are you attracting students who don’t have the amount of time that your course takes to complete;
Can your course be condensed? Make it short and sweet with only the key content.
There are so many ways student progress data can help improve your course content.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the perfect tool to help you create and maintain your course, BUT you have to know what you’re writing about.
Using AI to help write your content is fantastic, but often the information generated is not entirely correct and you may not even understand it. This is where poor quality comes in.
Using AI to generate your content because you don’t know enough about the subject matter is very worrying, but it is happening often.
To ensure the quality of your content, I recommend writing the content first and then refining it with an AI tool. This way you know and understand what you are writing about and you will then be able to answer your students confidently.
Do you want to learn from a teacher that is generating all their content via AI? I don’t.
One must be cautious about creating content that is purely AI-generated as there are tools where you can run the content through to see if it is AI-generated. Google is already downgrading search engine information such as blogs if it is determined to be AI-generated.
AI has a lot of benefits, but it is understanding how to use AI to achieve the results you need. ‘Generative AI’ and ‘Prompt Engineering’ are the hottest buzzwords right now and in another blog, I will discuss this all further so we can better understand the various aspects of AI and how to use it to our advantage.
Get excited, because I am!
Quality Assurance Action
Use these 5 tips to commence a quality review of your course content. To ensure continuous customer satisfaction and that your course content stays current and correct, undertaking a review of your course is crucial. When your customers are paying for content that helps them get from Point A to Point B in the learning journey, you need to ensure the information you are providing is exactly what they need to achieve this.
Open up your calendar and lock in a date today so you can start the quality review of your course content.