Short courses and CPD

If you're interested in creating a short course, our new infographic should give you an idea of how the overall process works. If you're ready to begin the process then proceed to Step 1.

Step 1: Submit a proposal form outlining your idea

If you've got an idea for a short course or CPD, we need to check whether there's likely demand for it, whether it's offered already, and whether learners would want to do it at St Mary's.

To start the ball rolling we ask you (the proposer), together with support from the Enterprise Team to complete a new short course proposal form which outlines your idea and the demand for it. This form is a simple business case and includes:

1. why you want to develop the course
2. whether there's a need for it (we need to check if your course idea already exists)
3. who your target market is 
4. how you'll structure and assess the learning
5. the costs of developing it

Step 2: Research

Following the proposal, together we will carry out some in depth market research and a competitor analysis to check whether there's likely demand, whether it's offered already, and whether learners would want to do it at St Mary's.

Understanding who we're competing against will tell us:

1. how much we can charge for your course
2. what might be important to your audience (and what you should include in your course description and marketing)
3. what our competitors offer that we don't
4. why learners might choose competitor courses instead of ours
5. Start researching our competitors
6. who they are
7. where they're based
8. what course(s) they offer
9. what price(s) they charge
10. what each competitor is good at

Understanding our competitors means we can see gaps in the market for our course idea, or how you could amend your idea to fill a potential gap.

Together, using our template, we will work out your development and running costs before calculating the course price. We revisit costs throughout the development process to see if the course price needs to change. We list all the likely costs of your course, including:

1. staff time (academic and administrative) to plan, design and prepare the course, including any assessments
2. staff time (academic and administrative) to run the course, including time to moderate forums (if you plan to run these) or mark assessments
3. room hire for external spaces
4. learning materials
5. licenses and technical support for online learning environments
6. refreshments
7. other costs particular to your discipline or field

Step 3: Design

Once we know whether there is demand for the course, the academic will plan and design the course structure and activities:

1. whether the course could be online, face to face or blended.
2. how to make the course engaging
3. writing learning outcomes
4. checking how to use library resources and copyright
5. develop activities to develop analytical, communication, interview or social networking skills
6. set up forums, webinars or course wikis
7. setting course reports or oral exams

Step 4: Approval

Once we have the proposal, in-depth market research, a course outline and detailed costings, the Director of Enterprise will sign-off on the new course.

Once approved, we need to market the course. Marketing should be based on our initial research into how to attract learners, but becomes practical as we:

1. create a description of the course
2. create suitable marketing materials
3. make it easy for people to find the course online

The short course team will book rooms for the course, order any materials and process HPA contracts/purchase orders.

We ask the academic to complete the welcome pack and course guide (we have templates) which are sent to students when they enrol.

After the course has finished the team will:

1. create and send certificates of participation
2. review your course and get feedback so you can improve it and attract more learners