Tips to Scale Course Design with Reusable Content

As market demand accelerates, short course providers are under growing pressure to deliver high-quality learning experiences faster than ever, while controlling development costs. Essentially, caught in the middle between building a tailored course and meeting a timeline, all without sacrificing either quality or authenticity, seems like an impossible task. Well, the good news is that a strategic approach to content development can transform your business model from constantly creating one-off courses to building a sustainable, scalable content system that allows you to meet the needs of specific audiences without completely customising all your courses. So, let's explore some practical ways to implement a reusable content strategy — the key to scaling course design with reusable content while maintaining quality, flexibility, and consistency. 

Reusing and Recontextualising: A Core Strategy for Scaling Course Design with Reusable Content

Before we delve into the strategy, let's unpack two keywords and what they mean for scaling courses. 

• Reusing involves utilising existing materials exactly as they are without modification and dropping them into learning pathways. 

• While recontextualising involves thoughtfully adapting content for different scenarios, industries, or audiences. 

Many short course developers initially gravitate toward reusing learning content verbatim, seeing it as the most cost-efficient approach. Yes, it does minimise upfront development costs. However, context matters. Why, because context:

• Helps learners understand how to apply learning to their workplace.

• Make connections between theoretical ideas and their situation.

• Allows short course providers to target and market courses to specific audiences (a course for everyone is for no one), offering the opportunity for growth in multiple revenue streams.

While recontextualising courses resonates more deeply with learners, creating fully recontextualised courses can be expensive and make it difficult to maintain courses as you end up with many different versions of the same course and the content within it. 

Design Content and Activities That Are Content Neutral 

The cornerstone of a reusable content strategy is designing learning objects that stand independently yet integrate seamlessly with other content and learning activities. The context is then built around those activities with introductions, conclusions and a few targeted activities designed specifically for the course context. This approach is foundational for scaling course design with reusable content, allowing teams to rapidly customise programs without recreating core learning assets.

These self-contained elements might include eLearning modules, instructional videos, learning activities, diagnostics or assessments that can be integrated across different learning journeys. The contextualised elements might include course introduction videos, case studies, capstone activities and synchronous sessions like webinars, which can easily be adjusted for the specific course context.  

Reusable Elements	Recontextualised Elements
eLearning modules  Expert videos  Readings  Diagnostics Theory assessments	Course introductions  Intro videos  Work integrated learning tasks  Case studies  Webinars and guest speakers

To maximise modularity in your reusable elements:

• Define clear learning objectives for each content piece.

• Create stand-alone topic videos that do not contain references to the learning journey, broader course context and references to the other activities in the courses. 

• Design assessment templates. Action planning frameworks are a great example of an applicable assessment that can be adapted to multiple contexts. 

Using neutral, inclusive language and avoiding overly specific examples ensures your content remains relevant across diverse applications. This approach reduces development time and costs while maintaining quality standards.

Establish a Tiered Content Structure

Many course providers waste valuable resources starting from scratch with each new program. Building a well-organised digital content library provides teams with ready-to-deploy assets that can be contextualised as needed. Consider organising your content library into these tiers:

• Foundation: Broadly applicable content covering universal concepts, principles, and skills.

• Application: Content demonstrating practical applications across different contexts.

• Specialisation: Industry-specific or advanced application content.

This tiered approach delivers numerous business benefits:

• Supports progressive learning journeys with clear pathways from fundamentals to specialised applications.

• Clarifies which content is most reusable and which requires adaptation.

• Dramatically reduces rework time.

• Ensures quality control for research-backed content.

• Facilitates collaboration when multiple team members work across programs.

• Streamlines content updates and adaptation.

Build Contextual Wrappers

The magic that transforms modular content into cohesive learning experiences happens through contextual wrappers. Effective contextual wrappers connect concepts to relevant industry applications, giving a feeling that the content was built for the learning journey and learners. This in turn creates a greater level of engagement from learners and higher level of value to the course. Contextual wrappers also ensure content functions effectively across different delivery modes, such as virtual, face-to-face, or blended learning environments. 

Take this example: A module on AI Ethics introduces learners to key ethical considerations in the use of AI, including bias, transparency, accountability, data privacy, and human oversight. While the foundational content remains similar, the context, examples, and activities can be tailored depending on the course. This might take shape as a business-focused course exploring AI integration, a finance course addressing AI in decision-making and risk analysis, or a course supporting individuals in applying AI tools in their daily work.

Implement Version Control and Reuse Principles 

As a content library grows, systematic version control becomes an essential part of a reusable content strategy. When the same modules or videos are being used in multiple courses, update protocols are necessary to ensure all simultaneously benefit from the improvements. Version control stems from team alignment and a shared understanding of the philosophy behind the reusable content strategy. 

This protocol approach requires alignment on: 

• When to create new content versus reusing or recontextualising existing materials.

• Standards for documentation of learning content.

• How to design and contribute to the shared content library that enhances reusability.

Final Tips for Implementation 

Creating and implementing a reusable content strategy requires thoughtful planning and considerations. You may not necessarily reap the benefits of the strategy initially, but over time the ability to scale courses with efficiency provides opportunities for long-term investment. 

To begin implementing: 

• Start with an audit of your current content to identify high-value, reusable and recontextualised components.

• Pilot the approach with a small subset of courses before scaling.

• Assign someone to ensure quality and consistency are maintained throughout your content library.

• Invest in the right tools for content management, version control, and course recontextualisation. 

By embracing a strategy, short course providers can significantly reduce content development time and costs while maintaining high-quality, contextually relevant learning experiences for diverse audiences. Start by thinking beyond courses as one-off projects. Instead, ask: "How can this content live beyond today through an effective reusable strategy?" This shift in mindset transforms content from a recurring expense into a valuable business asset that appreciates over time.