Section 1 of the UCL Digital Education Baseline focuses on Moodle Structure and Navigation, highlighting the importance of clear course layout, consistent structure, and well-organised content.  While these recommendations may initially appear to focus on visual tidiness, their value becomes clearer when we consider how students read, navigate, and make sense of text on screen.

Research from the Nielsen Norman Group (Moran, 2020), based on decades of usability testing, shows that people scan and skim web content rather than read every word. Similar patterns appear in higher education, where Naomi Baron (2017) observes that students multitask and read selectively on screen, while Y.–C. Jian’s (2022) eye-tracking research shows that students rarely re-read, moving quickly through text rather than reading line by line.

These behaviours mean that course design cannot assume careful, linear reading. Instead, it must guide students’ attention to what matters most for learning.

In Moodle, students typically encounter two types of onscreen reading:

1. Navigating through the course structure: headings, sections, activities.
2. Longer-form content: journal articles, instructional text, task descriptions, feedback.

In the first case, scanning is a natural and helpful behaviour as it can help students orient themselves and find information quickly. In the second case, when deeper comprehension is needed, scanning becomes problematic and can create the “illusion of learning”. As Baron (2017) notes, students often feel they are learning effectively on screen while actually engaging with the text more superficially.

This blog explores how intentional design can turn the challenges of onscreen reading into opportunities that help students stay focused, avoid distraction, and engage more deeply with what they read.

Let’s explore each of the four recommendations in Section 1 of the UCL Digital Education Baseline, with examples of how they can be applied in practice.

1.1 Use a consistent template with headings and grouped resources and activities.

A template provides the high-level organisation of the course, setting out where key elements like the overview, weekly content, and assessments are located. When each section of a Moodle course follows a predictable layout, students don’t have to re-learn how to navigate each time. This reduces unnecessary mental effort caused by how information is structured and presented (known as extraneous cognitive load in cognitive load theory), which draws working-memory resources away from the material to be learned. As a result, students can focus on the task rather than searching for it. (Chen, Kalyuga, & Sweller, 2016).

A recurring heading such as “Seminar preparation”, provides a consistent cue, helping students locate information quickly and set expectations. Similarly, grouping related items (for example, a reading, its video, and a discussion forum) helps students see how resources and tasks connect, supporting a clearer sense of purpose. People rarely read sequentially online; they scan the screen looking for information that meets their purpose. The Nielsen Norman Group (Moran, 2020) describe this as goal-driven reading: users move quickly through digital content, trying to find what matters most. For students, the goal might be as simple as “How will I be assessed?” or “What do I need to read this week?”. When this information is buried in long pages or hidden behind several clicks, poor design choices can turn the advantage of scanning into searching, increasing extraneous cognitive load.

Templates, headings, and logical grouping do more than organise content. When thoughtfully applied as learning design cues, they take advantage of how students naturally read on screen, focusing attention and reducing cognitive strain.

1.2 Organise content with descriptive and short titles and overviews to convey purpose and relevance.

Descriptive titles and short overviews are powerful learning design cues because they support how students scan for relevance and decide where to focus their attention. As Nielsen’s research shows (Moran, 2020), the depth of attention readers give online depends on several factors, and a sense of relevance plays a key role in whether they slow down and engage. That’s exactly why purposeful titles and concise overviews matter: they signal relevance immediately, helping direct attention and encouraging students to shift from scanning to meaningful engagement.

Compare these two examples:

Example 1: Slides: Week 3  – Read the slides and complete the exercise

Example 2: Week 3 Slides: Tort Law – Negligence and Liability

• Review the slides to consolidate your understanding of duty of care, breach, causation, and damage.
• For each of the three cases in the slides, identify the facts that relate to each element. Use the template provided and bring your notes to the seminar.

Example 1 gives students no sense of what the slides actually cover or how the exercise connects to the week’s learning. The instructional text gives no context and fails to signal relevance. By contrast, Example 2 makes scanning effortless: the purposeful title and short overview act as cues that guide attention and reduce the mental effort needed to work out what students are expected to do – a simple but powerful form of cognitive support.

Using a standard naming convention across all activities and resources helps students recognise patterns and orient themselves more quickly. Imagine a Moodle page where one resource is called “Week 2 Quiz,” another is “Answer the questions,” and a third is just “Understanding this week’s readings.” All three might be quizzes, but how is the student supposed to know that at a glance?

As Moort (2025) notes, online readers must interpret multiple layers of text, links, and multimodal information to locate what is relevant and meaningful. When the structure or signals that guide this process are unclear, cognitive load increases because readers must work harder to orient themselves and interpret how information connects.

To support learning, titles and overviews must do more than label content; they must make its purpose clear, so students instantly understand why it matters.

1.3 Help students track their progress independently by enabling completion tracking.

One challenge of online learning is the absence of natural progress cues such as physical page counts or classroom reminders (Baron, 2017; Nichols, 2016). Without these markers, it becomes harder for students to plan their study time or judge how much remains.

Completion tracking in Moodle turns progress into visible information rather than something students must remember or reconstruct, freeing them to focus on planning and learning.

As Sweller (2005) notes, instructional design can act as an external organiser that reduces the need for learners to hold or reconstruct structure in working memory. Instead of thinking, “Did I do that reading?” or “Have I completed the Week 3 quiz?”, students can see their progress immediately, freeing up mental capacity to focus on the learning itself.

Over time, these visual cues can support the development of self-regulated learning, especially when students use them to reflect on their progress, plan next steps, and manage their workload (Zimmerman, 2002).

1.4 Avoid overloading the course homepage or including excessive text-based content.

When a course is crowded with dense text, too many options, or visual clutter, students must spend extra mental energy just figuring out where to begin. This can lead to two different challenges:

1.When too much information is presented at once, students may struggle to absorb it.

Cognitive Load Theory reminds us that working memory can hold only a small amount of information at a time when dealing with new material; therefore, reducing extraneous load is a key strategy to support understanding.

Chunking can help with managing information load. However, chunking isn’t about splitting long text or formatting alone; it’s about organising information around key concepts or stages in the learning process.

When students are told simply “Read this article”, they must decide for themselves what the key ideas are, why it matters, and how it connects to the week’s learning. That ambiguity increases extraneous cognitive load before learning has even begun. A short scaffold, such as a two-sentence overview or guiding questions, directs attention and  and helps students process the material more efficiently.

Turning a continuous wall of text into “chunks” controls the pace of reading, counterbalances scanning, and reduces unnecessary processing, creating better conditions for students to connect ideas (Sweller, 1988).

2.On-screen environments naturally invite multitasking, and divided attention can disrupt the sustained focus needed for comprehension.

Building on Sweller’s (2005) work showing how digital and multimedia formats can increase cognitive load, Nichols (2016) highlights how scrolling, navigation, hyperlinks, and other distractions can trigger multitasking, making it harder for students to process and retain information.

Keeping essential links close to the relevant idea where their purpose is immediately clear and moving optional ones to the end of the section, helps maintain attention and reduce the mental effort spent navigating rather than learning (Sweller, 2005).

Final thoughts
When courses are cluttered, inconsistent, or hard to navigate, even high-quality materials lose their impact. Providing structure isn’t about tidiness, it’s about recognising that the digital medium shapes how students read, search, and make sense of information. When we design with that in mind (accounting for scanning, filtering, and the limits of attention and working memory) we can use structure, clarity, and cues to create conditions that support focus and understanding.

Reference:

1. Baron, N. S. (2017). Reading in a digital age. Phi Delta Kappan, 99(2), 15-20. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0031721717734184 (Original work published 2017), (Accessed: 29 October 2025).
2. Chen, O., Kalyuga, S. and Sweller, J. (2016) ‘When Instructional Guidance is Needed’, Educational and Developmental Psychologist, 33(2), pp. 149–162. Available at: doi: 10.1017/edp.2016.16. (Accessed: 10 October 2025).
3. Jian, YC. Reading in print versus digital media uses different cognitive strategies: evidence from eye movements during science-text reading. Read Writ 35, 1549–1568 (2022). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-021-10246-2  (Accessed: 20/10/2025).
4. Moran, K. (2020) How people read online: New and old findings. Nielsen Norman Group. Available at: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-people-read-online/ (Accessed: 20/10/2025).
5. Nichols, M. (2016) “Reading and Studying on the Screen: An Overview of Literature Towards Good Learning Design Practice”, Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning, 20(1), pp. 33–43. Available at: doi: https://jofdl.nz/index.php/JOFDL/article/view/263. (Accessed: 29 October 2025).
6. Sweller, J. (2005) ‘Implications of Cognitive Load Theory for Multimedia Learning’, in R. Mayer (ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology), pp. 19–30. Available at: Cognitive Load During Problem Solving: Effects on Learning – Sweller – 1988 – Cognitive Science – Wiley Online Library (Accessed: 29 October 2025).
7. van Moort, M.L., de Bruïne, A. and van den Broek, P. (2025) ‘Reading comprehension in an online world: Challenges, opportunities, and implications for education’, Teaching and Learning in Action. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.70006 (Accessed: 29 October 2025).
8. Zimmerman, B. J. (2002) ‘Becoming a Self-Regulated Learner: An Overview’, Theory Into Practice, 41(2), pp. 64–70. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1207/s15430421tip4102_2 (Accessed: 20/10/2025).

Podcast series: Behind the scenes of curriculum design

Listen to the episode: Humanising online learning through podcasting

“Presence” is one of the most powerful yet overlooked elements of online teaching. In many digital courses, significant attention is given to content, structure, and assessments, while less attention is paid to how students experience the teacher’s human presence.

In this episode, I talk with Caitlin Mullin, former producer of UCL’s flagship climate podcast Generation One. We explore how podcasting can support presence in online learning and what transforms a simple audio file into a podcast, highlighting the intentional choices that help audio feel personal, engaging, and meaningful for learners.

As you’ll hear in our conversation, podcasting is a simple, flexible way for educators to reach students and create a more human learning experience. This episode is an invitation to academic staff developing online courses to experiment; even small, imperfect beginnings can add value to students’ sense of connection.

This is my first attempt at podcasting and far from perfect, but that’s exactly the point: creating something small, learning from it, and improving with the help of expert advice.

How I made this episode

• I used MS Teams to record the conversation, both of us used a UCL standard headset with microphone.
• I converted the MP4 file into an MP3 using a free software called CloudConvert
• I edited the file using a free software called Audacity

Want to try podcasting?

• If you want to get started with podcasting, there is a session available in February as part of the DigiEd digital skills development . Alternatively, you can book a one to one session with Rebecca Wilson.
• You can also browse UCL Linkedin Learning for courses on Audacity and Podcasting.
• If you want to book the free podcasting studio, please contact the Educational Media team at video@ucl.ac.uk

Thank you to Caitlin Mullin, Rebecca Wilson, Matt Aucott and Ahmad Athar for their feedback and encouragement.

 

The landscape of Higher Education has undergone a significant transformation in recent years, with online learning becoming an increasingly popular choice among adults. Recent publications including What do higher education students want from online learning? (2023) or Shaping the Future of Online Learning (2024) have highlighted the need for improvements in several key areas to enhance the quality and effectiveness of online education.

While academics bring essential expertise and deep knowledge of their content areas, transitioning to online learning environments can be challenging. This is where Learning Designers can help, offering specialised skills to optimise students’ online learning experience.

A common misconception about Learning Designers

Learning Designers are sometimes seen as tech-savvy professionals who manage the technical aspects of course delivery, such as uploading materials to platforms, video editing, or even coding. This perspective is understandable given the prominent role that digital technology plays in online learning; however, this perception can prevent academics from fully use the Learning Designers’ expertise.

Learning Designers are educational specialists with expertise in adult learning in online environments. Their primary focus is planning, designing, and strategically using educational technology to support teaching and learning.

Understanding the role of Learning Designers

Given their expertise, Learning Designers recognise that different modes of delivering education require distinct approaches.

While the foundational principles of learning are consistent across face-to-face and online contexts, directly replicating in-person methods online doesn’t work. For example, traditional classrooms benefit from face-to-face interactions, spontaneous discussions, and non-verbal cues. In the absence of these elements, online environments rely on technology to mediate interactions. This shift requires tailored strategies to engage students, maintain motivation, and ensure accessibility and success for all learners, regardless of background or ability.

Learning Designers can play a pivotal role in this process as they are skilled at tailoring the learning experience to meet the needs, challenges and motivations of adult learners and can combine pedagogy and technology to effectively support desired learning outcomes.

Technology meets pedagogy

Learning Designers typically work across different academic subjects but are not subject matter experts. Instead, they partner with academics to translate their expertise into engaging online courses.

Platforms like Moodle, for example, exemplify the potential of technology to support a learner-centred approach, allowing instructional strategies that combine passive and active learning. A passive learning activity might involve students watching a pre-recorded lecture or reading an article, where they absorb information independently. This can be complemented by an active learning component, such as summarising the content of the article, or participating in a discussion forum where students are encouraged to contribute their thoughts and engage in peer-to-peer dialogue.

However, academic presence remains a critical component of online courses. Tutors provide essential guidance, offer timely and constructive feedback, and support students in navigating the course material.

This integrated approach is linked to improved educational outcomes and a more engaging learning experience.

Designing for synchronous and asynchronous learning

Flexibility is crucial when designing online courses, particularly for adult learners who often require adaptable learning schedules or may join from different time zones.

Learning Designers focus on creating a seamless blend of synchronous and asynchronous components to maintain learner engagement while providing flexibility. They achieve this by assessing (in collaboration with academics) which activities are best suited for asynchronous delivery or synchronous interaction.

Moreover, Learning Designers can assist and address common challenges typically affecting synchronous sessions—such as students feeling unprepared or overwhelmed—by designing robust asynchronous activities that build the necessary knowledge and skills beforehand and by ensuring that activities build on each other and clearly align to the intended outcomes.

This careful blending of synchronous and asynchronous elements, coupled with well-designed support mechanisms like clear instructions, timely feedback, and additional resources, ensures that learners are equipped to actively participate and succeed in both activities.

Learning design is a collaborative endeavour

At UCL, we know that a great online course requires a carefully crafted experience that considers every aspect of the learner’s journey. That’s why Learning Designers work together with a team of experts.

We partner with academics to translate their expertise into engaging content and ensure learning outcomes are met. We work closely with Learning Technologists to select and implement digital tools, providing a seamless technical experience for staff and students. We liaise with multimedia developers and graphic designers when the course requires the production of assets such as video, animations, or interactive simulations.

This multi-faceted approach ensures that online courses are relevant, pedagogically sound, technically robust, accessible, and aesthetically appealing.

Ready to enhance your online course? Contact us to discover how our Learning Designers can help you create an engaging and effective learning experience.

 

Online Learning is a rapidly expanding area in higher education around the world. While it became a necessity during the pandemic, an increasing number of students and short course learners are choosing to study their degrees fully online. Currently UCL offers around 40 postgraduate programmes with a significant distance learning component, just over half of which are delivered fully remotely.

As such, we’re setting up an Online Learning Community of Practice (OLCoP; catchy, we know) to bring together staff who teach and support online programmes, modules, and short courses at UCL.

At this stage, OLCoP is an informal group, and we hope to use regular meetings and the Teams space to:

• Share best practices in online teaching and learning
• Build a communication hub between academic departments, central, and local services
• Identify and recommend professional development opportunities
• Disseminate new and changing information relating to policy, quality assurance, pedagogies, technology, and more
• Ensure that issues relating to equity, diversity, and inclusion in online learning are properly represented
• Gather actionable feedback from staff and students regarding online learning experiences.

You can join our Teams space to see information about upcoming events.

We will be holding our first meeting of OLCoP on 13th March 2024 at 2:30pm.

This first meeting will take place as a hybrid event and act as an opportunity to get to know other staff teaching and developing online courses.

Those who wish to attend in person can join us at the training suite at the Anna Freud Centre, not too far from King’s Cross station, while those who prefer to join online can do so via Teams. We will have facilitators in both spaces.

You can register to attend using the form linked above.

We hope you can join us!

On the 10^th and 11^th July, Tim Otway and I attended in-person The University of Leeds’ first ever Online Learning Summit, where we met a number of other colleagues from other institutions and went to a series of presentations throughout both days. The agenda was broad ranging, though it could roughly be categorised into three themes: creating design ecosystems, extending accessibility and enabling lifelong learning.

Firstly, we received an overview of the current outlook within HE online learning from Neil Mosley, and later from Sam Brenton, Melissa Highton and others. They spoke about witnessing steady growth in demand for online learning in the UK, as well as more rapid growth abroad. Sam Brenton mentioned that UK institutions are in a good place to take advantage of increased demand but must capitalise quickly. Neil Mosley foresaw the slow decline of MOOCs as interest intensifies in more flexible, stackable programs such as micro credentials – a topic that featured prominently in the summit. During the event participants grappled with formulating a ‘manifesto’ to standardise the regulation and awarding of micro credentials. Melissa Highton mentioned that while micro credentials still remain relatively unknown, CPD courses are the most highly searched for online. Data shows that learners typically want CPD that is badged, accredited and associated with a known brand or institution.

We also heard from educators who have enjoyed great success as online-only institutions, such as Joann Kozyrev, VP at Western Governors University, who spoke about moving away from the ‘time served’ model to great effect: allowing learners to progress once they meet the completion requirements rather than inflexible time markers. In their case, students pay a fixed fee for 6 months of learning, within which time they can take as many or as few credits as they wish.

Given the novel nature of a lot of challenges faced in the sector, the summit focused on a number of original and effective problem-solving techniques. One notable technique was Aaron Kessler’s learning engineering process which emphasised the continual need to “close the loop” between the stages of challenge, creation, implementation and investigation.  We also learnt about the differences between systems thinking, design thinking and futures thinking, and participated in Leah Henrickson’s “What-if” experiment, brainstorming possible future scenarios in 5-year increments.

The summit then attempted to apply these problem-solving techniques directly to a few of the challenges, specifically: AI and ethics, the nature of assessment, and accessibility integration. Donald Clark asked whether considerations over ethics in AI are doing more harm than good. He pointed out that the more cautious countries risk falling behind unnecessarily, since regulatory efforts are unlikely to be successful. Later, a panel debated the role of assessment and whether online learning had any chance of moving away from the grade-centred approach that dominates most of the education sector. Ultimately, they concluded that assessment remains a necessary tool to show that learning has taken place. Lasty, we heard from course alumni on how accessibility had improved their course experience. They emphasised that accessibility should be embedded from the start of programme development, rather than treated as an afterthought.

Overall, the conference was well organised and successful at balancing its in-person and online audiences. The experience was greatly enhanced by the attendance of a digital artist who drew live tableaus during each talk, helping to illustrate and reinforce key concepts.

To support faculty in designing and teaching their online courses in the next terms, learning designers Alexandra Mihai and Heather Serdar from the Online Education team are offering in the next months a series of four new workshops aimed at providing practical guidance for designing and managing learning activities using both synchronous and asynchronous modalities.

The workshops have been designed as stand-alone 90-minute sessions but attending all four of them provides a 360 degrees perspective on the online teaching experience- from design to delivery, including a curated selection of resources and customisable templates.

Synchronous online teaching

Orchestrating synchronous interactions in the virtual classroom needs to be more intentionally planned than in a face-to-face environment. Setting clear goals and understanding where live sessions can bring the most added value to the learning experience is an important starting point. A well-managed live online teaching session can create opportunities for engagement and conversation.

The session on “Designing synchronous learning activities” provides practical guidance on how to design synchronous online learning sessions, including creating a variety of learning activities to engage students throughout the session, deciding what interaction channels to use and setting up effective mechanism for moderation and time management.

To complement it, the session on “Teaching synchronous classes” focuses on creating a community of practice, setting learner expectations of synchronous learning and teaching and managing groups in synchronous sessions.

Asynchronous online teaching

The online space can provide a flexible learning environment, without space and time constraints. Learning takes place also beyond the virtual classroom. In order to make sure students are motivated and engaged, asynchronous learning activities have to be carefully designed and managed.

The session on “Designing asynchronous learning activities” offers practical guidance on designing and sequencing asynchronous learning activities. Participants will have the opportunity to zoom into the actual activity design process and discuss how to create different individual and group learning activities, how to communicate them clearly to students and how to embed them into the overall course.

Moving on to the more practical aspects, the fourth session of the series, “Teaching with asynchronous learning activities” provides the opportunity to discuss communities of learning, learn about different activities that are appropriate for various subject areas and identify functions in Moodle that support asynchronous learning.

Here is the schedule of the new workshops. You can register here.

Wednesday, 4 November Wednesday, 9 December	12:00- 13:30	Designing synchronous learning activities
Tuesday, 10 November	13:00- 14:30	Teaching synchronous classes
Tuesday, 24 November	14:00- 15:30	Designing asynchronous learning activities
Wednesday, 2 December	12:00- 13:30	Teaching with asynchronous learning activities

In addition to the new workshops, Heather and Alexandra will still run two 60-minutes sessions of the Designing Connected Learning Lectures this year, on Wednesday, 18 November, 12:00 and Wednesday, 16 December, 12:00.

We look forward to welcoming you to the workshops and supporting you in designing and teaching your courses.