Creating Courses for LinkedIn Learning

As a LinkedIn Learning author, one of the most common questions I am asked is: "How does one become an author for LinkedIn Learning?"

I wish there was a concise answer to this question. There isn't. The first video course one does for LinkedIn Learning is either through a query you submit to LinkedIn Learning or you are referred to them by a fellow author or other industry sources. From there a very carefully constructed process starts. Having worked within that process for several years it still amazes me that people think we simply flame up the microphone and start recording. Far from it.

What follows is the story of my latest course: A deep dive into Adobe's Experience Design, which was recorded the week of March 2, 2019, at LinkedIn Learning's Carpenteria, California location.

How a course gets started

The journey to the recording booth started back in mid-November when, during a regular check-in call with my Content Manager, the conversation inevitably got around to my Adobe Experience Design course. We both agreed that it was difficult to keep the course current with the regular monthly updates being added by Adobe. Our initial discussion revolved around a series of updates that I was planning. It was at this point, when we were determining where the updates were to go, that it became evident the course needed an entire redo.

The first step in the process, for the creation of any course at LinkedIn Learning, was to create a Table of Contents (TOC). The best way to look at a TOC is to regard it as a lesson plan. The Chapters are the topics and the chapter subheads are the learning objects that support the topic. These learning objects are the subject of each video to be recorded. They should build upon each other and guide the learner toward an understanding of the chapter’s topic. When you look at a LinkedIn Learning course you can see this structure. 

The other aspect of course design is determining the make-up of your audience. If you are dealing with absolute beginners or casual users, the course will be quite a bit different from one aimed at Advanced users. Thus, a prior knowledge assumption determines what is to be presented. I have always worked with absolute beginners which means the subjects must be presented in a logical manner and with a minimum of what I call “Techie Talk”. Techie Talk is industry jargon and abbreviations. To me, that has to be kept to an absolute minimum to avoid confusing the learner.

When dealing with my subject matter - design software- I have to ask myself: What does the student need to know by the end of the chapter and how do I get them there? For this course, the first chapter is getting familiar with the Adobe Experience Design interface. This was easier said than done. When explaining an interface there are a lot of considerations:

1. What is important?
2. What are the core concepts to be presented?
3. Are there items that can be presented, in greater depth, later in the course?

The result was 20 separate subheads for that one chapter or 20 separate videos to be recorded.  That may not seem like much but one of the fundamental rules at LinkedIn Learning is no video should be longer than 8 minutes in length. There is a lot of research behind this rule and, at LinkedIn, the shorter the better. I try to keep all of mine to between 4 and 5 minutes. You also need to supply your Content Manager with a rough approximation of the duration of each video. Thus my first chapter was going to come in around 1 hour and the whole six-chapter course was going to clock in at roughly 3.5 to 4.5 hours.

I usually send this to my Content Manager, and, after a bit of finessing, the course is moved onto a formal LinkedIn Learning spreadsheet where each chapter and video is listed along with a brief description of the video to be recorded. This spreadsheet essentially locks the course into place though authors do have a bit of latitude to add or delete subjects. Once this is accepted, the easy part of the process is now complete- Proposal, Outline and Formal Outline- which means the really hard work begins. This planning process was completed by mid-December.

Creating the course content

Each piece of a chapter requires two elements- a script and the actual exercise to be used by the viewer during the lesson. I usually spend a couple of weeks researching the course. This involves not only reviewing how others have approached the topic but also poking around a variety of sites to get a deeper understanding of what the viewers may be struggling with or new approaches to the subject that I may not have considered. This includes looking at what other LinkedIn Learning authors have done just to be sure I am not duplicating anything. Another great resource for me is Adobe, itself. They are constantly putting out video tutorials around XD and inevitably provide a nugget of information that I hadn’t considered.

The next step is something I do. I pick a theme to provide a bit of continuity to the course. I settled on a recent trip I had made to the Canadian Province of Newfoundland. In the past, I have used trips to China, California, Switzerland and other places I have been as the theme for the course. The reason simple: Imaging.

When producing commercial work, the issue of copyright and ownership is always present. Grabbing Google Images or lifting images from web pages or other sources is forbidden. The reason is it leaves one open to copyright infringement law suits. Thus, I have two choices: Use stock images accessed through LinkedIn Learning or use my own stuff. Even then, I have to be extremely careful to use images in which people appear. If a person is in the photo, a release has to be obtained. This explains why I photograph a lot of scenery and, if a person is to be used, that photo is obtained through LinkedIn Learning.

This copyright and release issue appeared really early in the research process. Adobe Experience Design included plug-ins from a variety of third-party sources. One such plug-in was UI Faces which allows one to generate avatars from a variety of stock image sources. I did my research to ensure anything used from UI Faces was copyright-free. The saving grace here is the actual images are not downloaded to the computer. This avoided any potential copyright issues but, even so, I made LinkedIn Learning aware of this and asked if there were any issues.

The next step is creating the content to be used in each of the 60 videos in the course. How I approach this step is to create the asset and then write the script. This phase took about three weeks to complete.

The asset usually involves, for example, creating the interface for the lesson and then documenting the steps required to complete the lesson. This explains why, in certain of the courses I produce, the chapter’s Exercise Folder contains the various documents to be used during the lesson and, in a separate Complete folder, a completed version of the project. The Completed version gives the viewer the opportunity to check a complete version of the exercise to identify anything he or she may have missed during the exercise.

I have found this process to be an invaluable personal workflow because I am able to identify the "pain points" that may be encountered. It also lets me discover the lesson may be too complex and will require more than the maximum time allowed. At this point, I either have to simplify the lesson or, if it is fundamental to the viewer's learning, break the lesson into two parts.

Writing the scripts

Once I have solved that issue, I then “flame up” a script template I use and write the script as I move through the lesson. The style I use for the script is conversational but focussed on the task at hand. This is not exactly easy to do because there is a tendency to get too casual or to show off. I try to keep in mind how I would explain the technique in a classroom filled with first-year students or people that have never used the application.  

I fell into this trap when I did my first video series for Lynda.com. I had finished the first recording and was feeling pretty good. My producer told me to redo it and laid down the best piece of advice he ever gave me: “Nobody cares how clever you are, Tom. They are here to learn something.” You might want to keep that nugget in mind if you are thinking of doing your own video tutorials.

I will go through the script a couple of times making sure it has the correct flow and looking for words I may stumble over. It is also a great way of rehearsing how you will present the lesson. One interesting aspect around  the template I use is that each page of the script is roughly equal to 1 minute of narration. Anything more than 5 pages has me go through the script with an eye to either redoing it or reviewing the steps looking for efficiencies.

When the exercises and scripts are completed, they are uploaded to LinkedIn Learning for review and to ensure they have the course content before I arrive. One thing I always do is to back up the scripts and content to both a portable hard drive, my laptop, and my Dropbox account. Thus, there are three easily accessible sources for the content should something get corrupted or omitted.

Recording at LinkedInLearning

When I walk into the recording booth at LinkedIn Learning my computer bag contains my laptop, the hard drive, and my iPad. My iPad is important because I use it as a teleprompter for my scripts. In fact, the app I use is Teleprompter. I save an extra copy of each script to my Dropbox account but I save it as a text file. This is the format used by Teleprompter. Though the app does have the ability to scroll automatically at a set rate, I prefer to manually scroll through the script on Teleprompter.

When you enter the recording booth at LinkedIn Learning in Carpenteria you are essentially presented with a headset and a screen. In actual fact, the booth is really two booths: One for the author and the other for your producer. You can see your producer through the window and you talk to each other through your headsets. The producer’s job is to ensure you stick to the recording list on the final spreadsheet and to coach you through the recording process.

Meet The Producer

LinkedIn introduces you to your producer a few weeks before you record your course and his or her job is to ensure you are meeting your deadlines, to ensure your content, exercises, and scripts, make sense and to help resolve any issues you may encounter. The first encounter with your producer is to simply set deadlines for content delivery and, if this is your first time working with LinkedIn Learning, to walk you through their expectations and requirements before you start creating content.

 With that out of the way, we set up a schedule of video conference calls every other week prior to my arrival in Carpenteria. What I most enjoy about working with a Producer is the relationship that develops between you. It is all business but you also get an idea of what their expectations are and they get a real sense around how you approach a course and your personality. Your producer is an invaluable coaching resource and problem solver. At the same time, they are not afraid to step in to tell you where you are going wrong and to suggest changes you may wish to make to the content or your narration.

Over the course of the week, I spent working with my producer he really only had to jump in a couple of times and suggest I redo a segment either because I messed up a couple of sentences or he felt the exercise was a bit convoluted. At that point, we both discuss a solution and away we go with a second or even third take.

Naturally, there are always unexpected issues, and this is when you discover the depth of talent in Carpenteria. In one segment, the exercise required voice feedback from the computer. We discovered this was not possible to accomplish with the current recording set up. My producer called in two of the company’s, as he put it, “audio guys” to see if this could be resolved. The first couple of solutions didn’t work. Then one of them had the bright idea of connecting earbuds to the producer’s headset which struck me as a real “MacGyver” solution but it worked like a charm.

Remember that spreadsheet that got the project started? As you record each video the producer is filling in the spreadsheet with the video name and the length of the recording. He is also adding editing notes indicating such things as where to insert screen overlays for URL’s and so on.

What happens after recording

When you finish recording the course and head home, the editing wizards take over. Both the audio and video editors smooth out the bumps and when they finish, the course is handed over to a Tech Editor who may or may not suggest clarifications or changes. From there, the whole thing is added to the course list and released. This usually is between 5 to 8 weeks after all of the final polishing has been completed.

As I tend to say at the end of each video, “So there you have it. How a LinkedIn Learning course gets produced from concept to release.”

Final Words

I hope you now have a sense of what an author does and what LinkedIn Learning does when it comes to video-based course production. There is a lot that goes on months before a course appears on LinkedIn Learning. On my side of the fence, the really hard work is in pulling together the assets, writing the scripts and constantly "tweaking" them before I sit down in the recording booth.

Finally, though this is the process used at LinkedIn Learning, it is also something to consider should you be thinking about doing video tutorials. Keep it short. Stay on topic and remember:

Nobody cares how clever you are. They are there to learn something.