Howdy Biologists!
Change seems to be the name of the game here at Learn Adventurously! Going into the start of the year, I did a huge update of the backend and design of the site to improve speed.
2 months ago we started the Learn Adventurously webinar series, providing free biology training to anyone with an internet connection.
1 week ago we finished massively updated our resource library. Creating handouts in a new style, introducing our name-your-price pricing model, and massively improving the visual interface.
Now, I am beyond pleased to announce our overhaul of the Learn Adventurously courses!
Truth be told. I had a huge issue with our old courses. Fundamentals of R for Biologists and Fundamental Biostatistics were both information packed, dense courses. However, the amount of information proved to be a massive barrier. Students were completing only 1 or 2 sections before stopping.
Additionally, from multiple conversations I found many students only wanted the information from a single section. Feeling they were wasting their money learning about the basics of R and what objects are, when all they wanted to know was ggplot2. This also made the price point very awkward to place, as I was stuck between market value of the courses (>$300-$500usd) and wanting to keep them affordable.
Luckily, I believe I found the solution
Learn Adventurously Training Programs
Both my previous courses have now been split into the Learn Adventurously Training Programs. Programs are a collection of smaller courses designed to teach you a single subject in depth. We have appropriately named our 2 programs: Fundamentals of R for Biologists and Fundamental Biostatistics.
Users can purchase these smaller courses individually or bundle them together for a discounted program price.
If you already were previously enrolled in a course, you have been automatically enrolled the corresponding program.
Within each program, we offer a variety of courses. These courses are the exact same material from the previous courses, where each section has been made into a course. The course content has stayed largely the same, however we are going through all the material to ensure the written text makes appropriate references to material. Here is an example of the program offering:
- Program: Fundamental Biostatistics
- Course 0: Getting Started with R and Rstudio
- Course 1: Basics of R
- Course 2: Simple Data Manipulation
- Course 3: Intro to tidyverse
- Course 4: Cleaning Data and Creating Pipelines
- Course 5: logic, Custom functions, and apply()
- Course 6: Intro to ggplot2
Completing courses awards you with a unique course completion badge, while completing the program awards you with the certificate previously attached to the overall course. To complete the program, you must pass each of the requisite courses Mastery Checks. Once you do, a final Certification Mastery Check will unlock on the program page. Passing this check will award you with a certification of completion! For the Fundamental Biostatistics Course, we added 3 new Mastery Checks after each of the courses!
If you completed any of the mastery checks in the old courses your progress has been transferred. e.g. If you passed the Mastery Check for Section 1: Basics of R from the old Fundamentals of R for Biologists course, you have now completed the new Basics of R course. If you passed the final mastery check for either of the courses, your have now completed all courses and the program certification mastery check!
This new system has several huge benefits:
- More affordable course offerings (individual courses retail $35)
- More flexibility in user choice (Learn what you want to learn!)
- Less pressure to purchase an entire course (Lower price threshold)
- Greater interchangeability (smaller courses are much easier to plug into multiple programs)
- Much easier to create free courses (Getting Started in R +Rstudio as an example!)
- Can create one-off small courses as add-ons or for future programs (less pressure on me for course creation!)
- Easier pricing on my end (Single course is $35. Programs sum up all the courses and apply a discount)
I could go on and on! I genuinely believe this update will have profound effects for Learn Adventurously and for you. It fits in much better with my long term goals, and offers the users a greatly improved experience. Which brings me up to our next huge update.
Introducing the Course Dashboard
Having users access courses has always been a struggle. There’s multiple plugins that all need to speak to one another and they often disagree with what I want as course creator! Our previous solution was essentially a list of courses in the user account page. This worked when I only offered 2 courses, but now a user enrolled in our programs may have 10 or more courses. This list needed to change!
At 8 pm last night, I stumbled upon Learndash Dashboard, immediately bought a lifetime license, and incorporated it into the site. You can now access all information about your enrolled courses at learnadv.com/course-dashboard
Here, you have a single area to track all your enrolled courses, assignments, certificates, and really anything related to the courses and programs offered on Learn Adventurously! I want to make the user experience top notch above everything else and this is making huge strides to do so.
For me, this dashboard brings some much needed capabilities for the long term success of Learn Adventurously. I am able to accept applications for new instructors, have greatly improved communication for when we offer live courses, and I have far greater control for how I offer courses here on the site. Expect updates to the styling and display as I have more time to devote to this project. This has been a huge undertaking that I am glad to have wrapped up.
I’ve been busting butt resetting up the foundation for Learn Adventurously so that I can focus on many next steps in life. Finishing my Masters thesis being the highest priority. There are some big steps I am taking Learn Adventurously and my career. Stay tuned for more.
-D