Why take the Effective Digital Content course?
Earlier this year, the UX Service launched a new version of the Effective Digital Content (EDC) online course. This blog outlines why the course matters and how it supports anyone involved in creating or managing digital content across the University.
In today’s digital world, information is constantly competing for attention. At the University, we publish a large volume of digital content. In such a busy environment, it’s crucial that what we create truly works for our audiences. The EDC course helps us do exactly that.
In a content-heavy world, effective content matters
People likely arrive at our content already juggling notifications, distractions, and demanding tasks. Their cognitive load may be high, so our content must be as clear as possible.
It’s important digital content is:
- easy to use, understand and find
- user-centred
- consistent
- accessible
Clarity is essential, not optional. Effective content respects people’s time, helps them complete tasks quickly and delivers the right information at the right moment.
The EDC course helps you create content that is findable, understandable, and genuinely useful.
The course is for anyone who contributes to digital content
EDC is designed for anyone who creates, updates or contributes to digital content. That includes staff in communications and marketing, but also researchers, academics, professional services staff, service owners, managers and interns.If your work touches web content in any way, the course provides practical, actionable skills you can apply immediately.
What the course involves
The course includes six modules, as well as a practical workbook with an exercise for each:
- Understanding what your content is for
- Creating accessible content
- Writing effective headings
- Getting link text right
- Working with the style guide
- Maintaining your content
What you’ll gain from the course
We’ve picked out a few clear benefits of taking the course.
It’s a chance to refresh your knowledge
This course is a great opportunity to refresh your knowledge, whether it’s your first time taking it or you’re coming back for a refresher. It’s always useful to revisit and practice the principles that make digital content effective.
We’ve focused on making the guidance clearer, more engaging, and easier to apply. We’ve also updated some of the guidance to reflect best practice and where the core guidance hasn’t changed, we’ve tried to explain it in a way that’s easier to understand and remember, and put into practice.
If you’ve taken the previous version of EDC, the refreshed examples, exercises, and explanations make it worthwhile to revisit, and you may pick up something new along the way.
Tailored and actionable feedback is provided
A key new feature of the course is the personalised feedback you receive on your workbook. This guidance is designed to help you apply what you’ve learned directly to your real-world publishing tasks, making the learning feel personal and relevant.
So far, learners have consistently highlighted this as one of the most helpful parts of the course. They say it boosts their confidence and gives them clear, actionable next steps for improving their content. It’s been rewarding to see people finish the course feeling supported and better equipped in their content work. Even better, it’s been great to see them making meaningful improvements to their pages based on the reflection and practical tasks they complete in the workbook.
Earn a digital badge
Another benefit of the updated course is the introduction of a digital badge awarded upon completion of the workbook. This BadgEd (Open Digital Badges) accreditation recognises the skills and effort you’ve put into the course. It can also be shared on LinkedIn or professional platforms, or to support your continuing professional development.
Mainly, the badge helps highlight your commitment to clear, effective communication, something increasingly important across all roles in the University.
You can find out more about the BadgEd scheme on their web page.
How to take the course
If you’d like to take the Effective Digital Content course, you can find more information on our course page, including a link to enroll through People and Money.
Insights and reflections on building the course
You can explore our process for creating the new EDC course and read about lessons learned from its launch in our previous blog posts:
- Our six-part series on building the Effective Digital Content course
- Six practical tips: what we learnt building a new online course
- Six months of the Effective Digital Content online course
