The Standard · People, HR and L&D
Online Course Creation
Builds online courses with AI-generated material that is verified before learners see it.
You build online courses from storyboards or briefs through scripts, media, interactions and publication. You use an AI assistant to draft learner-facing material and production assets. It can mislead you with invented facts, weak learning checks, inaccessible content or faulty settings.
The exam for Online Course Creation is not open yet. A skill opens once its questions are approved and tested.
What it measures
Whatever the skill, the exam rates your work in the same six areas of the Standard. Three are for the value you get from the assistant, and three for the control you keep. Each area gets one of 4 ratings (Emerging, Developing, Proficient, Accomplished). For Online Course Creation, a strong performance looks like this. What each area includes and excludes.
Value
What you get from the assistant: how far it takes the work, how well you brief it, and the piece you hand in.
- Reaching further
You use AI to anticipate learner questions, compare learning activities and expose gaps before learners see the material.
Using the assistant to produce work beyond what you could have produced alone, rather than the same work faster.
- Briefing the assistant
You brief the assistant with learners, outcomes, source content, format, duration and required course components.
Giving the assistant the reader, purpose and source facts the work depends on, and the form, length and contents you need back.
- The finished piece
You turn generated drafts into coherent learner experiences by editing scripts, sequencing activities and adding instructional judgement.
Turning the assistant's output into something a colleague could use: editing it, combining it and adding original thinking.
Control
What you keep in hand: checking its work, keeping information safe, and deciding what stays with a person.
- Checking its work
You check generated claims, quiz answers, accessibility text and technical settings against source material before publication.
Checking the assistant's claims, figures and assumptions against the source before the work is used.
- Safety and confidentiality
You keep learner personal data, restricted content and unlicensed media out of prompts and published courses.
Handling confidential and personal data, seeing compliance, ethical and reputational risk, and declining unsafe requests.
- Knowing what to delegate
You keep learning decisions, licensing judgements and publication approval with the right person while delegating bounded production work.
Deciding what to hand to the assistant and what to keep, and at what stakes, before any output exists.
What you do in the exam
Every skill of the Standard is examined the same way, at the same pass mark, in the Applied AI Badge. Two tasks with the assistant and two sets of questions, over 15 minutes. You do real work with an AI assistant beside you, hand in what you would send, then answer follow-up questions about your own work.
- 01
A production-ready course module from a storyboard, with scripts, interactions, media and accessibility text.
- 02
A published course package from approved content, with platform settings, tracking and learner-facing launch materials.
- 03
A pre-launch quality report from a draft course, with functional, learning and accessibility findings.
These are the kinds of task the exam sets. Your exam draws its own from a bank the Examination Board has approved.
- Exam
- Applied AI Badge
- Price
- US$19
- Length
- 15 minutes
- Attempts
- One for each purchase, then a 7-day wait
What the badge certifies
What an employer reads
Passed an Institute exam in online course creation. They briefed the assistant with a storyboard, caught wrong quiz answers, and delivered a publishable module.
You earn it in one exam, never by finishing a course.
- Name on the certificate
- Applied AI Badge: Online Course Creation
- Who it is for
- E-learning developers, L&D professionals, trainers and educators who build and publish digital learning.
- Valid for
- 2 years, then renew
- Verification
- Every badge has a public verification page an employer can open, and a place in the public register if you choose it.
- Marked by
- An AI examiner marks your work against a marking guide and quotes your own words as evidence. A person checks anything borderline.
Near it in the Standard
- Lesson Planning
Plans lessons with AI, aligned to objectives and checked for accuracy and level.
- Assessment Design
Designs assessments with AI and validates that they measure what they claim.
- Instructional Design
Designs learning experiences with AI and keeps pedagogy, not the tool, in the lead.
- Coaching
Coaches with AI as preparation and reflection, never as a substitute for the conversation.
- Mentoring
Mentors with AI-assisted resources and judgement about when advice must be human.
- Career Development
Plans career development with AI and tests its suggestions against real evidence.
- People Management
Manages people with AI-assisted planning and communication while keeping decisions and fairness human.
- Feedback & Performance
Gives feedback and runs performance conversations with AI preparation and human accountability.
Everything in People, HR and L&D, including the level exams that name the whole function.
Practise it before you pay for it
Practice is free (up to 50 sessions a day) and shaped like the exam, with a coach that tells you what to change. It never counts towards a credential, and an exercise you practised is kept out of your exam.
Want to learn it first? AI+ Online Course Creation covers this skill. No book is required to pass.