Paul Astles and Catriona Matthews ~ Learning Designers
In our first article on this topic, Innovating Learning Design in Higher Education: Reflections from an International Collaboration, we explored the rationale for the iLED project and why learning outcomes led design matters across diverse higher education contexts. If you haven’t yet had a chance to read it stop here and take a look, but don’t forget to return!
Welcome back, we hope you enjoyed our first blog as much as we enjoyed writing it.
This update provides more detail about what the project has delivered in terms of practical tools, research outputs, and open resources.
Upgrading the learning design concept and tool
The first stage of the project focused on gathering feedback to enhance the Balanced Design Planning (BDP) learning design concept and tool. Through an international evaluation involving 53 educators across four European countries, the project gained insights on usability, analytics, and pedagogical clarity. This resulted in multiple improvements including more flexible workload calculations, clearer analytics visualisations, and improved handling of learning outcomes.
Interoperability was another major strand. The team examined how the BDP could connect with institutional systems and be exported directly into Moodle to easily support course scaffolding.
Key outputs:
- BDP tool: https://learning-design.eu/en/index
- Validation report: https://iLED-project.eu/sites/default/files/2025-12/R.1.3.%20Report%20on%20validation%20of%20BDP%20updates.pdf
- UX research paper: https://oro.open.ac.uk/99852/
- Interoperability report: https://iLED-project.eu/sites/default/files/2025-03/iLED-Interoperability-2025-04-01.docx.pdf
Validating learning design in practice
Here we explored how learning design can support authentic, online and blended teaching and learning. 11 authentic learning scenarios were co‑developed following 13 focus groups with 95 participants from partner institutions. In these groups 34 real teaching scenarios were discussed. These conversations provided insights into benefits, challenges, and enablers for implementing the learning scenarios and informed the creation of evidence-based recommendations for educators and institutions.
Key outputs:
- Authentic learning scenarios pack: https://iLED-project.eu/sites/default/files/2025-12/R.2.1.%20Report%20on%20authentic%20LS.pdf
- Focus group conclusions: https://iLED-project.eu/sites/default/files/2026-02/Focus%20Groups%20-%20general%20conclusions%20and%20recommendations.pdf
Trialling learning design with educators and students
The project also examined how using the BDP Tool can impact staff learning design decisions and support students by transparently communicating these decisions. Across 4 universities, staff redesigned elements of their curriculum using the BDP Tool and, where possible, shared these designs with the students in the redesigned courses. Feedback from 580 students showed that most found access to the course design information useful, particularly for understanding workload and planning study. At the OU, the work also informed internal conversations about communicating workload and alignment more effectively within module design guidance.
Key outputs:
- WP4 summary report: https://iLED-project.eu/sites/default/files/2025-12/R.3.2.%20Summary%20report.pdf
Open professional development and the MOOC
The final work package delivered the Learning Design in the AI Era Massive Online Open Course (MOOC). The MOOC was collaboratively designed by the project partners using the created BDP Tool’s export to Moodle functionality. The course guides educators to explore key learning design practices and principles, innovative pedagogies, evaluation and use of learning analytics, and AI related opportunities and risks. It also supports participants to use the BDP to enhance their learning designs. This self-paced course is still available to access and complete.
Key outputs:
Project-wide resources and What’s Next
We have linked out to a small number of the project outcomes in this blog. For a full list and more information about the iLED project take a look through the project booklet and website. Many of the key learnings from the project are being applied and developed through follow on work in the ‘Streamlining AI in Learning Reimagination’ (SAILeR) project, which is extending AI integration within BDP.
Project summary resources:
- iLED booklet: https://iLED-project.eu/sites/default/files/pdf-flip/iLED/index.html
- iLED website: https://iLED-project.eu
- SAILeR project website: https://sailer-project.eu
Ultimately, the project outputs demonstrate that learning design is not just conceptual work but it can be evaluated, shared with students, and sustained through open professional development.
How do you apply learning design in your context?
Our work at the Open University is well documented through the journey captured by the work we share on this blog and our LinkedIn and BlueSky presence. We are always learning, refining, and developing. We’d love to hear about how you apply learning design concepts in your context. Reach out and co-author a blog article to share your practice across the sector.
Curious about what expert learning design looks like? Ready to refresh or upskill your approach? Our team can help you build consensus, plan strategically, and strengthen your design skills.
Learn more: https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/learning-design/?page_id=2523