Courses

Everything you need to know about creating DataCamp courses.

84 articles in this collection
Written by Vincent Vankrunkelsven, Dieter De Mesmaeker, Becca Robins and 6 others

Course creation process

A brief introduction to how we create courses at DataCamp.

Written by Yashas Roy
Updated over a week ago

Content deadlines

Learn why it's critical for courses to have specific delivery dates and consequences for missing those dates.

Written by Yashas Roy
Updated over a week ago

Course Design

Chapter titles: best practices

Tips for writing clear and concise titles for your chapter descriptions.

Written by Joyce Chiu
Updated over a week ago

How and when course content guidelines are checked

Learn how guidelines are applied differently on the different branches of your course

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Exercise-level learning objectives

What types of learning objective can be used for exercises?

Written by Richie Cotton
Updated over a week ago

How to teach writing functions

Good practices on how and when to write functions in coding courses

Written by Amy Peterson
Updated over a week ago

Course design

Learn about the planning process that builds the blueprints or specifications for your course.

Written by Yashas Roy
Updated over a week ago

Curriculum Managers

Learn the role that Curriculum Managers, or CMs, play in creating DataCamp courses.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Course README template

Get an overview of the course README template that you will use to guide course design.

Written by Yashas Roy
Updated over a week ago

Problem solving

Come up with problems that students will solve while taking your course.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Teaching concepts

Determining the techniques or concepts to teach in your course.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Course-level learning objectives

Write specific learning objectives to create a clear vision for your course.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Analogies & heuristics

Get help on creating analogies and heuristics for your course.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Handling jargon

In tech, jargon is unavoidable. Make sure are clear and consistent when using tricky or new terminology in your DataCamp content.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Student understanding and misconceptions

Thinking about the mistakes or misconceptions that people often have when learning the material in your course.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Selecting packages

Consider the different technologies, packages, or functions you'd like to use in your course and whether it's too much (or too little).

Written by Richie Cotton
Updated over a week ago

Roles

Read about the different roles that might be a good fit for your course.

Written by Amy Peterson
Updated over a week ago

Choosing roles

Guidance for choosing roles, which helps gauge the difficulty level of your course.

Written by Amy Peterson
Updated over a week ago

Building capstone exercises

Learn what we mean by "capstone" exercises and why you're writing them during course design.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Sample lesson

Writing a sample lesson during course design is essential to ensure you understand the basic unit of a DataCamp course.

Written by Yashas Roy
Updated over a week ago

Course outline

Learn the flow and structure of a course outline, which you help you build out your course during course design.

Written by Yashas Roy
Updated over a week ago

Course descriptions: best practices

Write an exciting course description that draws students into your course.

Written by Joyce Chiu
Updated over a week ago

Prerequisites

Determine the appropriate prerequisite DataCamp course for your DataCamp course, practice, or project.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Handoff

Learn about the handoff process that happens when course design is complete, and it's time to begin course development.

Written by Yashas Roy
Updated over a week ago

Guidelines for interview courses

Guidelines for courses that help practice students for interview questions.

Written by Sara Billen
Updated over a week ago

Course Development

Course development

Learn how DataCamp's Content Developers take a course from design to launch.

Written by Yashas Roy
Updated over a week ago

Content Developers

Learn the role that Content Developers, or CDs, play in creating DataCamp courses.

Written by Yashas Roy
Updated over a week ago

What is a lesson?

Learn about what a DataCamp lesson is and about the framework for creating an effective lesson.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Using multiple plots in an exercise

Learn how to effectively show multiple plots in coding exercises.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Exercise types

Learn about the available exercise types in DataCamp courses.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Course "Video" exercises

What exactly is a Video exercise?

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Scripts: best practices

Tips on how to write informative and engaging scripts for video exercises.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Authoring Drag and Drop exercises

Learn how to author the Solution and SCT blocks for a Drag and Drop exercise

Written by Sara Billen
Updated over a week ago

Slides: best practices

Guidance on creating slides for video exercises that effectively demonstrate learning objectives.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Course Drag and Drop exercise types

Learn about the three types of Drag and Drop exercise

Written by Ramnath Vaidyanathan
Updated over a week ago

IDE exercise anatomy

Learn about the different parts of an IDE exercise and how those map to what a student sees on Campus.

Written by Ramnath Vaidyanathan
Updated over a week ago

Drag and Drop exercise anatomy

Learn about the different parts of a Drag and Drop exercise and how those map to what a student sees on Campus.

Written by Ramnath Vaidyanathan
Updated over a week ago

How to write code in the exercise context?

When and how to include code in the exercise context.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Course "Coding" exercises

Learn about the most common type of interactive exercise in DataCamp courses.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Course "Multiple Choice" exercises

Learn the different parts of a DataCamp Multiple Choice exercise.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Course "Multiple Choice with Console" exercises

Learn what a Multiple Choice with Console exercise is and how it differs from a Multiple Choice exercise.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Course "Iterative" exercises

Learn about one of DataCamp's newest exercise types, the Iterative exercise.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Course "Sequential" exercises

Learn about one of DataCamp's newest exercise types, the Sequential exercise.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Coding exercise anatomy

Learn about the different parts of a coding exercise and how those map to what a student sees on Campus.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Exercise titles: best practices

Tips for writing clear and concise titles for your exercises.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Pre-exercise code

Learn what pre-exercise code means.

Written by Yashas Roy
Updated over a week ago

Context: best practices

Learn the best practices for contextualizing your exercises to build your course narrative.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Instructions: best practices

Some tips for writing good instructions in Coding, Iterative, and Sequential exercises.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Hints: best practices

Learn some tips on how to write exercise hints that get students closer to the solution without giving it away.

Written by Richie Cotton
Updated over a week ago

Exercise code: best practices

Tips and guidelines on writing exercise code optimized for DataCamp courses.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Success messages: best practices

Some tips and tricks for writing insightful success messages.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Content guidelines

Learn our content guidelines, which help create the best possible user experience for DataCamp students.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Style guidelines

Learn DataCamp's style guidelines, which helps keeps our product clean and consistent across the platform.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Chapter descriptions: best practices

Learn the purpose of chapter descriptions and where to find them on DataCamp.

Written by Joyce Chiu
Updated over a week ago

Course review

Learn the appropriate workflow to get your course content reviewed by your Curriculum Manager or Content Developer.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Wrap-up video

Complete your course with a video exercise that recaps your course and discusses next steps.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Screencasts

Create screencasts to prepare for your upcoming audio recordings.

Written by Yashas Roy
Updated over a week ago

Audio recordings

An overview of how to create quality audio recordings for your course.

Written by Yashas Roy
Updated over a week ago

Submission correctness tests

What are submission correctness tests (SCTs)? Who writes them?

Written by Dieter De Mesmaeker
Updated over a week ago

Submission correctness tests: best practices

Follow these guidelines to write kick-ass SCTs that are both robust to alternative solutions yet specific to a student's mistake.

Written by Dieter De Mesmaeker
Updated over a week ago

Submission correctness tests: deep dive

More details about how Submission Correctness Tests for interactive coding exercises work behind the scenes.

Written by Dieter De Mesmaeker
Updated over a week ago

Animating slides

How to add animations to your slides in the course editor

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Spreadsheets

Spreadsheets courses

Learn what makes spreadsheets courses different.

Written by Vincent Vankrunkelsven
Updated over a week ago

Spreadsheets layouts

Some alternative ways to layout your Spreadsheets course content to enhance the learner experience.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Building spreadsheets courses

Written by Vincent Vankrunkelsven
Updated over a week ago

Spreadsheets workbooks

An overview of the scaffolding that appears in each workbook.

Written by Amy Peterson
Updated over a week ago

Spreadsheets exercises

Learn about the workbook source used to build spreadsheets exercises.

Written by Vincent Vankrunkelsven
Updated over a week ago

Meta sheets

Learn about meta sheets, where you will provide various information about a spreadsheets exercise.

Written by Vincent Vankrunkelsven
Updated over a week ago

Sample sheets

Learn about sample sheets, where you will provide the data needed for an exercise.

Written by Vincent Vankrunkelsven
Updated over a week ago

Solution sheets

Learn about solution sheets, where you will provide the optimal solution for an exercise in a spreadsheet course.

Written by Vincent Vankrunkelsven
Updated over a week ago

SCT sheets

Learn about Submission Correctness Tests for spreadsheets courses.

Written by Vincent Vankrunkelsven
Updated over a week ago

Spreadsheets highlighting

Learn how to add highlighting to spreadsheet exercises.

Written by Amy Peterson
Updated over a week ago

Spreadsheets: other exercise types

Learn about Video, Multiple Choice, and Multiple Choice with Workbook exercises in spreadsheets courses.

Written by Vincent Vankrunkelsven
Updated over a week ago

Spreadsheets content guidelines

Learn about exercise guidelines for spreadsheets courses on DataCamp.

Written by Amy Peterson
Updated over a week ago

Spreadsheets course limitations

Learn the limitations of DataCamp spreadsheets courses.

Written by Vincent Vankrunkelsven
Updated over a week ago

SQL

What can you teach in your SQL course?

A quick look at what's possible to teach in your SQL course, using either PostgreSQL or SQL Server.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Setting up a SQL database for a SQL Server course

Create, initialize, and properly load your SQL Server database into the course editor and your exercises.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Setting up a SQL database for a PostgreSQL course

Create, initialize, and properly load your SQL database into the course editor and your exercises.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

SQL lessons: best practices

Learn effective ways of teaching SQL content in your course.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

SQL exercises: best practices

How to use DataCamp's exercise types to teach SQL.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

SQL content guidelines

Guidelines about SQL syntax and formatting in your DataCamp course.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Formatting your SQL queries

Style recommendations for SQL courses.

Written by Becca Robins
Updated over a week ago

Course Launch

Audio courses

Learn why DataCamp has started creating audio courses.

Written by Yashas Roy
Updated over a week ago

Video courses

Learn why DataCamp is moving away from building only video courses.

Written by Yashas Roy
Updated over a week ago