Certification of education and training is not a new concept in Denmark or other countries, as several forms of certification and accreditation already exist, but certifying vocational courses offered via e-learning is a new development. In this context, e-learning is treated as an overarching term which encompasses blended learning as well as purely web-based learning (distance learning). The pilot certification scheme covers descriptions of the objectives, content and organisation of e-learning courses, taking into account the participants’ prior learning.

Guidelines and a digital template for describing a course for certification (hereinafter referred to as the template) have been drafted in connection with the certification scheme.
It encompasses the following:
• terms of the course
• learning objectives of the course
• participant’s prior learning
• organisation of the course
• activities and learning methods
• assessment of the course

These main themes have been established on the basis of an analysis of the main findings of the research on what factors play the greatest role in relation to the participants’ learning outcomes. For obvious reasons, a vocational college cannot be certain how participants will benefit from a course when the starting point is these main themes in connection with planning an e-learning course, but the likelihood of them benefiting more from the course is generally higher than if one were to plan the course in a less systematic manner or disregard some of the themes.

The template is also designed with the aim of being relatively simple to use for educators who have previously worked with similar templates, for instance in connection with their institution’s local curriculum (lokal undervisningsplan, or LUP) and corresponding templates to describe the flow in e-learning courses