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Learner Experience Design Graduate Certificate

College of Liberal Arts / Technical Communication and Interaction Design
Graduate certificate

About The Program

The Learner Experience Design Graduate Certificate prepares learners to develop, assess, and deliver effective learner-centered and workplace-focused digital learning experiences that promote learner retention and application. Program emphasis is on hands-on experience to support online learning in organizational settings, with topics such as strategies for creating and producing learning experiences, methodologies of interactive digital learning, needs assessment, user experience, and design thinking.

Student outcomes

  • Design, develop, and deliver, learning experiences that are interactive and learner-centered
  • Assess and revise learning experiences
  • Apply principles of design thinking and user experience to the creation of learning experiences
  • Using learning technology, apply various interactive instructional design methodologies
  • Apply adult learning theory, pedagogical strategies, and interactivity models to workplace-focused digital learning experiences

How to enroll

Program eligibility requirements

  • Bachelor's degree earned from an accredited institution (or a foreign equivalent)
  • Cumulative GPA of 2.75 or higher
  • Digital literacy and desire to learn new digital applications
  • Reliable Internet access and the ability to install programs on your digital device

International Students

Because this is not a degree-granting program, the certificate may be earned by international students studying on a student visa only if they are admitted into a degree-granting program. However, overseas students may complete the certificate online without traveling to the United States. In such cases, overseas students must meet the admission requirements and present evidence of language proficiency. We accept TOEFL score of at least 550 (PBT) or 213 (CBT) or 80 (IBT); IELTS score of at least 6.0; and Duolingo English exam score of 105 or higher. Official score report comes into the Metropolitan State University dashboard from Duolingo.

International Students

This is not a degree-granting program, therefore applications from international students studying on an F-1 student visa cannot be accepted into this program.

Application instructions

Metro State University is participating in the common application for graduate programs (GradCAS). Applications are only accepted via the CAS website.

CAS steps

  1. Select the term for which you are seeking admission (below), and navigate to the CAS website. Open applications include:
  2. Create or log in to your account and select the Learner Experience Design Graduate Certificate program.
  3. Carefully review all instructions and complete all four sections of the application.

Specific application requirements for individual programs can be found on each program page in CAS. Carefully read the instructions that appear throughout the application pages. You can only submit your application once. If you need to update information you have submitted, please notify graduate.studies@metrostate.edu

Application fee

A nonrefundable $38 fee is required for each application.
Applications will not be processed until this fee is received.

Active-duty military, veterans, and Metro State alumni can receive an application fee waiver. Contact graduate.studies@metrostate.edu.

Courses and Requirements

SKIP TO COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Academic Standing/Satisfactory Academic Progress

You must maintain satisfactory academic progress to remain in the LXD program. Only courses for which you receive a letter grade of C (2.0) or better count toward certificate requirements, and a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 is required for graduation. If you receive a letter grade of C- or below in any graduate course, you may be placed on academic probation. If you receive a letter grade of C- or below in two courses, or if your cumulative GPA is below 3.0 for two consecutive semesters, you may be dismissed from the LXD program.

Appeal of Unsatisfactory Academic Progress Removals from the Program

If you are removed from the program for unsatisfactory academic progress, you may appeal the removal to the Learner Experience Design program director, who has 30 days to respond in writing. The appeal must be in writing, it must provide specific reasons for the appeal, and it's due within 30 days of the date of the letter notifying you of the decision to remove you from the program.

Time to Completion

You have two years from your first semester in this program to complete your certificate requirements. You may request an extension of the time limit by writing to the Learner Experience Design program director, and your request must be received before the two years pass. Requests for extensions should include your reason(s) for requesting the extension, a summary of your plan to finish graduation requirements, and a specific date for the extension to expire. Extension decisions are made by the certificate program director and are not automatic.

Reactivating into the Program

If you are a student in good academic standing who has not registered for courses for three or more consecutive semesters, you must request to reactivate into the certificate program. Submit your request in writing to the Learner Experience Design program director. The program director will review your request and respond in writing, specifying certificate completion requirements and deadline for completion. You may be required to satisfy certificate requirements in force at the time of reactivation, even if those requirements differ from those in force at the time of original admission to the certificate program.

Requirements (16 credits)

+ Required courses (12 credits)

This course is designed to provide an introduction to Learner Experience Design, which brings together principles of design and learning to create effective interactive training and learning experiences. The course draws on fields such as instructional design, user experience design (UXD), and learning and development. Students learn concepts and techniques to prepare them to analyze learners and learning situations and to choose appropriate strategies in order to create interactive, engaging, and effective learning experiences

Full course description for Foundations of Learner Experience Design

Strategies for Learner Experience Design focuses on strategies and tools to help designers create effective learning experiences that promote learner retention and application. Strategies discussed might include microlearning, interactive case studies, decision- making scenarios, spaced and guided practice, and short simulations -- all of which relate to the underlying concepts of conditional logic, variables, user and performance data, personalization, responsiveness, and universal design.

Full course description for Strategies for Learner Experience Design

+ Elective (4 credits)

Consult with your Learner Experience Design (LXD) advisor as to which course(s) to take as electives. Below is a list of courses (not in order of importance) we recommend:

In this course, students hone and refine editing skills on a variety of levels. Topics include electronic editing, using electronic resources, dynamics of the editor-writer relationship, editing information graphics, advanced copyediting and developmental editing. Class exercises cover grammar, punctuation, and usage issues. Each student works with a writer to edit and develop an original text.

Full course description for Advanced Editing

Technical Communication focuses on creating and reshaping content to make it usable and accessible to the people who need this content to achieve their goals. The course combines a survey of scholarship in the field of technical communication with practice in creating various types of goal-oriented, often task-based, content. Students learn how to use research tools to gather information on technical topics and from subject matter experts.

Full course description for Technical Communication Practice and Applied Theory

TCID 673 is designed to prepare students to write, create, and communicate in an international context and with an international audience. This course will focus on following content areas: cultural influences on technical communication; issues in technical translation, localization, and globalization; communicating in multinational corporations; and creating usable graphics and visuals for international audiences.

Full course description for Technical Communication in International Contexts

Intelligent content is all around us, working behind the scenes to produce instructions that come with our lawnmowers, explanations for medical devices, and user manuals for laptops, to name just a few examples. We create intelligent content through structured writing/authoring, which is both the creation of content and the method for managing this content. Because structured authoring creates controls for analyzing, organizing, and displaying content, it is key to publication workflows in organizations that provide a large amount of content. While learning a standardized approach to writing structured content, students also learn to apply rhetorical problem solving and computational thinking that results in content that is intelligent because it is adaptable, creates patterns of reuse, and results in consistency of content across documents/publication outputs.

Full course description for Creating Intelligent Content

This course introduces students to designing, conducting, communicating, and evaluating user research. Students learn to form and investigate a research question, examine existing literature, use a wide array of methods, conduct effective user research, make design recommendations, and communicate research findings.

Full course description for User Research

This course, specifically designed for students interested in human resource management or general management, focuses on human resource development in organizations and stresses applications to improve productivity and employee satisfaction. Topics include the evolution of training and development, needs assessment, testing for developmental purposes, the learning process, selecting proper training methods, and evaluating training and development.

Full course description for Employee Development and Training

This course provides a systematic and comprehensive overview of project leadership and management. Topics covered include all aspects of project management from project initiation issues, RFP formulation, proposal decisions, preparation, and evaluation, project planning and implementation to organization, risk assessment, negotiation, and conflict resolution. Also included are project planning techniques such as PERT, CPM, Earned Value Analysis, and project monitoring and simulation using Microsoft Project software.

Full course description for Project Management