Thank you for your interest in creating a course for the International Association for Religious Freedom's Free Religion Institute. It's an excellent way of contributing to our community and sharing your expertise.
These guidelines will help you understand the process of proposing and creating a course that engages our learners and meets our educational standards.
Need assistance? Contact our education team with any questions about the course creation process.
Unless you were specifically invited by us to create a course, please complete our course proposal form and introduce yourself and your course concept, including:
Once your proposal is approved, you'll work with our educational team to develop, refine, and publish your course on our platform.
To become an instructor and create your own courses, you'll first need an account on our Community Platform. You can register here.
The Community Platform connects all our members and instructors. Learn more about the platform features and how it supports our educational initiatives.
When registering, please include your member group or chapter affiliation. If you were personally invited to teach, select that option during registration. Google sign-up users should edit their profile afterward to add this information, or your account may be deactivated.
After logging in, navigate to "My Dashboard" and click on "Become an Instructor." Use the application form to briefly describe your teaching background and course ideas. This helps us understand your expertise and intended course content.
An administrator will review your application, typically within 2-3 business days. We may contact you for additional information or to discuss your course proposal in more detail.
Once approved, you'll have access to the course creation tools. You can begin developing your course immediately by returning to "My Dashboard" and selecting "Create a Course." The instructions and guidelines below will help you design an effective learning experience.
Our platform offers two main types of courses:
Each lesson includes a discussion section where you can post questions or respond to student inquiries. Students can also contact you through private messages on the Community Platform. Consider scheduling occasional live Q&A sessions to address common questions.
Live courses feature scheduled online sessions via Zoom, offering real-time interaction between instructors and students.
Create a clear schedule with dates, times (in UTC), and Zoom links in each lesson's content section. We can provide Zoom hosting if needed. Consider recording sessions for students who can't attend live or to repurpose as a self-paced course later.
You may build your course using the course builder or provide us with materials so that we may build it for you if you have trouble using the course builder. In the latter case, please structure them as described below.
A complete educational program on a specific subject. Your course is the main container that holds all learning materials organized into topics.
Contains: Course title, comprehensive description, featured image, category selection, and difficulty level setting.
Major sections that divide your course into logical segments. Topics help organize related lessons, quizzes, and assignments.
Contains: Topic name and brief summary explaining what students will learn.
The primary content delivery units where students engage with your teaching materials. Each lesson can combine text, media, and interactive elements.
Contains: Lesson title, main text content, and optional featured image.
Assessment tools to test student understanding of lesson materials. Quizzes provide immediate feedback and help reinforce learning.
Contains: Quiz name, customizable time limits, various question types (multiple choice, true/false, short answer, etc.), and passing grade requirements.
Practical activities that require students to apply what they've learned. Assignments allow for deeper engagement and demonstration of skills.
Contains: Assignment name, detailed instructions, estimated completion time, and point values for grading.
Start by filling in your course details:
Organize your course into topics:
Add content through lessons:
Test knowledge with quizzes:
Add practical assignments:
Courses should align with IARF's mission and be relevant to our members. Suitable topics include:
You may include various types of resources in your course:
Recorded lectures, presentations, and discussions
Lectures, papers, and essays authored by you
Images, diagrams, and infographics
Quizzes, polls, and discussion prompts
Recommended books, articles, and papers
Links to relevant websites and online resources
As a course instructor, you are responsible for ensuring that all materials used in your course comply with applicable copyright laws. This includes text excerpts, images, videos, audio, and any other content not created by you. Naturally, you may recommend that studens purchase (access to) a book, article or other work, and provide links to materials that are free to access but copyrighted (links to YouTube, Newspapers, journal articles etc. are always permitted).
Copyright protection applies to original works including books, articles, images, videos, and music. Using copyrighted materials without permission may constitute infringement, even in educational settings.
Many jurisdictions allow limited use of copyrighted materials for educational purposes. A common guideline is the "10% rule" – using no more than 10% of a complete work or a single chapter. However, this is not universal and varies by country.
When in doubt, seek permission from copyright holders. For published works, contact the publisher directly. Many publishers have specific processes for educational use requests, often with reduced or waived fees for limited educational use.
Use images from Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay, Wikimedia and similar services that are free for commercial and educational use.
Incorporate open access academic articles and research papers that are freely available for sharing.
Search for materials specifically licensed under Creative Commons that allow educational reuse.
While we provide these general guidelines, we cannot offer legal advice on copyright matters. If you're uncertain about using specific materials, consult with a legal professional familiar with intellectual property laws in your jurisdiction.
The IARF secretary and volunteers from the Free Religion Institute Working Group will assist you with:
We have developed a number of tools to assist with translating courses, including videos (subtitling and dubbing), and our volunteers can help with refining the machine translation. If you're interested in making your course available in multiple languages, please contact us.