Cambridge Advance Online is now 1 year old – and what a year it has been! From developing a fully comprehensive and bespoke learning experience to celebrating occasions such as International Women’s Day and World Day for Cultural Diversity with our outstanding University experts, it’s fair to say we have been quite busy.

To put it numerically, we have launched 13 specialist online courses, collaborated with 29 academic experts, delivered 3 successful sets of course runs and hosted a total of 5 webinars and live events with more coming soon.

We have also accomplished significant change and growth internally with our team of expert learning designers, media & content creators and marketing & sales executives growing to over 30 colleagues. This growth has enabled us to pay acute attention to detail on all aspects of the educational experience, meaning all learners are guaranteed an exceptional Cambridge online education.

Read on to hear from our leadership team, who share their thoughts on our first anniversary, what we have accomplished, and their ambitious plans for the future.

Anna Wood

Managing Director, Cambridge Advance Online

“Despite working in online learning for the last six years, I have learnt a huge amount over the course of this first year. Being responsible for the entire learner journey, from marketing through to successful course completion, has been hugely complex but has also enabled us to focus holistically and comprehensively on all aspects to ensure that the learners have a seamless and high-quality experience. I have really enjoyed working with a cross section of Cambridge academics, across different disciplinary areas, who are truly enthusiastic and committed to creating and delivering an excellent online course.

A big highlight for me has been that learner feedback across the first two cohorts has shown that 96% of our students have rated our courses as ‘good’ ‘great’ or ‘excellent’. Our learners have particularly enjoyed the live sessions, group discussions and the overall course content. I am pleased to see that this feedback has validated our educational approach and is also testimony to the fact that we have been able to bring our world leading Cambridge academic experts to the fore in the creation of these courses.

Over the coming year, I am enthusiastic about launching more courses and building out our course suites. I am also interested in making our courses more adaptive and personalised for each individual learner and that is something that we will be focusing on developing over the coming year(s).

Karen Greetham

Director of Operations, Cambridge Advance Online

“It’s been a fast paced, exciting and fun year.

We’ve achieved a huge amount, both internally and in close collaboration with other teams across Cambridge University Press and Assessment and the University.

We’ve been building our new team, creating and refining our processes and ways of working, designing and developing courses, and have created and implemented a brilliant customer journey.

Our focus for next year will be ensuring that we are well positioned to work at scale as our learning offer continues to expand, while continuing to provide an excellent learning and customer journey for all Cambridge Advance Online participants. We’re really looking forward to where the next year takes us.”

Erica Ryan

Head of Digital Content & Media

“It’s been a busy year for CAO.

In the Digital Content & Media team, we’ve expanded and developed to cover the three key areas of online content development – (i) our Content Development team who build and maintain our courses, creating engaging interactive activities; (ii) our Visual Design team who are artists, developing a unique graphical style for each course, providing visual connections within the content using colour, bringing stories to life through illustrations and helping to reinforce brand values; and (iii) our newly established media team, who have been working hard to craft innovative and creative media elements to enhance our courses, aiming to bring professional learning into motion through simple filming techniques utilising clean, dynamic imagery.

The real highlight for me has been working with the team to create unity between these three disciplines, ensuring that the content we produce is beautifully balanced.

In the coming year, the aim is to be more ambitious. We want to push harder, experiment more, bring in new and exciting tools and technology, all working towards our goal of further enhancing the learning experience for everyone who takes one of our courses.”

Asli Derya

Head of Learning Design

“CAO has come a long way since launching only a year ago.

From a learning design perspective, we have established an expert team of learning designers. Our learning design framework and the pedagogical approach sets us apart from many other learning experiences available out there which is why Cambridge Advance Online is so special. Our professional centred learning approach allows us to create social and applied learning experiences, whilst still ensuring academic rigour is applied.

The team has put to market 12 courses so far and we have many more exciting courses to release in the coming year. We are planning to extend our suites of courses, as we respond to major market trends that make online learning more relevant than ever before.

We’re also working on some very exciting collaborative projects across the University of Cambridge which will widen our product offering and help us to innovate further in the online learning space. It’s a very exciting time for Advance and we’re so pleased to have every learner on this journey with us.”

The team behind Cambridge Advance Online are looking to thrive in an ever-changing world, by expanding the worldwide community of Cambridge thinkers and actively addressing the issues of the modern world. We are just as determined as ever to push towards this and with the achievements of the past year propelling us forwards, we know we can get there.

Interested in Cambridge Advance Online? Discover more about them and their online courses by visiting the website: https://advanceonline.cam.ac.uk/