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Understand course quality checks
Quality checks are advisory warnings in Review and Learning Design. They never block sharing or publishing, and they never count as alignment gaps.
Quality checks are advisory warnings about how a course is designed. They never block sharing or publishing, and they never count as alignment gaps.
Open Review in the editor toolbar. The Course review sheet lists wording, outcome, rigor, rubric, mastery, and blueprint checks under Objectives, Rubrics, or Alignment. Each finding includes a line that starts Why this matters: then a one-sentence reason, followed by a Learn more link. Learn more opens the help center in a new tab.
In Learning Design the same checks sit next to the thing they refer to: an objective, a rubric, coverage on Alignment, or a design check. Coverage and backward design checks appear only in Learning Design.
Objective wording and levels
Section titled “Objective wording and levels”These appear under the objective in Goals & objectives and in Course review under Objectives.
| Check | What it flags | Learn more |
|---|---|---|
| Worth fixing wording | An objective uses a verb you can’t observe, joins more than one outcome, or names no observable action. | Classify objectives with framework levels |
| Lowest-level distribution | At least three classified objectives, and two-thirds or more sit at the lowest levels of a framework. | Classify objectives with framework levels |
| Course level | Classified objectives don’t match the course’s Introductory, Intermediate, Advanced, or Capstone profile. | Classify objectives with framework levels |
Outcome checks
Section titled “Outcome checks”These appear in the objective’s details in Goals & objectives and in Course review under Objectives.
| Check | What it flags | Learn more |
|---|---|---|
| Reads like a topic | The objective names a subject instead of what learners will do. | Manage learning objectives |
| Overlap | Two objectives start with the same verb and share most of their words. | Manage learning objectives |
| Too many objectives | More than eight live top-level objectives. | Manage learning objectives |
| Assessed before taught | The first quiz that assesses an objective comes before the first page that teaches it, or before a prerequisite is taught. | Manage learning objectives |
Evidence rigor
Section titled “Evidence rigor”This appears in the Question rigor marks of the coverage matrix on the Alignment tab and in Course review under Objectives.
| Check | What it flags | Learn more |
|---|---|---|
| Question can’t show the level | A linked scored question is below the objective’s level, or its type can’t reach that level. | Classify objectives with framework levels |
| Question has no level | A linked scored question has no taxonomy level while its objective is classified, so rigor cannot be compared. | Classify objectives with framework levels |
Coverage checks
Section titled “Coverage checks”On the Alignment tab, Coverage checks (or Design checks with backward design on) lists these. The first two run in every course; the last two run only with backward design on.
| Check | What it flags | Learn more |
|---|---|---|
| Never practiced | An objective is taught and assessed, but nothing practices it. | Connect objectives to evidence |
| Teaching block not linked | A teaching block on a page that serves objectives has its links switched off, or links only to objectives the page doesn’t serve. | Connect objectives to evidence |
| Only indirect evidence | All of an objective’s evidence is indirect, such as usage or a survey, and no scored question or rubric criterion assesses it. | Connect objectives to evidence |
| One kind of evidence | Only one evidence format shows the objective. Scored quiz questions count as one format. | Connect objectives to evidence |
Backward design checks
Section titled “Backward design checks”These appear only with backward design on, in Design checks on the Alignment tab. Each check has a button that opens the place to act, and Dismiss for this course to hide one that doesn’t apply. Show dismissed lists hidden checks; Restore brings one back. Checks marked Look at are worth acting on; checks marked Note are for information.
| Check | What it flags | Learn more |
|---|---|---|
| No evidence planned | An objective has no evidence item. | Plan a course with backward design |
| Taught before evidence is planned | A page already teaches the objective, but no evidence is planned yet. | Plan a course with backward design |
| Not built yet | An evidence item isn’t built on a page yet, and it isn’t set to be measured after the course. | Plan a course with backward design |
| Questions on other objectives | Evidence is built as questions that aren’t linked to the objectives it measures. | Plan a course with backward design |
| Doesn’t support a goal or task | An objective isn’t linked to any transfer goal, big idea, or task. | Plan a course with backward design |
| No performance task (academic) | A transfer goal has no performance task in the evidence. | Plan a course with backward design |
| No transfer or meaning focus (academic) | No page in the learning plan focuses on transfer or meaning. | Plan a course with backward design |
| No outcome metric (performance) | The outcome or its measure is missing. | Plan a course with backward design |
| No practice planned (performance) | A task whose remedy is training has no practice or performance evidence, and no practiced objective supports it. | Plan a course with backward design |
| Not a training problem (performance) | The Is training the answer? check points to a remedy other than training. | Plan a course with backward design |
| Not checked yet (performance) | A task has no Is training the answer? answers yet. | Plan a course with backward design |
| Page without a task (performance) | A planned page isn’t linked to any task through its objectives. | Plan a course with backward design |
| Role without pages (performance) | A role has tasks but no planned page serves it. | Plan a course with backward design |
| No behavior measure (performance) | No task has a product signal and no evidence is at the behavior level. | Plan a course with backward design |
Rubric checks
Section titled “Rubric checks”These appear in the Rubrics panel and in Course review under Rubrics.
| Check | What it flags | Learn more |
|---|---|---|
| Levels differ only by amount | Adjacent level descriptors differ only by words of amount, such as some, many, or minor. | Write rubrics for scored work |
| Criterion isn’t linked to an objective | A criterion isn’t linked to an objective, so it can’t show which objective the work demonstrates. | Write rubrics for scored work |
| Level count | The rubric has fewer than three levels or more than six. | Write rubrics for scored work |
Mastery rules
Section titled “Mastery rules”This appears under Mastery rule and in Course review under Objectives.
| Check | What it flags | Learn more |
|---|---|---|
| Mastery rule unmet | An objective’s effective rule needs more linked scored items than the course has. | Set mastery rules for objectives |
Assessment blueprint
Section titled “Assessment blueprint”This appears in the Assessment blueprint panel and in Course review under Alignment, after you set targets.
| Check | What it flags | Learn more |
|---|---|---|
| Points drift from targets | An objective’s actual share of scored points is more than 10 percentage points away from its target. | Balance a quiz with the assessment blueprint |
Outline and truncation
Section titled “Outline and truncation”These appear in Course review on the page they refer to.
| Check | What it flags | Learn more |
|---|---|---|
| Scored question with no objective | A scored question isn’t linked to an objective. Practice questions aren’t flagged. The same gap is question_untagged in Alignment. |
Look for gaps in Alignment |
| Text looks cut off | Prose, such as a question prompt or paragraph, ends mid-word or fills its length limit. A choice, matching item, ordering step, or blank answer is flagged only when it fills its length limit. | Outline and truncation |
| Question type missing | The purpose or key points of a built Quiz page name a question type the build recognizes, such as matching or ordering, and no visible question on that page is that type. | Outline and truncation |
| Hint in the question | A question prompt still contains a Hint: or Tip: sentence instead of using the Hints field. | Outline and truncation |
| Cover repeats objectives | The cover text includes two or more objective wordings verbatim; the objectives block already lists them. | Outline and truncation |
Text field length limits
Section titled “Text field length limits”If text will not fit, shorten the field without removing information learners need. These character limits apply to stored text:
| Field | Maximum characters |
|---|---|
| Quiz question prompt | 500 |
| Matching item or answer, ordering item, or fill-in-the-blank answer | 200 |
| Feedback for an answer option | 500 |
| Hint | 300 |
| Course title | 200 |
| Course description | 4,000 |
| Objective | 300 |
| Copy prompt text | 8,000 |
A Text looks cut off warning is advisory. Review the wording before shortening it: a complete sentence can still reach a field’s limit. Rich-text paragraphs do not have a hard 2,000-character validation limit; that value is a soft generation/review threshold.
Content groups
Section titled “Content groups”These appear in Course review on the page that holds the group.
| Check | What it flags | Learn more |
|---|---|---|
| Empty content group | A visible content group has no learner-visible blocks inside it, so learners won’t see the group at all. | Content groups |
For agents
Section titled “For agents”validate_course returns the same checklist as Course review. Advisory warnings include checkId, why and helpSlug, the path of the help-center section that explains them. With backward design on, get_course_alignment and the alignment endpoint return designChecks, each with why and helpSlug.
