Balanced Learning Design Planning: Concept and Tool

We present a comprehensive learning design (LD) concept and tool, motivated by the needs identified by higher education (HE) practitioners. The concept and tool aim at implementing contemporary research findings and theory to support balanced LD planning (BDP). The student-centered BDP concept and tool provide innovation to LD planning by strongly focusing on learning outcomes (LOs) and student workload, aligning study program and course level LOs, ensuring constructive alignment and assessment validity, enhancing LD by using learning analytics, and enabling flexible use in different contexts and pedagogical approaches. The ongoing work has been done according to design science methodology, with positive first feedback from HE practitioners. We identify areas for further research and improvement, including testing the BDP tool in real-world HE contexts and its integration with learning management systems. This could help close the gap between intended (often innovative) LDs and their implementation in real teaching and learning environments.