The Three Voices of AI Course Design

How SMEs, Learning Designers, and AI collaborate to build high-quality online learning

Introduction: A New Kind of Collaboration

One of the most important things we've learned at Learning Design Solutions over the past year is that using AI in online course design isn't about replacing human expertise — it's about amplifying collaboration. What’s emerged in our work is a clear pattern: the best outcomes happen when we consciously design for the three voices in the development process.

These are:

  • The Subject Matter Expert (SME) – the academic or practitioner who brings disciplinary depth and teaching experience.

  • The Learning Designer (LD) – the pedagogy specialist who structures the course, aligns outcomes, and supports engagement.

  • The AI – a generative tool that offers speed, structure, and inspiration, but requires guidance and boundaries.

This blog unpacks how these three voices can be brought together intentionally — and why that structure makes course development both more efficient and more educationally sound.

Voice 1: The Subject Matter Expert – Academic Depth and Pedagogical Ownership

In our model, the SME is always at the heart of the course. They know the subject, the learners, and the professional or academic expectations. Their voice is crucial not only for content accuracy, but also for tone, depth, and credibility.

But many SMEs are not experienced in online course development. For them, the challenge is often:

“How do I turn my knowledge and teaching experience into something structured, digital, and interactive?”

We’ve found that giving SMEs structured support — and an efficient process — is key to ensuring they remain confident owners of the content while not being overwhelmed by the development process.

At the same time, it remains crucial for the SME to retain ownership of the output of this collaboration. The resultant course will have their name on it, likely it will have their face in the welcome videos and micro-lectures, and it has to represent their knowledge and academic integrity. As LD and AI collaboration increases, it may become too easy for the SME to withdraw effort. We all need to work together to make sure this doesn’t happen.

Voice 2: The Learning Designer – Structure, Pedagogy, and Student Perspective

The Learning Designer’s voice brings everything into coherent, aligned learning design. This includes:

  • Analysing the module learning outcomes and defining weekly or per-topic learning outcomes at the right level (Bloom’s taxonomy).

  • Applying constructive alignment (Biggs, 1996) and backward design (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005) to make sure the content and activities help students demonstrate their achievement of those outcomes.

  • Recommending appropriate learning activities (Laurillard’s learning types).

  • Ensuring accessibility (WCAG) and managing the learner’s cognitive load (Sweller, Mayer).

The LD also acts as a translator — taking the SME’s ideas and framing them in ways that are suitable for online learners. In our projects, the Learning Designer is typically the one prompting and working with AI to generate initial drafts, structures, and activity outlines — always guided by sound pedagogical principles.

Voice 3: The AI – Structured Inspiration, Not Autonomy

The third voice is AI — specifically, generative tools like ChatGPT (in our case, a trained instance we call the Learning Design Expert). AI provides a starting point, momentum, and multiple iterations — quickly.

What it doesn’t provide is judgement.

AI is used in our workflow to:

  • Suggest aligned activity types based on learning outcomes.

  • Draft scaffolded learning sequences and micro-lecture prompts.

  • Generate case studies, scenarios, and quiz questions.

  • Reword, restructure, or simplify complex content for clarity.

  • Offer alternative formulations for accessibility or tone.

  • Analyse draft storyboards for coverage, sufficiency and alignment.

The trick is that AI is always guided. It works in response to human inputs — especially from the Learning Designer — and always produces drafts for SME review and final approval.

Why the Model Works

This triadic model works because each voice strengthens the others:

  • The SME ensures academic credibility.

  • The Learning Designer ensures educational coherence.

  • The AI accelerates production and encourages exploration.

Rather than the Learning Designer being left to fill the space between abstract SME input and complex build requirements, AI helps produce something tangible — quickly. That, in turn, gives the SME something to respond to. It invites feedback, speeds up iteration, and reduces design fatigue.

A Real Example

In our recent “Principles of Responsible Leadership” course, we trialled this approach with a university lecturer as SME and a senior online learning designer as LD. AI was used to:

  • Suggest learner-centred case studies rooted in ESG and leadership dilemmas.

  • Draft micro-lecture scripts based on SME-supplied readings.

  • Recommend interactive formats aligned with Laurillard’s framework.

Every piece of content was co-reviewed, revised, and owned by the SME — but the process was faster, clearer, and more aligned than traditional SME-led development.

This same approach is now in use across a 50-module, multi-programme build for a London-based higher education institution.

Takeaways for Your Team

If you’re experimenting with AI in learning design, here’s what we suggest:

  • Don’t bypass academic ownership — structure the process so the SME remains the author, even if AI generates the first draft.

  • Give Learning Designers control of prompting — they can translate outcomes into effective AI tasks.

  • Use AI for structured ideation, not just content generation — sequences, examples, activity types, assessment scaffolds.

  • Design for all three voices — plan workflows that give space for SME input, LD structure, and AI speed.

Want to Try It?

This model has changed how we design — and how quickly we can support institutions to go from ambition to delivery.

If you’d like to explore how this collaborative model could work for your courses, we’d be happy to show you how.

Explore our demo course, ‘Principles of Responsible Leadership’ (guest access)


Steve Hogg