Should my online course be live or pre-recorded? Online course creation for psychologists and therapistsOne of the top questions I get asked when I talk to psychologists or therapists about creating their online courses is “should it be live or pre-recorded.” It is one of the details that, as psychologists and therapists, we tend to get slightly hung up on. In truth, my opinion is that you can’t answer that question until you know your ideal client really well and you have thought through the learning points you are going to cover on your course as the way you deliver the course should be a natural conclusion based on what your ideal client group needs from you and how it makes sense to deliver your key learning points. 
In this episode I am going to outline some of the key advantages and disadvantages for recording your online course via pre-recorded or live video. At the end we will also think about whether a blended approach could work. 
Before we get stuck in I just want to point out that if you are at the stage where you haven’t yet got your online course planned out or you are not sure what learning points you need to cover don’t worry we have a free training coming up in the evening on 15th February 2022 where I will teach you my method for outlining an online course. https://psychologybusinessschool.com/outline-your-online-course-webinar-psychologists (You can sign up here.)
Advantages of teaching your online course via pre-recorded videoGreat for courses where people will need to go at different paces. The https://psychologybusinessschool.com/complete-roadmap-to-a-successful-online-course/ (“roadmap to a successful online course”) is pre-record because I know that module one will take different lengths of time for different people depending on where you started from and how much time you have to dedicate to your course creation. I didn’t think the roadmap would work live because some students will already have established social media followings that you can talk to and others won’t even have thought about who your ICA is get, let alone knowing how to reach them. Pre-record allows people to use your material flexibly so they don’t feel “behind.”
Flexibility of schedule for you and the students. They can fit their learning in around demanding jobs, caring responsibilities etc. You can also record at times that suit you.
It is easier to follow a script and be concise when you pre-record. This can feel less anxiety provoking than live teaching.
You can have unlimited numbers of students.



Disadvantages of teaching your online course via pre-recorded videoYou don’t get immediate feedback from your ICA as you teach so you won’t know if you are hitting the mark in time to change things while the course is ongoing.
There is less accountability for your ICA so you tend to get lower completion and engagement rates.
You don’t have the adrenaline of live teaching to carry you through either!
Can be terrible for perfectionists as you (and your students) will expect things to have higher production values so you will either need to invest in editing or learn how to do it yourself. If you do it yourself you will be tempted to edit every little umm and err out of your videos but doing that will make you sound weird and will take you so long you will probably give up. If you pay an editor that is quite a big expense.
You will need most of the content created before the course starts so people can truly go at their own pace. If you have a big course in mind you can drip the content out, releasing more every week or every month but you will generally want to have most of it created in advance because the editing process takes so long.
You can’t troubleshoot with people when they hit roadblocks so you will most likely need another way to support people added on such as a FB group or a live Q&A session.
Tech is more complicated. At a minimum all you need is a video hosting platform and you can then set...