Design Based Needs Analysis for AI-Powered Educator Course Creation: A Pilot Study

Online course creation is increasingly demanded beyond formal education by trainers, professionals, and artisans. Yet in many African contexts it remains constrained by limited time, uneven digital literacy, and inaccessible authoring tools. This study employed a Design-Based Research (DBR) pilot to investigate how educators from diverse professional backgrounds in Kenya engaged with the Fay Institute Learning Framework (FILF) during a structured six-month course creation programme (January–June 2025). Nine part-time educators (E1–E9) participated in structured onboarding, framework familiarisation, and supported course creation activities using the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Data were collected from training logs, digital artefacts, communication records, and researcher field notes, and analysed through thematic coding. Four core needs emerged: accessible and low-friction authoring tools, differentiated scaffolding by prior experience, flexible and modular pacing structures, and continuous feedback loops. Only two participants completed full courses, both with prior digital and instructional design expertise, while five disengaged, primarily due to tool usability barriers. Findings directly informed the design of fayEDU, an AI-powered, framework-embedded authoring platform, and yield five actionable design principles for EdTech developers and TPD designers. This study contributes to the DBR literature by demonstrating how needs analysis and iterative design operate in resource-constrained Global South contexts.