MATLAB Course Designer

Create a complete MATLAB and Simulink enabled course package through an instructor interview. The final deliverable is an IMS Common Cartridge .imscc file plus reviewable source artifacts for the instructor.

The generated course must conform to the MATLAB Course Designer organization model: one course contains one or more ordered modules, and each module contains one or more ordered learning activities. Preserve this hierarchy in all intermediate artifacts so future API work can create MATLAB Course Designer course instances directly. Use the public MATLAB Course Designer documentation as the source for this hierarchy: https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab-and-simulink-online-courses/matlab-course-designer.html.

Do not hand-roll workflows that already exist in prerequisite skills:

• Use IDStack for instructional design pipeline work and Common Cartridge export.
• Use the MATLAB Agentic Toolkit for MATLAB activity, code, data, validation, and live-script-ready guidance.
• Use the matlab-create-course-activity skill to create Course Designer-ready MATLAB Exercise folders by wrapping matlab-generate-grader-assessments output and validating generated .m files with MATLAB MCP Server tool calls.
• Use the Simulink Agentic Toolkit for Simulink model activity design, model validation, and testing guidance.
• Use the simulink-create-course-activity skill to create Course Designer-ready Simulink Exercise folders with starter and solution .slx files.
• Use the existing matlab-generate-grader-assessments skill as the first authoring step for MATLAB Exercise component parts, because MATLAB Course Designer MATLAB Exercises are structurally close to MATLAB Grader assessment items.

Input

The user may have provided course context in their request. If it is missing or too vague, collect the minimum instructor context in Step 1 before generating anything.

Reference Files

Read these references from the references/ directory alongside this skill as needed:

• references/interview-guide.md — instructor interview questions and defaults
• references/instructional-design-research.md — MATLAB/Simulink-specific research rules for objectives, module sequencing, and learning activities
• references/course-artifact-rules.md — Course Designer hierarchy, output structure, and required files
• references/matlab-simulink-activity-rules.md — activity design rules
• references/common-cartridge-export.md — export and review rules

Read references/interview-guide.md, references/instructional-design-research.md, and references/course-artifact-rules.md before starting the instructor interview.

Pipeline Overview

Step 1: Interview the instructor and capture course constraints
Step 2: Confirm prerequisites and output directory
Step 3: Run or prepare the IDStack design pipeline
Step 4: Add MATLAB and Simulink activity specifications and model artifacts
Step 5: Generate validated MATLAB Exercise artifacts through matlab-create-course-activity
Step 6: Verify native Course Designer activity types and assessment placement
Step 7: Export Common Cartridge through IDStack course-export
Step 8: Write instructor review checklist and final review summary

Step 1: Instructor Interview

Use references/interview-guide.md.

Collect only missing information. If the user already supplied a syllabus, course title, module list, or learning goals, infer what you can and ask targeted follow-ups.

Required inputs:

• Course title and one-sentence course purpose
• Learner audience and prerequisite knowledge
• Duration, pacing, and module count
• Delivery mode: in person, online, hybrid, self-paced, or lab-supported
• Target persistence format, defaulting to Common Cartridge for MATLAB Course Designer review
• MATLAB scope: programming, data analysis, numerical methods, apps, hardware, AI, signal processing, controls, or other domain
• Simulink scope: modeling, simulation, control design, physical modeling, code generation, verification, or other domain
• Assessment plan: native MATLAB Exercises, Simulink Exercises, readings, and videos; Course Designer does not support generic assignments or discussions
• Required products and toolboxes, if known
• Accessibility, academic integrity, and institutional constraints
• Output directory, defaulting to the current working directory

If the course includes MATLAB Exercises, state that matlab-create-course-activity will wrap the matlab-generate-grader-assessments skill, validate generated .m files with MATLAB MCP tool calls, split description.txt into copy/paste-ready background.m and task.m files, then enrich the activity with MATLAB Course Designer authoring fields such as module placement.

Step 2: Prerequisite Check

Before generating the course, verify or ask the user to confirm that these skills/toolkits are available:

• IDStack skills, especially needs-analysis, learning-objectives, assessment-design, course-builder, course-quality-review, accessibility-review, red-team, and course-export. IDStack is a third-party open-source project (MIT licensed), available at https://idstack.org/; it is not bundled with this skill package
• MATLAB MCP Server connected to a licensed MATLAB session; this is the verifiable capability that runs all .m file and model validation
• MATLAB Agentic Toolkit for MATLAB workflow guidance
• matlab-create-course-activity skill for MATLAB Exercise .m file validation
• Simulink Agentic Toolkit
• simulink-create-course-activity skill for Simulink Exercise model files
• matlab-generate-grader-assessments skill from the MATLAB Grader Assessment Item Generator package

If a prerequisite is missing, do not fabricate its output. Explain which part of the course workflow is blocked, then continue with what remains legitimately possible: planning artifacts always; MATLAB Exercise generation when matlab-create-course-activity, matlab-generate-grader-assessments, and MATLAB MCP validation are all available. A final .imscc export requires IDStack course export capability.

To verify IDStack availability, look for its skills in the loaded skill folders and for an idstack command on the PATH; when neither is found, treat IDStack as missing and say so.

Step 3: IDStack Course Design

Use IDStack as the instructional design backbone.

Before invoking IDStack, read references/instructional-design-research.md and prepare a MATLAB/Simulink-specific design brief from the instructor interview. The brief must include candidate observable objectives, proposed ordered modules, learning activity mix, MATLAB Exercise needs, Simulink Exercise needs, Reading and Video needs, product/toolbox assumptions, and validation expectations. Pass that brief as context into the IDStack needs-analysis, learning-objectives, assessment-design, and course-builder steps.

Preferred sequence:

1. Run or invoke idstack needs-analysis using the interview notes.
2. Run or invoke idstack learning-objectives.
3. Run or invoke idstack assessment-design.
4. Run or invoke idstack course-builder.
5. Run or invoke idstack course-quality-review.
6. Run or invoke idstack accessibility-review.
7. Run or invoke idstack red-team.

If the user asks for a quick prototype, the review steps may be deferred, but the final response must call out that the package is a draft until those reviews run.

Preserve IDStack files in .idstack/. Do not overwrite existing .idstack/project.json without reading it and preserving unrelated sections.

After IDStack course design, normalize the course source into the Course Designer hierarchy:

1. One course record with title, description, audience, prerequisites, product requirements, and ordered modules.
2. Each module has a title, description, measurable module objectives, estimated time, and ordered learning activities.
3. Each learning activity has a title, activity type, objective alignment, learner task, required products, source artifacts, validation notes, and persistence/export notes.
4. The only allowed learning activity types are Reading, Video, MATLAB Exercise, and Simulink Exercise. Do not create discussions, generic assignments, projects, quizzes, external MATLAB Grader assessments, or QTI 3 assessments.

Step 4: MATLAB and Simulink Enablement

Use references/matlab-simulink-activity-rules.md.

For each module, create or update ordered learning activities. For each learning activity, specify:

• Learning objective alignment
• Activity type: Reading, Video, MATLAB Exercise, or Simulink Exercise
• MATLAB activity details, if MATLAB supports that objective
• Simulink activity details, if model-based work supports that objective
• Required products and toolboxes
• Learner starter artifact expectations
• Instructor solution or validation notes
• Estimated learner time and cognitive load risk
• Accessibility and alternative-access notes

For every MATLAB Exercise, use the matlab-create-course-activity skill to wrap the existing matlab-generate-grader-assessments calls, validate solution.m, template.m, and tests.m with MATLAB MCP Server tool calls, split description.txt into background.m and task.m, and write Course Designer import metadata. Use broader MATLAB Agentic Toolkit skills for specialized MATLAB code, data, toolbox workflows, or validation inside that workflow.

For every Simulink Exercise, use the simulink-create-course-activity skill to create the actual starter and solution model files and Course Designer import metadata. That skill must use MATLAB MCP Server tool calls, following Simulink Agentic Toolkit guidance, for model creation, inspection, editing, simulation, and validation. Do not represent a Simulink Exercise with prose-only instructions when the course requires model files.

Step 5: MATLAB Exercise Authoring With matlab-create-course-activity

Use matlab-create-course-activity for every MATLAB Exercise. That skill wraps the existing matlab-generate-grader-assessments skill first because MATLAB Course Designer MATLAB Exercises and MATLAB Grader assessment items share the same core assessment-item structure. It then validates generated MATLAB files with MATLAB MCP Server tool calls before adding Course Designer-only fields.

For each MATLAB Exercise:

1. Convert the module objective into one measurable MATLAB learning objective.
2. Choose Script, Function, Class, or Object usage assessment type.
3. Choose formative, summative, or both based on the course assessment plan.
4. Invoke or prompt matlab-create-course-activity; it must call matlab-generate-grader-assessments to generate: description.txt, template.m, solution.m, and tests.m.
5. Validate solution.m, template.m, and tests.m with MATLAB MCP calls.
6. Store or reference generated matlab-generate-grader-assessments folders under grader-items/.
7. Split description.txt into background.m and task.m plain-text copy/paste files using the matlab-create-course-activity field-alignment rules: background.m contains task context, the learning objective, and necessary high-level information; task.m contains concrete learner instructions, required names, expected outputs, and constraints.
8. Write the Course Designer MATLAB Exercise folder under matlab-activities/.
9. Add Course Designer-specific fields, such as:
   • background.m
   • task.m
   • module placement and learning activity order
   • estimated time
   • prerequisite context
   • required products and toolboxes
   • learner setup notes
   • Common Cartridge persistence notes
10. Represent the generated item as a MATLAB Exercise learning activity inside the appropriate module, with a link back to the course module and objective.

Do not write independent description.txt, solution.m, template.m, or tests.m files directly for MATLAB Exercises unless matlab-create-course-activity or matlab-generate-grader-assessments is unavailable and the user explicitly accepts a planning-only fallback. If the exercise needs Course Designer-only authoring fields, add them after matlab-create-course-activity has validated the shared component parts.

Step 6: Native Course Designer Activity Check

Before export, verify that all generated course content uses only native MATLAB Course Designer learning activity types:

1. Reading
2. Video
3. MATLAB Exercise
4. Simulink Exercise

Represent all assessment work as MATLAB Exercise or Simulink Exercise learning activities. Do not create standalone MATLAB Grader assessments, QTI 3 items, generic quizzes, discussions, assignments, projects, or other external assessment-tool artifacts.

Step 7: Common Cartridge Export

Use references/common-cartridge-export.md.

Run or invoke idstack course-export and select IMS Common Cartridge .imscc. The output must be an importable package, not just a course outline.

Common Cartridge content should preserve the Course Designer hierarchy: course, ordered modules, and ordered learning activities. MATLAB and Simulink execution artifacts should be represented with links, instructions, downloadable starter files, or native MATLAB/Simulink Exercise descriptions as appropriate for the persistence package. Assessments must remain native MATLAB Exercises or Simulink Exercises.

State clearly that Common Cartridge is the persistence format for course content outside MATLAB Course Designer. Generic cartridge readers do not execute MATLAB code or Simulink models directly.

Step 8: Final Review Artifacts

Write or update these review artifacts under the selected output directory:

• .idstack/ course design and generated source content
• matlab-activities/ MATLAB Exercise folders with matlab-generate-grader-assessments component mappings, background.m, task.m, Course Designer fields, MATLAB MCP validation reports, and metadata
• simulink-activities/ Simulink Exercise folders with starter models, solution models, activity notes, Course Designer metadata, and validation reports
• grader-items/ generated first-pass component folders used internally by matlab-create-course-activity
• export/ Common Cartridge .imscc package
• course-designer-structure.md, the human-readable source of truth for the generated hierarchy
• instructor-review-checklist.md

Use references/course-artifact-rules.md for file naming and checklist content.

Output Rules

• Default to a practical interview and generation workflow; ask only questions that affect the course package.
• Keep all course content aligned to measurable objectives.
• Preserve the Course Designer organizational model in generated source: course -> modules -> learning activities.
• For MATLAB Exercise learning activities, use matlab-create-course-activity to wrap matlab-generate-grader-assessments, validate generated .m files with MATLAB MCP calls, and add Course Designer copy/paste fields background.m and task.m.
• For Simulink Exercise learning activities, generate and validate starter and solution .slx files with simulink-create-course-activity.
• Use only native Course Designer activity types: Reading, Video, MATLAB Exercise, and Simulink Exercise.
• Implement assessment work as MATLAB Exercises or Simulink Exercises, not standalone MATLAB Grader, QTI 3, quiz, assignment, discussion, or project artifacts.
• Prefer existing prerequisite skills over newly invented templates.
• For generated course text, avoid claiming MATLAB or Simulink runs inside the persistence package unless an integration has been explicitly provided.
• Use "Common Cartridge" or "IMS Common Cartridge" in instructor-facing text; use .imscc for the package file extension.
• End with the exact .imscc path, review folder path, known limitations, and recommended instructor validation steps. When export could not run because a prerequisite was missing, end instead with what was actually produced, what is blocked, and what unblocks it; never invent an .imscc path.