Johns Hopkins UniversityEst. 1876

America’s First Research University

Frequency Full-time, part-time
Format Online
Completion Time 1 to 2 years
Credits 30
Application Deadline July 15, 2026
Start Term Fall

In fields like defense and national security, healthcare, and large-scale education, overall system performance depends on how well human expertise is integrated into system design from the start.

Learning Engineering for Next-Generation Systems (LENS) prepares you to treat that integration as a design-and-analytics challenge — grounded in the learning sciences, aligned with IEEE learning engineering standards, and designed for complex environments where human and system performance are inseparable.​

Who is LENS Built For

LENS is built for professionals working at the intersection of human performance and complex systems — particularly those whose work has real consequences if training and capability development fall short. Strong candidates include learning and performance specialists, human factors practitioners, training systems designers, and program managers in defense, healthcare, government, or large-scale organizational contexts. You should be comfortable engaging with data analytics and measurement, and interested in applying engineering discipline to problems that are fundamentally about people. Prior experience in operational environments is an asset, though not a requirement.​

What You’ll Focus On ​

You’ll develop systems-thinking skills alongside methodological expertise in learning analytics, evaluation, and performance measurement. Coursework covers the full lifecycle of a learning solution: defining capability requirements, designing ethical measurement and data collection, interpreting evidence, and refining designs iteratively. The emphasis throughout is on making decisions grounded in rigorous evidence rather than surface-level metrics.​

Because learning engineering is inherently interdisciplinary, you’ll learn to collaborate across roles — working with subject matter experts, systems engineers, technologists, designers, and organizational leaders to translate operational requirements into effective learning system designs.​

What You’ll Be Prepared For ​

Graduates are prepared to lead large-scale learning initiatives, generate and communicate evidence responsibly, and make design decisions that treat ethics and equitable access to capability development as foundational constraints.​ Explore a career path in Learning Engineering.