dmccreary/claude-skills/course-description-analyzer

Course Description Analyzer

Version: 0.05

Overview

This Anthropic Claude Skill is the first step in the process of generating an intelligent textbook. The next Skill is the 'learning-graph-generator` Skill.

Analyze or create high-quality course descriptions that contain all necessary elements for generating comprehensive learning graphs with 200+ concepts. Check the /docs/course-description.md file for completeness, quality, and alignment with 2001 Bloom's Taxonomy learning outcomes.

Workflow Decision Tree

Start by checking if /docs/course-description.md exists:

• File does not exist → Follow Creation Workflow (Step 1)
• File exists → Follow Analysis Workflow (Step 2)

Tell the user that they are running Version 0.05 of the Course Description Analyzer Skill.

Step 1: Course Description Creation

Use this workflow when /docs/course-description.md does not exist.

1.1 Gather Course Information

Ask the user the following questions sequentially (not all at once):

1. What is the title of the course?

1. What is the target audience of the course?

• Options: elementary, junior high, high school, college undergraduate, graduate students, adult continuing education, professional development, or other

1. What are the prerequisites for this course?

• If none, explicitly state "None"

1. What are the main subjects/topics covered by this course?

• Request a list of major topics

1. What are the learning outcomes organized by the 2001 Bloom's Taxonomy?

• Explain that after this course, students will be able to demonstrate competencies at each level:
• Remember: Retrieve, recognize, and recall relevant knowledge
• Understand: Construct meaning from instructional messages
• Apply: Carry out or use procedures in given situations
• Analyze: Break material into parts and determine relationships
• Evaluate: Make judgments based on criteria and standards
• Create: Put elements together to form coherent wholes; includes capstone projects

1.2 Generate Course Description

Use the template from assets/course-description-template.md and populate it with the user's responses. Create the file at /docs/course-description.md.

Ensure the generated file includes:

• Clear course title
• Target audience specification
• Prerequisites (or "None")
• Comprehensive list of main topics
• Section for topics NOT covered (to set boundaries)
• Detailed learning outcomes organized by all six Bloom's Taxonomy levels
• Descriptive text explaining why the course is important

1.3 After Creation

After creating the file, automatically proceed to Step 2 (Analysis Workflow) to validate the newly created course description and provide a quality score.

Step 2: Course Description Analysis

Use this workflow when /docs/course-description.md already exists.

2.1 Read the Course Description

Read /docs/course-description.md and analyze its contents against the quality criteria.

2.2 Course Description Quality Scoring System

Evaluate the course description using this 100-point scoring system:

Scoring Guidelines:

• Award full points if element is complete and high-quality
• Award partial points if element is present but incomplete or vague
• Award 0 points if element is missing
• For Bloom's Taxonomy levels, require at least 3 specific, actionable outcomes for full points

2.3 Gap Analysis

Identify missing or weak elements:

• List each element that scored less than full points
• Explain what is missing or insufficient
• Indicate how the absence impacts learning graph generation

2.4 Improvement Suggestions

Provide specific, actionable recommendations:

• For missing elements: Suggest what should be added
• For weak elements: Provide examples of how to strengthen them
• For Bloom's Taxonomy outcomes: Recommend specific verbs and topics
• Prioritize suggestions that will have the most impact on reaching the goal of generating 200 concepts

2.5 Course Description Assessment Report

Use mkdir -p docs/learning-graph to create a learning-graph directory in the docs directory.

Generate a comprehensive quality report on the course description and write it to docs/learning-graph/course-description-assessment.md

1. Overall Score: X/100
2. Quality Rating:

• 90-100: Excellent - Ready for learning graph generation
• 75-89: Good - Minor improvements recommended
• 60-74: Adequate - Several improvements needed
• 40-59: Fair - Significant gaps to address
• 0-39: Poor - Major revision required

1. Detailed Scoring Breakdown: Show points earned for each element
2. Gap Analysis: List of missing or weak elements
3. Improvement Suggestions: Prioritized recommendations
4. Next Steps:

• If score ≥ 85: Ready to proceed with learning graph generation
• If score < 85: Recommend addressing specific gaps before generating learning graph

2.6 Update Course Description Metadata

In this section NAME is the name of the course taken from the course description. QUALITY_SCORE is the score you computed for the course description.

If it does not exist, add the following yml metadata at the top of the docs/course-description.md file:

---
title: Course Description for Course NAME
description: A detailed course description for NAME including overview, topics covered and learning objectives in the format of the 2001 Bloom Taxonomy
quality_score: QUALITY_SCORE
---

2.7 Concept Generation Readiness

Assess whether the course description contains sufficient detail to generate 200 concepts:

• Evaluate topic breadth and depth
• Check if Bloom's Taxonomy outcomes suggest diverse concept types
• Estimate potential concept count based on current content
• Recommend additions if concept generation may fall short

Add course-description.md and the course-description-assessment.md to mkdocs.yml Navigation

After the course-description.md file has been added to the /docs directory, ask the user if the new file should be added to the mkdocs.yml file. If the answer is yes, place the new file after the about.md file.

nav:
  - Home: index.md
  - About: about.md
  - Course Description: course-description.md
  # ...other existing entries stay where they are...
  - Learning Graph:
      - Course Description Assessment: learning-graph/course-description-assessment.md

Every entry in nav is a YAML list item, so each one must begin with - , including the entries nested under a section such as Learning Graph. Keep the indentation the file already uses. A nested entry written without the dash makes mkdocs build --strict fail with "Expected nav to be a list".

Next Step

For all users with a score over 85, ask if the learning-graph-generator skill should be run next.

Best Practices

When using this skill:

1. Be thorough: Don't skip Bloom's Taxonomy levels—all six are essential for comprehensive learning
2. Be specific: Vague outcomes like "understand the material" won't support quality learning graphs
3. Use action verbs: Each outcome should start with a measurable verb (list, explain, apply, analyze, evaluate, design, etc.)
4. Think concepts: Each topic and outcome should suggest multiple learnable concepts
5. Set boundaries: Topics excluded are as important as topics covered for scope management

Resources

assets/

• course-description-template.md: Template structure for creating new course descriptions with all required sections and Bloom's Taxonomy framework