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Fill 'Er Up: How to Choose Your Learning Content
October 19, 2006
The Offline Package
Content purchase can be a great, if not invaluable, way to kick off an e-learning program, but it can also be a resource for trainers putting together classroom material, says Nanette Miner, Ed.D., and president of Harrisburg, Pa.-based The Training Doctor. Miner, whose company focuses exclusively on the custom design of workplace training, says subject matter experts, who usually have no background in constructing adult education, can make use of specially created classroom packages that include everything from facilitator guides to PowerPoint slides, videos and learner workbooks.
In addition to custom packages such as the ones she sells, Miner says companies are also sometimes able to buy ready-made material from professional associations that are industry-specific and economical to boot. She cites by way of example The National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association, a group for building material suppliers. The organization put together classroom material on forklift safety that took about $600,000 to create, but sells for just $99.
Miner charges about $10,000 per day for her custom-designed learning packages.
While the cost of most generic classroom material—anywhere between $4,000 and $7,000 for a two-day course—is nowhere near as cheap as the program those lucky contractors were able to procure from their professional association, Miner says buying a ready-made package is almost always a better deal than doing it yourself. "If you figure what it would cost you to design it in-house, and the time it would take you to do it," she notes, "it's certainly more economically feasible."
—M.W.
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By Margery Weinstein
You've laid the big bucks down for the perfect LMS, and you've even gone the extra mile for the ultimate collaboration tool. But along the way, you may have forgotten something, and it's big in its own right; the learning content. The good news is you're not alone—and there are many vendors who can get you what you need, whether off the shelf or custom created. You just need to weed through them first.
Step one, says Darryl Sink, president of Monterey, Calif.-based instructional design consultancy Darryl L. Sink & Associates, is laying the foundation for what you're trying to build. So, you've got to know exactly what you want, rather than make a rushed purchase of a learning package that's just a gamble. "I think if I were in a company, I would want to be far more disciplined about how we are making that selection, and what we are going to do with it," Sink says. "Maybe the first thought is, 'What are we trying to accomplish here?'" Questions like whether you?re trying to create an all-encompassing curriculum that stresses industry best practices and long-term performance improvement, or simply aiming to deliver regulatory training, should be figured out, he explains.
Once you know the goal, the next phase of the process is looking for packages or suites of online coursework for classes you already offer offline, Sink says. After you know those programs will be provided for, you can then think about how your purchase also might be used as a way to expand your curriculum, he advises.
As you sift through various learning packages, keep in mind the limitations of these generic offerings. "You're going to have to realize that?s not going to be your whole business curriculum," Sink says of your off-the-shelf content choices. "There will not be a generic product for everything you need to teach in your company."
For example, while you may be able to cover the basics of the sales process with a standard sales training course, you might also need a link to a custom-created class outside your content library to teach reps the intricacies of selling your particular product line, or how to drum up prospects within the industry you service. Sometimes slight alterations of content are needed, such as working with your vendor to provide a link to, or even exchange, a generic leadership development case study within the program for one focusing on a potential crisis your managers might actually face.
Sink says you might want to inquire as to whether the content comes with an authoring tool that will give you the option of easily creating custom coursework within the system. Some vendors may only allow you to build additional content inside the system using their authoring tool, he notes. Similarly, your IT department may want you to use the tool that comes with the system to create new material, so it might be a good idea to look into the strength of the tool, to see whether it will allow you to design the custom instruction you have in mind.
If the capacity it provides is too elementary for your purposes, but you?re otherwise happy with the content package, you can always go the route of creating links to custom-built courses housed outside the content system.
Realogy Corp., which in addition to Century 21 and Coldwell Banker, owns such brands as ERA, NRT Inc. and Sotheby?s International Realty Affiliates, will customize the generic learning package it seeks to purchase this fall, McManus says. The company?s 10 internal instructional designers need to be able to create custom coursework within the system so learners have a seamless experience, McManus says. A generic customer service course would be embedded with custom instruction on how the company defines exemplary service, and would even include particulars like how workers at Century 21 are expected to answer the phone.
The ability to customize is essential, since McManus says she believes there is no generic package that would fully encompass what she's looking for. "There is nothing off the shelf that will meet the needs of industry-specific training," she emphasizes. She says she knows of no pre-packaged content that can teach learners how to list and sell property, or how to manage a real estate office.
Stick to the plan
Sometimes generic material can look at first glance like exactly what you need, but upon closer scrutiny, is found wanting, says Rob Foshay, president of Dallas-based training consultancy The Foshay Group. He advises buyers look beyond coursework titles. "Just because a title of a course seems to match a need that you think you've got doesn?t mean you should buy it," Foshay observes.
If there's a course known as "Hazardous Materials," and you've got to teach workers the proper handling of such substances, you shouldn't just excitedly assume the course will deliver the right instruction. You have to make sure that it's on par with your employees' skill level and that it's actually relevant to the work your employees do.
At the same time, the design of the material you purchase has to have quality, Sink points out and gives the following questions for determining how thorough the material is: "Do they [the courses] have objectives, does it focus in on those objectives and provide you some kind of practice, do they have testing to make sure that you actually learned what it was you were supposed to learn?"
"That should be one of the things that's looked at upfront in terms of selecting that one single vendor in the first place. Have they not just got content, but is it packaged in a way that is sound instructionally?"
Part of distinguishing quality content from lackluster filler is making sure it doesn?t have a dated feel to it, says Ray Jimenez, Ph.D., president of Duarte, Calif.-based e-learning services company Vignettes for Training. "Another interesting question to ask them [vendors] is when was the content developed?" he says. "Because that spells a big difference." A program developed even five—never mind 10—years ago, may not be as engaging as newer content. It might not, for instance, have as much of an audio component as more modern material.
Integration-ready?
After you've found the perfect content, or as near to perfect as you think you're going to find, the question then becomes whether it will integrate properly with your LMS. The two systems need to be able to communicate so you have access to information such as what learners have completed which coursework, and how they did on the assessments. "How easy that exchange of data is would effect the decision the training manager has to make," Jimenez says.
Such concerns over integration coupled with a desire for a more interactive learning experience have led many LMS providers to also sell online content as part of a package deal. That way not only do you know for sure you'll be able to easily track use of the content and performance, but you?ll also be able to provide learners with resources such as chat rooms, discussion boards and coaching tools. "The content becomes only a staging point for teaching ideas," says Jimenez of the current trend of wrapping opportunities for interaction around content.
Whether buying content with an accompanying LMS is important depends on what you?re trying to teach. "It's always good to do that [have interactivity] when your content has a lot of judgment and decision-making," Jimenez says. If you're delivering leadership development training, you may ask the participant to go through an online self-assessment of their managerial style that will have little meaning if a coach isn't able to interact with them to provide feedback.
On the other hand, if you're providing compliance training in which workers just need to be updated on the law, the ability to interact isn?t as important because the learning mostly boils down to memorization.
If you don't buy the content from the same vendor that sold you the LMS, the question of integration is a big one, and McManus says she's well aware of that problem. "I've had to reject a couple vendors because they're so restrictive I can't use it with my LMS," she says.
Her company decided to go with material from West Des Moines, Iowa-based GeoLearning. Though the vendor sells content for its LMSes, Realogy is considering it as just one of the many options it's exploring, McManus says.
Her goal is to make a purchase decision in time for the content to launch simultaneously with implementation of the company's new LMS this January, but she says she'll wait if necessary to find a package that meets her needs.
She won't, for instance, buy from any vendor that won't let her purchase the specific 15 or so courses she wants at a price that's competitive, meaning substantially less, than the package deal. She doesn't want to pay for coursework she knows she won't use. "I am making that a condition of the contract negotiation," McManus says of the ability to buy just what she needs. "It's either you want our business, or you don't want our business. I'm the customer."
A Few of Your Content Options
Element K
What: Provides libraries for skill development and performance support on IT topics, office productivity, sales, customer service, call centers, compliance and safety and business fundamentals. Many libraries it sells have optional e-reference components as well as simulations or virtual labs.
How Much: Course libraries are offered on a subscription basis for one to three years, with price dependent on the topical coverage, library components (courses, e-reference, labs, etc.), number of students and duration of the subscription, which includes a learning platform. For example, training for 100 project managers who are working towards their project management professional certification, and for whom training access for one year includes 40 courses, assessments, support materials, a 50-book project management e-reference library, and is delivered via the vendor?s hosted learning platform, would cost $30,000, or $300 a person.
SkillSoft
What: Collections include classes on business, IT skills, environmental safety and health compliance and desktop computing, as well as material on legal compliance and the financial services industry. The vendor's Books24X7 division provides Web-based digital technical and business reference content, containing reference books, research reports, documentation and articles.
How Much: Pricing for courses varies based on the number of titles or the courseware bundle licensed by a customer, the number of users and the length of the license agreement (generally one, two or three years). Licenses permit customers to exchange courses, typically on the contract anniversary date. The vendor would not disclose further pricing details.
Telephone Doctor
What: A video training library specializing in customer service training. The coursework is available in both a Web-based application service provider model as well as a SCORM-compliant format in which customers can load the vendor's learning material onto their own learning management system.
How Much: Pricing depends on the number of trainees, and how long they will need access to course material. Costs range from $59 per person or less annually, with discounts available based on volume.
GeoLearning
What: Twenty-five thousand courseware titles from about 40 content producers, including the vendor?s own 300-plus titles in desktop computer skills, IT, business skills and workplace safety. Among other topic areas covered by the vendor?s library are classes on leadership development, finance and banking and management.
How Much: Pricing typically depends on the number of users/licenses, number of courses (size of library) and the length of contract (i.e. one- vs. three-year contract). For a library of around 100 courses for 2,500-5,000 employees, the cost would range between $50 and $100 per user. Special pricing programs are available for small and mid-size organizations with less than 1,000 employees.
—M.W.
SIDEBAR 3: More (Than You Need) for Your Money
When you've found the right system, there's a good chance it's going to be sold as part of an unwieldy package bound to overwhelm your employees if you just plunk it inside your LMS and tell workers it's time to explore, says Ray Jimenez, Ph.D., president of Duarte, Calif.-based e-learning services company Vignettes for Training.
The full content library of vendors, sold as a complete package, is usually the best deal you're going to get, but you need to figure out exactly which classes will be most useful to employees, and then deliver them to workers in a structured way, Jimenez recommends. Just giving them access to a comprehensive library isn?t enough, he contends. "The consequence is that the usage is very low, and the penetration of per user usage of the programs will not show favorably in terms of the value of e-learning," he says of steering workers in an undirected fashion towards your new content.
If you're an IT company, and you want to update workers on the use of Java programming tools, and the e-learning package you purchased includes everything from instruction on the inner workings of Microsoft to Dream-weaver and PowerPoint, you would want to present the courses on Java to learners as a requirement, while letting them know the rest is there as an optional resource. They learn what they need that way—no e-learning scavenger hunt required.
—M.W.
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