Building my own E learning team

Feb 24, 2016

Hi All,

I have recently joined a company that is launching E learning and I have to decide on an Elearning Tool and my work force.

The requirement is for an E commerce company where the target learners are mostly people out of college.The courses have to be scenario based where a customer and an executive are talking about a process.Basically I will need very immersive participative and interactive course.

I want to know  if I hire a Graphic designer and a programmer, that would be enough?Also tell me,what is the exact role of a programmer here.What skills should I look for in him. I am expecting him to be able to deploy the course as well.How many years of experience should he have.

Same goes for the Graphic Designer.

I need this by tomorrow afternoon.

Please help!

8 Replies
Nicole Legault

Hi Saumya, 

Thanks for posting your question here in the forums. 

Do you have an Instructional Designer involved or as part of your team? You mention having a graphic designer and a programmer, but if you're looking to build an immersive, engaging, scenario-based course, I think a good ID is going to be critical for developing this content.

In terms of a programmer, I think you'll need an E-Learning Developer, and one who specializes in the elearning tool that you're going to be working with (whether that's Storyline, Captivate, or whatever the case may be - you want the developer to be proficient with the software at hand). In terms of expecting him/her to be able to deploy the course, that also depends: how are you planning to deploy it? Are you using an LMS? If yes, do you know which LMS? Those are important considerations that will matter for your decision, I believe. 

Can you provide any additional information about your project?

Christy Tucker

I second everything Nicole said.

One other role that you might need is a Subject Matter Expert or SME. Even if you have documentation on the process you're training, you need a SME to validate the scenario and conversation that the ID writes. A SME will tell you if the reactions (both good and bad) are realistic. A SME can help you identify the common mistakes learners make so you can include those as wrong answers in the scenario and show the consequences of those errors.

Bob S

One other thought....

One a small L&D team you tend to wear a lot of hats.  If you only have two roles available, here's how I might structure it....

  • Lead ID/Project Manager that has a background in the subject (Sales, CS, etc). This person can interface with stakeholders, set project milestones, do the ID of course, and act as SME (partially or in concert with others)
  • Developer that also has decent graphic skills. This person can program your courses, work through tech/deployment issues, and do graphic design/layout (partially or in concert with 3rd party outsource ).  This person can also manage that outsource graphic content as needed.

Again, with a small team you are going to want folks with varied backgrounds like this that be flexible in responding to business needs.

saumya kapila

Hi Nicole,

I will play the role of the ID and project Manager. Since, we are just
starting, before I ask for more resources, I need to showcase something
excellent.

Can you suggest what tool should I use for a course that need to have
characters talking to each other? Is flash a must for these type of
courses? Can we integrate flash graphics/interactivity in Articulate
storyline?

Also , we don't have LMS available. so we have two options either we can go
for buying an LMS or develop our own. For this also we will need a
programmer I believe?

*Best Regards,*

*Saumya Kapila | Trainer-Content Development | Girnar Software Pvt Ltd |*

*Mobile +91 -9910644933 | **saumya.kapila@girnarsoft.com
** |*

*[image: Description: sign

saumya kapila

Hello Bob,

Thank you for your reply. Do you have any suggestions around which tool
shall we use?I will have to develop courses that will have character
talking to each other about a situation.

Can flash interactivity and graphics be embedded into Articulate Storyline.?

*Best Regards,*

*Saumya Kapila | Trainer-Content Development | Girnar Software Pvt Ltd |*

*Mobile +91 -9910644933 | **saumya.kapila@girnarsoft.com
** |*

*[image: Description: sign

Christy Tucker

Animating the characters probably won't add any actual value to the learning over having static images of characters. Especially since this is your first project, I recommend focusing your efforts on good writing and design rather than flashy animation. A graphic designer to make it beautiful is worthwhile, but I wouldn't bother hiring an animator.

The people who are doing full blown animated simulations are mostly doing custom programming with HTML5, Javascript, JQuery plus 3D simulations with Maya or 3DS Max. That kind of simulation requires a bigger team and more resources than it sounds like you have.

Don't try to create your own LMS. There are over 800 LMSs out there already--surely one of them can meet your needs! It would be a waste to get a programmer to create something from scratch when you could just hire an LMS expert to help you research, select, and implement an existing system.

Nicole Legault

Agree with Christy on every point. Sounds like you truly want to make this an amazing project, which I commend you for, but sometimes when our expectations are too high they can be impossible to live up to, especially since this sounds like, based on the questions you're asking, it's one of your first big projects. 

I also don't think having an animator or having animated characters is worth the time and cost it will take to develop it. Use static photos of characters. Articulate Storyline 2 would work perfectly for building what you need. Also, totally agree, don't build your own LMS. There's a ton of options to choose from already, building an LMS is a huge undertaking and would be a big project on it's own, I think you're going to end up with a lot of headaches if you try to build it yourself...

The most important part of your entire course and what will make the scenarios most engaging and relevant is the WRITING! The written content of your course will be the backbone of it. Great visuals (nice background photos, character photos, nice font selection, solid color scheme, etc.) will definitely help to make it engaging but the actual text, written content is the key here. (in my opinion!) 

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