Tutorial or a Course?

Hi Susan, the distinction you make between course and tutorial is good but I don’t think the size of the user-base has any baring on whether or not something is a couse or a tutorial. 

I would not spent too much time worrying that someone in your workplace uses the term tutorials. It doesn’t diminish the effort you put into your work.  I guess the only time this could be an issue is if it causes confusion among your stakeholders about what you are creating for them.

I have heard many names, I don't think it really matters what it is called.

I would use the term "Course" for the entire thing, the course would then contain lessons/tutorials and assessments/quizzes.

I don't think it matters but I view a tutorial as something that will teach me how to do something very specific by providing me with step-by-step instructions to acheive an end goal.

It is good that you and your project members have a good understanding about what certain terms mean, so there is no miscommunication. I also would consider the whole Articulate Storyline project as a course or module and in a course or module you can have assignments, lessons, knowledge test, quizzes and more.

I once tried to get my (former) organization to call information-oriented awareness courses "tutorials" so I could reserve "course" for something that required learners to apply knowledge, not just absorb it.

These terms don't have widespread consensus meanings, so it should be possible within an organization, to establish more specific meanings for them. However, doing so will require a lot of language policing and in the end, I stopped pushing this terminology as policing people's language seemed counterproductive.

I do like the idea of using a different term for information-oriented products, with the goal of eventually getting people to consider whether information-oriented products need to be developed as e-learning at all. My feeling is that in most cases, if it's just information awareness, that's probably best delivered as a document of some sort. The terminology by itself wouldn't be enough, but it might help pave the way for a rethink of how certain "training" interventions are developed.

In the short term, though, what people call your course is not that important. "That which we call a rose / By any other word would smell as sweet."

Cheers!

    -Ray