E-Learning Maintenance Checklist

As an e-learning designer, it’s good practice to periodically review your e-learning courses and make sure they’re up to date and functioning as expected. Depending on how many courses you create every year, this task may feel daunting, but think of it like this: if your training courses are outdated or broken, having employees spend time taking them is a wasted effort.

To make it a little easier for you, I put together this list of things to watch out for when you review your courses.

Outdated Information

This is the main reason it’s important to review e-learning courses: stuff changes! And when an internal policy changes six months after you create a course, you won’t necessarily think to update that course. Here are some things you should look for during your review:

• Are there any references to events that have since passed?
• Are there any references to products no longer on the market?
• Is there any mention of people who have changed positions or left the company (photos or text)?
• Is all the information about internal processes up to date?
• Is all the information about laws and regulations up to date?
• Is all the contact information (email addresses and phone numbers) still accurate?

Outdated Visuals

Another thing to pay attention to during your review is the visuals. For example:

• Is the branding (logos, fonts, colors, etc.) used in the course up to date?
• Do any of the screenshots feature older versions of tools or images of people wearing outdated uniforms or logo apparel?

Technical Issues

Technology changes and web pages disappear, so when you’re reviewing your course, it’s important to be on the lookout for things that don’t work as expected. Here’s a list of issues to watch out for:

• Does the course still load correctly?
• Do all the links still lead to working web pages?
• Do all the buttons still work?
• Do videos still load and play back as expected?

Content Mistakes

You reviewed your course when you made it, but sometimes when you’re too close to something, you can’t see the forest for the trees. While you’re at it, you may as well take a look to see if there’s anything you missed the first time around. Things like:

• Are there any typos or spelling errors?
• Are there any capitalization or punctuation errors?
• Is there any incorrect information?
• Is content formatted in a consistent way throughout the course?

Wrap Up

Hopefully, this checklist will make the maintenance of your e-learning courses go a little bit more smoothly. And if you're looking for a way to stay organized as you update a long list of courses, download this helpful spreadsheet.

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