Get to Know The 4 Levels of E-Learning
If you work in e-learning or training, you’ve probably heard people refer to the levels of e-learning before. But what does that mean? In the e-learning industry, there are four generally accepted levels of e-learning that will, in turn, affect the learning experience, cost, and development time of your project. Today, you’ll get a high-level look at all four levels. Once you understand the key components of each level, you’ll be better equipped to estimate the time—and also cost—of future projects. Level 1: Passive Interactivity Level 1 e-learning is a passive experience, where the learner just consumes information. There’s little to no interactivity with the course and the learner mostly reads and moves forward by clicking Next. In fact, some refer to level 1 as the “click next” style of e-learning because of its low level of interactivity. These courses include static text and images, and little to no multimedia. Quizzes in level 1 courses are usually straightforward multiple choice and true-or-false questions. Level 1 e-learning, while simple, does have its place: it can be a quick way to cover simple rules or procedures. Check out these examples to get a better understanding of what level 1 courses look like: View Example View Example Level 2: Limited Interactivity At level 2, e-learning courses start to incorporate some multimedia. Courses at this level can contain audio, some video, basic animations, and a few simple transitions. This level of content is often accompanied by narration and click-and-reveal interactions. Level 2 quizzes start to incorporate drag-and-drop interactions and matching activities. If you’re looking for a nice middle ground with a richer learning experience without too much development time, level 2 e-learning is probably a good fit. Here are some examples of level 2 courses: View Example View Example Level 3: Complex Interactivity With level 3 e-learning courses, the interactions become even more sophisticated. In this level, you can expect to include extensive audio, video, transitions, animations, and more. Quizzing can involve branched, scenario-based questions that allow learners to explore multiple paths and feedback levels. Level 3 e-learning is usually a good fit if you’re looking to teach learners more complex skills, for example, if you’re creating a course for new nurses on patient care. Here are some examples of level 3 e-learning: View Example View Example Level 4: Full Immersion Level 4 e-learning uses all of the components in levels 1, 2, and 3, plus gamification or simulation. These courses may incorporate 360° images, games or complex gamification, scenarios, avatars, or interactive videos. These courses are more immersive than other levels of e-learning. As learners interact with the course, they receive feedback on their choices. And in some cases, their choices might even impact the content they’re presented with next. This makes level 4 e-learning excellent for learners who need to practice real-time decision-making skills. Although these courses take the longest to develop, the learner experience makes it well worth the effort. Take a look at a few examples: View Example View Example Wrap-Up Now that you know about the four levels of e-learning, you’re ready to identify which one a new project falls under! This will help you appropriately estimate the time and assets needed to create the course. Are you looking to learn more about e-learning development? Check out these helpful resources. What You Need to Know to Create Amazing E-Learning 6 Easy Ways to Make More Compelling Interactions for Your Online Courses Here’s How I Transformed This Static E-Learning Content What level of e-learning is your favorite to create? Let me know in the comments below. Follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.How to Do a Task Analysis Like a Pro
Task analysis is one of the cornerstones of instructional design. But what is it, really? The name says a lot: you analyze a task, step by step, to document how that task is completed. At first glance, this seems like a straightforward thing. But even the easiest tasks can be quite complex. Things you do every day might seem simple when you first think about them. But what happens when you eliminate internalized or assumed knowledge? Take sending an email. Easy, right? Maybe four or five steps? Click the New Mail icon Enter a Recipient Enter a Subject Enter your email text Click Send But what about carbon copy or blind carbon copy recipients? What if you need to attach an invoice or picture? What app do you use to create the email in the first place (or are you sending from Gmail in your browser)? For that matter, from which device are you sending the email? Suddenly that “simple” task is a set of processes, organized by device, operating system, and application, with various subtasks along the way accounting for mailing list complexities and the purpose of your email. As I was writing this I came up with about a dozen different variations, all of which would need to be closely analyzed and broken down precisely. Even the most average task has a lot behind it. This is why understanding how to do a task analysis is so important to becoming a successful instructional designer. When instructional designers create training, they’re teaching the learner how to accomplish something. Task analysis helps you focus on what they’re going to do and how they’ll do it (don’t worry so much about the why; that comes later). The easiest way to illustrate the process is with an example. Let’s say you work at a midsize media company and your boss asks you to complete a task analysis on how the company’s social media manager does her job. They want this documented for training purposes for future hires. That means you’ll need to: Identify the task to analyze Break down the task into subtasks Identify steps in subtasks Let’s take a closer look at each of these steps. Step 1: Identify the Task to Analyze Tasks are the duties carried out by someone on the job. The social media manager carries out a lot of duties, so you need to be able to break them down into broad activities (aka tasks!) and focus on them one at a time. Don’t worry about all the little things that make up the task; we’ll get to that in a second. Here we’re looking to paint with broad strokes. One of the social media manager’s tasks is to add new content to social media sites every morning. Your tasks should describe what a person does on the job and must start with an action verb. So, in this case, the first task to analyze is “Add new content to social media.” Step 2: Break Down the Task into Subtasks Once you identify the task, you need to identify the subtasks, the smaller processes that make up the larger task. Remember in the email example above where I mentioned attachments and carbon-copying recipients? That’s the kind of thing you capture here. These should also be brief and start with an action verb. Continuing the social media manager example, you need to find out the subtasks of adding new content to social media. You can figure this out by talking to or observing the social media manager. Through this process, you discover that the subtasks for adding new content to social media are: Check the editorial calendar Add new content to Twitter You’re making good progress! You can now move on to Step 3. Step 3: Identify Steps in Subtasks Now it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty. You’ve identified the task and broken it down into subtasks. The final step, then, is to identify and list the steps for each subtask. Do this by breaking down all of the subtasks into specific step-by-step, chronological actions. The key here is to use a “Goldilocks” approach to detail: not too much and not too little. Use just the right amount so learners can follow the instructions easily. Again, as with tasks and subtasks, your steps need to start with an action verb. So, putting everything together from steps 1 and 2 and then breaking the subtasks into steps, your final task analysis would look like this; 1. Adding new content to social media 1.1 Check the editorial calendar 1.1.1 Navigate to the calendar webpage 1.1.2 Click today’s date 1.1.3 Click newest article title to open article 1.1.4 Click inside article URL bar 1.1.5 Copy URL for article to clipboard 1.1.6 Highlight title text of article 1.1.7 Copy the title text to clipboard 1.1.8 Close the calendar 1.2 Add new content to Twitter 1.2.1 Navigate to Twitter account 1.2.2 Log in to Twitter account 1.2.3 Click Tweet button 1.2.4 Paste article title from clipboard 1.2.5 Paste article URL from clipboard 1.2.6 Click Tweet button to publish There are several ways to approach task analysis. It’s a fine art deciding how far down the rabbit hole you need to go with detail. Instructional designers can debate for hours whether saying “log in” is enough or if that needs to be broken down further into “enter user name,” “enter password,” and “click the login button.” Again, it all comes down to figuring out how much detail is just right for your audience. Wrapping Up That’s it! As you can see, while creating a task analysis boils down to “just” three steps, there are a lot of nuanced decisions to make along the way. Remember the Goldilocks Rule and always consider your audience and the seriousness of the subject matter when deciding just how nitpicky you need your task analysis to be. After all, there’s a marked difference between how much detail a learner needs when they’re learning how to perform brain surgery versus filling out their timecard. Do you have any do’s and don’ts of your own for completing a successful task analysis? If you do, please leave a comment below. We love to hear your feedback! Follow us on Twitter and come back to E-learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.Follow These Tips to Reduce Your Risk of Corrupting or Losing Project Files
It’s every e-learning developer’s worst nightmare: you’re hard at work in an application, deep in development, when all of a sudden—the software freezes! You start frantically clicking around … this can’t be happening! When did you last save the file? Are you going to lose all that work?!? Others (not you, right?) have faced the horror of having an entire project, representing weeks or even months of work, become corrupt and completely unusable. Different scenario, same result. Yuk. File corruption can happen, even in the best software, and even if you’re following all the recommended best practices. It’s not just a software crash that could wipe out or damage project files; it could be a power outage, your computer crashing, or even just the size of your project file, as very large files have a higher risk of corrupting. You need to be prepared if a problem occurs and know what options can help to prevent it. To be ready if it happens, follow these pro tips. Work Locally You should always save and publish all of your Articulate Storyline files and projects to your local hard drive, which is typically your C: drive. Working on a network drive or an external (USB) drive can cause erratic behavior due to latency, which is the amount of time it takes for the information to traverse the systems. As a result, your files might become corrupted, you could be unable to save changes, or your application might “freeze” altogether. If you need to copy your project over to a network drive or a USB drive for backup or versioning purposes, only do it once you’ve saved the file and exited the Storyline application. Do not reopen the project file until it’s finished copying. (That’s why backing up your Storyline 360 project files to Review 360 or uploading content to a library of shared team slides are better options.) To learn even more about the importance of working locally, read this helpful article by Trina Rimmer: Save Time with This E-Learning Project Troubleshooting Checklist. Use Proper File-Naming Conventions It’s important that you follow some important basic conventions when you name your project files and published output. Do not use special characters, accents, or symbols in your Storyline file names or in any file paths. And avoid using spaces in your file names and file paths; spaces will be replaced by symbols (i.e., %) when you publish the course, which looks messy and could possibly contribute to file corruption. Here are a few suggestions for naming your files without spaces: Use an Underscore or Dash: Instead of using spaces between the words, use a dash or an underscore. For example, safety_training_101.story, or retail-module-3.story. Use CamelCase: CamelCase is a practice often used in the web development world that includes writing words or sentences so each word begins with a capital letter; for example, SafetyTraining101.story or RetailModule3.story. With either of these tips, you can easily read your file names without using spaces. Another best practice: always use short names to ensure the file paths to your projects and published output are well under the 260-character limit imposed by Microsoft Windows. Save Often Get into the habit of saving your work at least every 5 to 10 minutes. The fastest and easiest way to save your file is to simply hit CTRL+S on your keyboard. You should save so often it becomes automatic and you don’t even notice when you’re doing it. When you see an asterisk (*) next to your project file’s name, it means your project has changes and needs to be saved: It also should go without saying that you should always save after you do something complex, confusing, or time-consuming that you don’t want to have to repeat. Create Versions In addition to constantly saving your project file, you should be “versioning” as well. To create a version is simply to do a Save As of the file and then save it with a new name; this makes a new version of the file. The number of versions you create will depend on you and your requirements, but here are a few ideas: Daily: You might consider creating a new version of the *.story file every day and including that day’s date in the title. For example: safety-training-03-22-2016.story. This way, if you need to go back to a previous version, you’ll have every day to choose from. Weekly: Versioning every day might be too often for your needs; if that’s the case consider doing at the very least a weekly version of your document. If you choose to store versions less frequently than weekly, you might find you have to re-do a lot of work to get your project file back where you need it to be. Major Changes: It’s a good idea to always create a new version when there’s a major change to the file, including navigation changes or any design changes that are going to apply project-wide. If you change your mind, or need to go back for any reason, you’ll be thankful you made the new version. How long do you want to hang on to all those versions? It depends, but until the project is delivered is probably a safe bet. After that, you might want to hang on to a couple of versions but are probably safe deleting the rest. Back Up Your Work Saving your work religiously and creating file versions won’t do you much good if your computer crashes. To save yourself major headaches when something unpredictable occurs, you need to back up your work OFTEN. How often? How many hours of work are you willing to redo should a crash occur? I recommend backing up your work at least once a day. Let’s review some options for backing up your work: Review 360: When you publish a Storyline 360 project to Review 360, you can include the source file so it's downloadable from Review 360. You can even store project files for multiple versions of a course. (Articulate 360 subscribers have access to this feature. If you don't have Articulate 360, start a free 30-day trial.) File-Hosting Service: Use a third-party hosting service to back up your project files. The options abound: Dropbox, Carbonite, Backblaze, and many more. Some of these services automatically back up all your files constantly, so you don’t even have to think about it. File or Web Server: Opt for a file or web server to upload your files and back up your work. External Hard Drive: Save your files to an external hard drive. Even if you do this, it’s still a good idea to back up that hard drive to a server or file-hosting service in case the drive itself should ever become corrupt. Yes, there are costs associated with most of these options, but it’s usually much less than the cost of losing your work, which can represent many, many hours of development time. If you work in an office setting, check to see if the IT department has a backup system already in place. If so, ask about the policy, and then consider making your own backups as well, as an extra precaution. Enable Auto-Recovery Storyline has a handy auto-recovery feature. To initiate the feature, you need to save your project file at least once. It should be enabled by default; but to make sure, or to make adjustments to the intervals, click on File from the Storyline ribbon and select Storyline Options at the bottom of the menu. In the Storyline Options window, you’ll notice the AutoRecovery option. When you select this option, Storyline will automatically save a copy of your project at the specified interval and you can recover your work if the power goes out or the app shuts down unexpectedly. The default interval is every 10 minutes, but you can enter any whole number between 1 and 120. Learn more about the auto-recovery feature on this page: Setting Articulate Storyline Options. Why does the auto-recovery feature exist? If Storyline crashes or closes unexpectedly, chances are you didn’t save before it closed. So, in the background, the application has been doing it for you. This means Storyline will prompt you, when you reopen the file, with a message to recover the file from the last auto-recovery save that occurred. Exit the Application Another best practice is to not leave the Storyline application open and unattended for long periods of time. If you leave the application running overnight, it’s possible that a malware scan or disk backup could run because the machine is idle, making your application vulnerable to crashing. When you’re done working with your project file and about to step away, do a final save, close the application, and back up the latest version—just to be safe. Check Temp Files If there’s a crash and your file is lost or corrupt, don’t lose hope: there may still be a working version of your project in your temp files. Here's how to check: Open this folder in Windows Explorer: %appdata%\Articulate\Storyline. Scan the contents of this folder for a file that starts with the name of your project. If you find the file, copy it to your desktop (if you find more than one, copy the latest version). Change the file extension of the copy on your desktop from *.tmp to *.story. Double-click the file to open it in Storyline. If your project file isn't there, it may be lost (sad face). But the good news is, if you’ve been following the recommended best practices above—versioning and backing up your work—you’ve hopefully only lost a minimal amount of work. In Sum These are just some of the tips you can follow to avoid corrupt and lost project files. Remember, it’s all about being proactive just in case the unpredictable happens! Follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.7 Common E-Learning Job Interview Questions
Do you have an e-learning job interview coming up and want to feel prepared? If so, you’ve come to the right place! One of the best ways to get ready is to practice answering some common questions before the big day. That way you’ll arrive feeling confident, comfortable, and in control. So, what questions should you practice answering? Let’s dive into seven prompts that e-learning candidates get asked the most—and how interviewers expect you to respond. #1: Can you tell me about yourself? This is a classic interview question—no matter what industry you’re in. That’s because it’s an easy way to transition into the interview and give candidates an opportunity to introduce themselves. But there’s no need to go into your entire life story here. The interviewer just wants to hear a summary of your professional experience and qualifications and how those skills relate to the job. Whatever you decide to share, keep it concise. #2: Why do you want to work here? It’s a fair question. People take pride in the company they work for and want to know if you share in that passion. This question gives the interviewer some insight into how much you know about the company, its culture, and its values. So, make sure you research the company beforehand so you can truthfully answer why the company and role appeal to you. #3: What’s your typical e-learning process? Since the e-learning creation process can vary with each company, the interviewer wants to know how you typically approach new projects and what instructional methods guide your work. This also gives them more insight into whether you know all the steps involved in designing an e-learning course. Some companies also don’t have all the resources to fill an entire team, so knowing how involved you are in each step can give them a better picture of your capabilities and what you can bring to their team. #4: What tools are you comfortable using? The interviewer wants to know what applications you’re comfortable with. Often, the programs that are required for the position are listed in the job description. Sharing your proficiency with these applications lets them know you can quickly adapt if hired. But what if there’s a program you’re unfamiliar with? Try to obtain a free trial before the interview to determine if you can comfortably use it and to show your willingness to learn new tools. And don’t forget to mention any other programs that would help you create quality courses. #5: Have you ever disagreed with a subject matter expert? If so, how did you resolve it? We all know that subject matter experts (SMEs) play a critical role in the e-learning process. But despite their importance to your projects, interviewers are also aware that their different perspectives and priorities can sometimes cause tension in the working relationship. Interviewers want to know you’re honest—so saying you’ve never worked with anyone challenging might not seem plausible or could make you come across as inexperienced. Whatever example you share, make sure it has a positive outcome so the interviewer knows you can work with different types of personalities. #6: What do you consider to be your greatest weakness? Here you are trying to put your best foot forward, and now you have to talk about how terrible you are at something. But this question is actually more about turning a negative into a positive. The interviewer wants to see that you’re self-aware enough to recognize a skill or experience gap but determined enough to overcome it. Share something you’ve worked on or are currently working on that shows you take initiative in your professional development. #7: Why should we hire you? Sometimes this question takes the form of “Why should I hire you over other candidates?” Obviously, you don’t know who else has applied, but the real reason interviewers ask this is to hear what you think makes you the best fit for the position. Don’t give a vague answer such as “I’m a hard worker.” They want to know what’s unique about you and how your specific skill set would complement their team. Wrap-Up These are just a few of the questions you can expect to be asked in e-learning job interviews, so don’t stop here! Do more research and find out what else interviewers ask. And then, practice out loud so you can respond with confidence when it’s time for the actual interview. Just make sure you’re not responding with general answers that anyone could say. The main goal is to be personable and memorable so the interviewer knows who you are. Looking for more ways to prepare for your e-learning job interview? Check out these helpful resources for more ideas! Storyline: E-Learning Interview Questions Snag That E-Learning Job with These 5 Interview Tips 5 Tips for Landing Your Next E-Learning Job Rise 360: Can You Talk Your Way Into Higher Pay? Branching Scenario Follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.What Makes a Training Team? 11 Common Job Titles in E-Learning
The training and e-learning industry has never been a more exciting field to work in than it is today. First, technology—and let’s face it, e-learning is technology!—is a booming, growing industry that is ever-evolving, providing job variety as well as the opportunity to constantly learn new skills. Before the age of the Internet, training was mostly face-to-face and classroom based. But now, with globalization and increased access to the Internet, training departments are hotbeds of technology, adopting trends like gamification and interactive video. For these reasons and more, it’s easy to get excited about a career in training and e-learning design. Let’s look at some of the common job titles in today’s training and e-learning industries. Keep in mind, there are always nuances at each organization about job titles and the job functions they actually represent. The definitions below are simply a general idea of what each job title could entail. Trainer AKA: Facilitator, Instructor, Teacher What do trainers do? Simply put, they deliver instructor-led training—in either a physical or virtual classroom. Trainers deliver instructional content (designed by instructional designers), administer activities, and provide feedback to learners. To be a trainer, you need to be comfortable speaking in front of groups. Effective trainers are usually confident, dynamic, and engaging. You should also have strong communication skills and a knack for sharing information with learners in a concise and efficient way. If you have any doubts, there’s a whole industry dedicated to, well, training trainers on how to train! Two other key skills are time management and adaptability, which means being able to adjust your material or delivery on the fly to meet a group’s learning needs. And if you’re a virtual trainer, it’s important to have technology skills, like experience with web-conferencing or virtual classroom apps. Instructional Designer (ID) AKA: Training Designer, Instructional Systems Designer, Curriculum Designer Instructional designers (IDs) design training experiences. Whether the requirement is an instructor-led classroom training session, a one-hour e-learning module, or a single-page job aid, the ID needs to have the skill set to transform raw source content (often a Word document or a PowerPoint) into a meaningful and effective training solution. The output of an ID’s work varies depending on the type of training experience they are creating. If they’re designing an e-learning course, the output will likely be a storyboard, which is often passed along to a developer to create the content. On the other hand, if the ID is designing a classroom-based training activity or a simple job aid, they might develop those training materials themselves and then pass them on directly to the trainer for delivery. What skill set do you need to be a successful ID? You should be familiar with adult learning principles, learning theories, and instructional methodologies and models, such as ADDIE, SAM, and Kirkpatrick’s Levels of Evaluation. Since there’s a lot of writing involved in creating training materials, you should also strive to be a clear and effective writer. You also need to be analytical, logical, organized, and creative to design courses that present the key messages in a way that makes sense and engages the learners. E-Learning Developer AKA: Multimedia Developer, E-Learning Designer, Course Developer The e-learning developer takes the instructionally designed content (typically a storyboard or Word document) created by the instructional designer and develops them into a functional online course using e-learning authoring software. Depending on the level of detail the ID includes in their storyboard, the developer may or may not need to make some visual design and content layout decisions. They might also be the point person to replace any placeholder content (such as images or videos) and provide the final content. The e-learning developer’s skill set, ideally, would include strong experience using e-learning authoring software, a certain level of graphic and visual design abilities, an ability to manage timelines and due dates, and a level of comfort working with audio and video. Subject Matter Expert (SME) The Subject Matter Expert (SME) is someone who’s an expert in their field. SMEs aren’t usually specifically hired for the purpose of developing e-learning courses (though that does happen in certain cases). The SME is usually the person in an organization who has the most knowledge or skill in a specific topic and is simply helping out with the course creation process. The SME could be an HR staff member, an engineer, a researcher, a product manager, a sales manager, a finance person, etc. SMEs have the content, experience, and insights that are essential to creating great e-learning courses. They provide the course content to the instructional designer, who picks out the key messages and decides how to present them to learners in an effective way. Then the SME reviews the course to ensure the content is still accurate. In addition to being an expert on the subject, ideally the SME is someone who’s got a basic understanding of what makes training effective and how the course creation process works. If that’s not the case, it’s a good idea for the instructional designer to give them a quick overview, so they know what to expect. Here’s a course that was designed for this exact purpose. It’s also important for SMEs to be detail-oriented, since the accuracy of the content depends on them reviewing the course carefully, every step of the way. Finally, a good SME also has great communication skills, allowing them to provide clear feedback, so the instructional designer can then adapt the course accordingly. Here are some tips for first-time Subject Matter Experts. Content Editor AKA: Proofreader Some larger e-learning course creation companies hire content editors to review their courses. Their job is to ensure that everything is explained clearly, terms are used consistently, and the text is free of typos, grammatical mistakes, and spelling errors. When the project team is smaller or if courses are created internally, the content editor role is often done more informally by, say, a willing coworker. No matter who proofreads your course, it’s important that they have excellent writing skills and are detail-oriented. If you don’t have access to a professional content editor, here’s an article that outlines some things to ask your coworker to watch out for as they review your course: Top Writing Tips for E-Learning. Quality Assurance (QA) Tester AKA: Usability Tester Some training companies hire QA testers to review their courses from a technical standpoint and ensure everything works properly before they roll them out to learners. In smaller companies, this step is often something the instructional designer or e-learning developer hands off to a friendly coworker. QA testers spend time going through the courses and exploring any and all possible paths a learner might take, to ensure the learner doesn’t run into any issues. In addition to having patience, QA testers need to be extremely observant and meticulous—taking note of anything that works in a way they wouldn’t expect. Here’s a list of things to look out for. Graphic Designer AKA: Illustrator Not every company has the budget to have a dedicated graphic designer, but having one can really add value. Graphic designers can design custom slide layouts, icons, illustrations, and more that will make your courses look even more professional. For those of you working on teams without a graphic designer, don’t worry! If you’re an Articulate 360 subscriber, you’ve got access to tons of great templates, icons, illustrations, and photos for no additional cost in Content Library 360. Graphic designers working on e-learning project teams require a skill set similar to those working in other environments: a great eye for design, creativity, and a familiarity with apps like Photoshop and Illustrator. It’s also helpful if graphic designers are organized and used to working in teams. That way they’ll be used to clearly labeling the assets they create so other people can easily find and edit them as needed. E-Learning Project Manager AKA: Training Project Manager Much like project managers in any field, an e-learning project manager is responsible for organizing and coordinating the creation of e-learning courses. Typically, this kind of role exists in larger e-learning content creation companies. In smaller organizations, the person managing the course creation might also be the instructional designer and/or the e-learning developer. In this case, they’d need to have the required skills for all three of those roles. The project manager is the main contact for external clients. As such, they serve as a liaison between the client and the project team members (instructional designers, e-learning developers, etc.), making sure everyone stays on the same page. The project manager also manages the course creation schedule, ensuring that things move forward as expected and stay on track to meet the deadlines. To be successful in this role, you need to know how to manage a team, a project schedule, and work with clients effectively. You need to have excellent relationship-building skills and be able to communicate clearly. And since you’ll need to anticipate any potential pitfalls that could pop up throughout the project, it’s helpful to have basic instructional design skills, a general understanding of what’s possible in the authoring tools you’re using, and a working knowledge of the way LMSs work. Training Manager AKA: Training Coordinator, Manager of Training and Development The training manager designs, develops, and executes an organization’s training strategy (which is usually outlined by the director of training). They typically work with internal stakeholders and teams to develop training programs—including in-person and online training—that align with the organization’s business goals. The training manager often takes care of scheduling instructor-led training sessions, booking training venues, communicating with participants about class logistics, ordering classroom materials, and more. They also identify training and developmental needs by analyzing job requirements, operational opportunities, and current training programs. After completing this research, they analyze the data and use a metrics-driven approach to develop training solutions and learning initiatives. Often, they will oversee other members of the training team, including the IDs, developers, and trainers. A training manager’s skill set should include the ability to manage a team, timelines, and projects. They should be well-versed in instructional design methodologies, performance management, needs analyses, and adult learning techniques to develop appropriate training programs as required. Director of Training AKA: Director of Learning, Chief Learning Officer, Director of Talent Development The director of training is a step above the manager of training. Directors are at the top of the chain; they provide the vision and direction for the training department and then oversee the managers as they execute the training strategy. Directors must think about the future of an organization, its assets, and its reputation with every decision they make. A director’s skill set should include leadership skills, broad knowledge of the industry at hand, a deep understanding of instructional design and learning methodologies, performance analysis skills, experience creating learning and development programs, and strong communication skills. LMS Administrator AKA: Training Systems Administrator, Training Implementation Specialist An LMS administrator uploads and tests the e-learning courses created by the e-learning developer in a company’s learning management system (LMS). This specialist also manages all tasks related to the LMS, including communicating with the software vendor, troubleshooting and fixing user issues, compiling reports and data, and communicating about performance metrics. What skills should an LMS admin possess? They should be a subject matter expert (SME) on the LMS platform an organization uses, possess strong technical capabilities, and hopefully have some experience in IT systems management. An LMS admin should also have in-depth knowledge of industry-standard publishing formats such as SCORM, xAPI (Tin Can API), cmi5, and AICC—and it doesn’t hurt to have experience uploading courses created with the authoring software being used by the organization. More Resources These are some of the most common job titles in the training and e-learning industry. Of course, plenty of jobs out there include a blend of the various roles. For instance, we see a lot of IDs who are also e-learning developers or trainers, and some training managers who act as directors, setting the training strategy. It really varies from one organization to another. Looking for some more insight into the day-to-day activities of e-learning pros? Check out these eye-opening articles: A Day in the Life of an Instructional Designer A Day in the Life of an E-Learning Freelancer A Day in the Life of an E-Learning Project Manager Is your job title listed here? Does the description above accurately reflect what you do and the skills you believe are required to do it? Leave us a comment below and let us know! Follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.A Day in the Life of an Instructional Designer
In today’s world, there are so many new job titles popping up that it’s hard to know what they all mean. And it’s even harder to really understand on a deeper level what anyone’s day-to-day looks like. No matter how many times my brother explains his job to me (he’s a software engineer) I feel like I never fully get it. But I’m comforted by the idea that he undoubtedly feels the same way about my job. So whether you’re an instructional designer looking to provide some much-needed clarity to friends and family about your job, or you’re looking into becoming an instructional designer but want some insight on what that actually entails, this article is for you! Here's a peek at the schedule I kept as a full-time instructional designer in a boutique e-learning firm. 9:00 am I get to work, say hi to coworkers, grab a cup of coffee, and sit down at my desk. I check my e-mail for any urgent messages and set aside any non-urgent messages for later. 9:15 am It’s time for our daily standup meeting. The team goes around the table and states our top priority for the day. The project managers course-correct if our priorities don’t align with project priorities. 9:30 am Next up: a kickoff meeting for Project XYZ with the project manager, the e-learning developer, the client, and the Subject Matter Expert. We take this time to define the target audience, learning objectives, technical requirements, and other project parameters. 10:30 am Back at my desk, I start going through the raw materials (PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, or Word documents) for Project XYZ and picking out key messages based on the learning objectives. From that information, I create a course outline and send it the project manager, who will review and send it to the client. 11:30 am While I’m waiting for the client’s feedback on the Project XYZ outline, I work on the storyboard for Project ABC. I review the learning objectives, course outline, and raw materials and think about the best way to help learners understand and apply the key messages. I take that overarching idea and break it down, slide by slide. I decide when to include videos, interactions, animations, etc. If there’s voice-over audio, I write the script. 12:30 pm Time for a lunch break. With all that designing, I’ve worked up quite an appetite! 1:30 pm Back at my desk, I check my e-mail again. I got a message from a project manager saying that Project JKL’s client—whose feedback we’ve been waiting on for months—finally got back to us. The client needs the updated prototype by the end of the day, so I get working right away. I make the necessary changes to the course in Storyline and publish it to Articulate Review. I let the project manager know so she can review the new version and send it to the client for approval. 2:30 pm I go back to working on the storyboard for Project ABC. I chat with the e-learning developer about the feasibility of certain interactions and with the graphic designer about some illustration ideas. 3:30 pm A project manager stops by my desk to let me know that Project XYZ’s client is on the phone and wants to talk about the outline we sent to him this morning. We go into a meeting room to take the call. The client gives us his feedback over the phone and I take notes. After the call, the project manager tells me that this project takes priority over Project ABC. We need to finish the storyboard by the end of the week. 4:30 pm Back at my desk, I set aside Project ABC for Project XYZ. I start working on the storyboard. I have a couple of questions about the content, so I send them to the project manager, who will forward them to the Subject Matter Expert. While I wait on those answers, I continue working on another section of the storyboard. 5:30 pm I save and close my storyboard when I get to a good stopping point and make a note of where I left off. I go back and respond to the non-urgent e-mails I set aside this morning and make a to-do list for the next day. 6:00 pm Time to go home and relax! As you can see, the job of an instructional designer is fast-paced. At any given time, most instructional designers are working on multiple projects—in various stages of the development process—simultaneously. Priorities can change quickly, so it’s important to be ready and willing to shift gears when needed. This is largely due to the fact that sometimes client response time is variable. They may respond quickly or they may take days or even weeks to reply. But either way, they usually expect you to respond right away. If you’re also the project manager, you can temper this expectation by setting deadlines for their feedback and explaining that if they don’t respond within that deadline, they may have to wait when they do give you feedback because you’ll be working on another project. Keep in mind that every organization is different, and that depending on how big your team is, you might end up doing more or fewer of the things mentioned above. For example, in some organizations you might have to both design and develop the e-learning courses. And in some smaller organizations you might have to be the project manager, instructional designer, e-learning developer, and graphic designer—all rolled into one! Every organization works differently. Here are some additional resources to help you better understand the job of an instructional designer: An Introduction to Instructional Design What Makes a Training Team? 6 Common Job Titles in E-Learning Like this article? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest e-learning inspiration and insights directly in your inbox. You can also find us on LinkedIn and X (Formerly Twitter).E-Learning: Storyboard vs. Prototype
If you’re new to e-learning, you may have heard people throw around terms like storyboard and prototype without daring to ask the question: What’s the difference? Well, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! In this article, we’ll walk through the definitions of both as well as some advantages and disadvantages of using one over the other. Let’s get to it! E-Learning Storyboard A storyboard can act as a blueprint for developing custom, interactive e-learning in apps like Storyline 3/360. Using a storyboard helps you lay out the visuals, multimedia, text, audio elements, interactions, and navigation details (where does the learner go next?) of each and every slide in your course. By viewing the storyboard, the stakeholders should be able to understand what learners will see, hear, and do during the course. Often, storyboards are created with Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. While this makes it easy to share the course content and design with stakeholders, the drawback is that it can be harder for them to imagine what that experience will be like. For people who have never been part of an e-learning project team before, storyboards can feel a little abstract. However, the more experience stakeholders have with e-learning, the easier it is for them to look at one and imagine what the finished course will be like. Advantages Helpful way to get stakeholder buy-in. Quick and easy to create and edit. Puts focus on the content itself instead of functionality and layouts. E-Learning Prototype We like to think of a prototype as a halfway point between a storyboard and the final version of a course. Like a storyboard, it lays out all the course content. And like a finished course, it’s clickable, so stakeholders can interact with it. That way, instead of having to imagine what that experience will be like, they can actually click through for themselves and get a feel for the flow of the course. Sometimes, prototypes include branding elements—like the customer logo, colors, and fonts—which allows the stakeholders to approve their usage. However, unlike a finished course, prototypes usually contain only mockups of graphics, and not the final versions. They also don’t include the final version of the voiceover audio. In fact, sometimes they don’t include any audio at all—just the script that’ll be used to record it later on. Other times, designers will include text-to-speech audio to allow stakeholders to hear for themselves what the audio script sounds like when read aloud. That way, if stakeholders notice anything that sounds awkward, they can request changes before the audio is recorded. Advantages Often easier for stakeholders to understand. Gives stakeholders a preview of what the entire course experience will be like. Saves the designer time by getting approval before developing the final course. More Resources Some e-learning designers swear by storyboards, claiming it’s an essential step in the course creation process. Others skip straight to prototyping, saying it’ll save them time in the long run by helping stakeholders better understand what the final course will look like. In the end, there’s no right or wrong answer here, it’s all about personal preference. Looking for more storyboarding and prototyping tips? Check out these helpful resources. Articles 11 Best Practices for E-Learning Storyboarding Storyboard Like a Pro with Storyline 360 and Review 360 What Information Do You Include in Your Storyboards? Downloads Storyline: Storyboard/Prototype Sample Storyline: Storyboard Template Based on the definitions of storyboard and prototype above, what do you think are the pros and cons of each? Do you always create a storyboard, or do you prefer to skip straight to prototyping? Leave us your thoughts in the comments! Follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.20+ Tips for Writing Great Quiz Questions and Response Options
If you’ve written quizzes in the past, you know how hard it is to write really great questions and realistic response options. It’s a tricky balance between something that’s an incorrect answer, but still plausible enough that the learner doesn’t dismiss it outright. To make sure you get the best quiz questions and response options possible, refer to this checklist of 20+ tips when writing your quizzes: All questions are related to learning objectives and course content All questions present the learner with feedback that supports the correct answer All questions avoid the use of humor, analogies, and cultural references All questions avoid complex sentences, ambiguous terms, and slang All questions avoid trick responses (this includes multiple correct responses, ambiguous answers, and overly abstract responses) Avoid true-or-false questions, if possible Response options that do not begin with the same word (if so, this word should appear in the question) Consistent number of response options for all questions All questions have at least 3-4 response options All questions and correct responses have been vetted by an SME or expert Avoid use of “all of the above” and “none of the above” in response options All response options are realistic and plausible All response options follow correct sentence structure to fit with the question All response options are approximately the same length All response options are parallel in grammatical structure All response options contain the same amount of detail Response options do not overlap or are too similar Response options avoid the use of negative items (“Which of these items is NOT…”) If response options must include negative items, negative words are all in CAPS All correct response options are covered in the course material Double-check all questions and response options for grammar, punctuation, spelling, formatting, contradictions, and use of active voice. All questions and response options avoid the use of absolute terms like “always” and “only” By checking all of your quiz questions and response options against this checklist, you can greatly improve the quality of your quizzes, and improve your learner’s experience taking your quiz. Do you have any tips you’d like to share about writing more meaningful and relevant quiz questions and responses? If you do, please leave a comment! You can always sign up for a fully functional, free trial of Articulate software. And don’t forget to post your questions and comments in the forums! We’re here to help. For more e-learning tips, examples, and downloads, follow us on Twitter.What to Include in an E-Learning Portfolio
On the hunt for a new e-learning job? You’re not alone. The recent economic downturn brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic has led many companies—particularly in the service, travel, and retail sectors—to downsize their training teams. Though there are more e-learning professionals looking for work right now, the good news is there are loads of amazing e-learning jobs out there. All you need to do is find the right fit for your skills and background, and make sure you stand out from the crowd. Making sure you and your work stand out is one of the many things an e-learning portfolio can do! A great portfolio gives potential employers a better sense of who you are and your skills as a designer/developer, and demonstrates your personality and creativity in ways that don’t come through in a résumé (though you will for sure want an awesome résumé as well). Creating an e-learning portfolio is also super easy these days. In fact, your E-Learning Heroes Member Profile page showcases everything you’ve shared in the community, which also means it’s a convenient and free e-learning portfolio! Everything you share in the community includes downloads, examples, discussions you’ve started, and even articles you’ve posted. You can also upload your own course examples and downloads to your member profile page without sharing them in the community. Learn more about using your E-Learning Heroes Member Profile page as your e-learning portfolio in this article: Showcase Your E-Learning Work with New and Improved Member Profiles. We’ve talked about why you need an e-learning portfolio and how to use your e-learning heroes profile page as a free portfolio, but you might be wondering: how do you know what to actually include in your portfolio? That’s the question we’re going to tackle in the rest of this article. I’ve pulled together loads of tips and ideas to help you beef up your e-learning portfolio for maximum impact. Use live links to published projects instead of static screenshots. There’s nothing more disappointing than clicking on someone’s e-learning portfolio link only to find that their site is full of static screenshots of projects you can’t interact with. Using screenshots just doesn’t give prospective employers a sense of your design capabilities like linking to a published project does. Add more variety to your portfolio with weekly E-Learning Challenges. There are many good reasons to build up a portfolio of work samples full of diverse styles, interactivity, and covering a broad array of topics. I find the weekly E-Learning Challenges on E-Learning Heroes are a great way to do this since they prompt you to explore innovative ways of tackling problems while you learn new skills—and stretch your creative muscles. The weekly challenges are also an easy way to create a free portfolio of cool, creative projects that represent your design perspective without the constraints imposed by corporate branding guidelines. If you only have work from employers or clients right now, be sure to ask permission before uploading those projects to your portfolio so you don’t break any confidentiality or nondisclosure agreements. If sharing proprietary information is of concern, you can always offer to use only a portion of a project in your portfolio or to create a copy of the project, strip out any branding, and replace proprietary copy with lorem ipsum text. In my experience, most employers and clients are willing to work with you to arrive at a good compromise. Focus on quality over quantity. A great e-learning portfolio should spotlight your skills and experience. That means your goal is to curate a small collection of high-quality work samples that demonstrate a range of skills. Don’t get too hung up on having dozens of projects in your portfolio. It’s better to showcase three or four beautiful, unique projects than a dozen mediocre ones with a similar look and feel. Provide a brief description of each project. Don’t simply post a bunch of links to your portfolio website and call it done. A great portfolio should look nice AND give prospective clients and employers context for each project. Write a brief description explaining why you chose to include each project in your portfolio. You can also highlight the challenges the project presented, the solutions you found, and any goals you achieved for yourself, the client, or the learners. Even just a few sentences will give visitors to your e-learning portfolio a better idea of who you are and how you work. Feature your technical skills. E-learning professionals are often masters of multiple apps—both for authoring e-learning courses and creating custom media to enhance their projects. If you’re proficient in multiple apps, be sure to name them and provide links to relevant samples in your portfolio. For example, if you’re a whiz in Storyline 360, call that out and link to a published Storyline project. If you’re a pro at editing video in Adobe Premiere or podcasts in Pro Tools, call those apps out too. Showcase your professional background and achievements or endorsements. To underline your professionalism, make sure your digital portfolio includes a page that highlights some key information about your professional background. You don’t want to make this into a copy of your résumé (although linking to your resume from this page can be handy), but you do want to give potential employers or clients a sense of your background. To strike the right balance, consider including things like: Where and what you’ve studied Companies you’ve worked with or for Any areas of e-learning specialization, such as creating K-12 education or training for the pharmaceutical industry Any professional certifications Any awards or honors for your work Another thing to include is any professional endorsements or reviews of your work. If you don’t have any yet, ask a trusted colleague or happy client to write a short recommendation of you and your work. Include links to published articles, blogs, and conference presentations. While your e-learning portfolio should primarily focus on your e-learning work, it’s also a good way to share how you and your work are seen by the broader industry. For instance, if you’ve published articles in industry trade publications on e-learning–related topics or had one of your projects featured in a widely distributed newsletter, including links to those publications shows that you’re a thoughtful, well-respected leader and contributor. The same goes for speaking opportunities: provide the name of your session, where and when you spoke, a brief overview of the topic, and link to any published slides or video of your presentation. Is there anything missing from this list? I’d love to hear your tips and ideas for what to include in an e-learning portfolio, so please leave them in a comment, below. Want to share your e-learning portfolio? Post a reply with a link to your portfolio in this E-Learning Challenge. Like this article? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest e-learning inspiration and insights directly in your inbox. You can also find us on LinkedIn and X (Formerly Twitter).How To Calculate the Cost-Benefit of E-Learning
Most organizations create e-learning as a means to improve employee performance. Courses are supposed to deliver knowledge and skills that make workers better at their jobs. So if e-learning doesn’t improve job performance or the bottom line, most organizations don’t want to invest in it. That’s why it’s critical to calculate the cost-benefit of your e-learning course before you start to develop it. You want to show ahead of time that the benefits of creating and administering the e-learning course outweigh the development costs associated with it. Here are a few things to consider when you calculate the cost-benefit of your course: The Costs Design, Development, and Delivery A lot of factors go into calculating the costs associated with designing, developing, and delivering your e-learning course. You might need to see the HR department to help you figure hourly rates for various job titles, and then do some calculations to convert a salary into an hourly rate. Some costs to include are: Software/Hardware Costs: For example, you might need to purchase a new authoring tool, some stock photography, or a new microphone. Development Time: Calculate development time by multiplying developer’s hourly rate by number of hours needed to develop the course. To calculate an hourly rate from a yearly salary, you can use this formula: salary / 52 weeks / number of hours in a workweek. Meeting and Review Time: Include the value of the time of everyone involved with the project: meetings with a manager, the tech department, your SMEs, copyedit, graphic design, etc. Calculate the dollar value of the time spent in meetings with these people as well as the time they devote to the project. Lost Production Time: The time your participants spend taking your e-learning course is called lost production time. Calculate the lost production time using this formula: # of employees x hourly rate x # of hours the training lasts. These are some of the most obvious costs you need to consider. There might be others, such as organizational overhead and, the cost of setting up an LMS or webpage to host the course. Once you’ve identified and calculated the costs associated with developing and delivering your e-learning, you need to look at the second part of the equation: the dollar value associated with the benefits of your e-learning. The Benefits Benefit of Training The benefits of training can be tricky to identify and narrow down, but it is possible and very important to do so. To calculate the dollar value of the benefits, you need to identify 1) the specific task that is being taught in the training or e-learning, and 2) the average benefit, in dollars, of improving performance surrounding this task. Once you’ve done this, multiply the dollar value of the benefit by the number of employees, and multiply that by a time period. When you have both your total costs and your total benefits, you can calculate your Return on Investment (ROI) using this formula: Having flashbacks to math class? Let me share an example with you to illustrate this more clearly. Cost-Benefit Analysis Example: XYZ Delivery You work for XYZ Delivery as a training designer. Over the past few months, an increase in shipping label errors has caused more packages to be returned undelivered. To reduce the amount of errors, the Shipping Manager wants to create a one-hour e-learning module for 50 employees on the proper way to fill out shipping labels. They ask you, their in-house training designer, to do a cost-benefit analysis for designing this module. First you look at the costs associated with designing, developing and delivering this module: Now that you’ve looked at the total costs, you need to identify the benefits of training the employees at XYZ Delivery on how to fill out shipping labels properly. The specific task being taught: How to fill out a shipping label. The benefit of improving performance for filling out shipping labels: You investigate and identify that, currently, the 50 employees get an average of one error each per week on shipping labels. An error on a shipping label means a package is returned at an average cost to XYZ Delivery of $15 per returned package. Teaching the employees how to properly fill out the shipping label could save XYZ Delivery $750 per week (50 errors per week x $15 per error = $750). Multiply that by four weeks in a month and by 12 months in a year, and XYZ Delivery can potentially save $36,000 per year if they can reduce the rate of packages returned due to shipping label errors to zero. To calculate the net benefit, we’d then subtract the cost of training from the benefit, $36,000 - $4000 = $32,000 is the total net benefit. Now let’s plug these numbers into the ROI calculation shown above: XYZ Delivery can potentially get an 800% return on their money in a year if they invest in this one-hour e-learning module designed to reduce the error rate for shipping labels to zero. It may make sense to leave room for a few shipping label errors—that’s only normal human behavior—so you could edit your calculation to reflect this. Again, this is just a general example to illustrate the cost-benefit analysis more clearly. Hopefully this simple method for completing a cost-benefit analysis and calculating the ROI of your e-learning course will encourage you to do so for your next project. If you’ve done a cost-benefit analysis in the past and you’ve learned a thing or two that you’d like to share, please leave a comment below. We love to hear your feedback! You can always sign up for a fully functional, free trial of Articulate software. And don’t forget to post your questions and comments in the forums! We’re here to help. For more e-learning tips, examples, and downloads, follow us on Twitter.
