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.Accounting Tools for Freelancers
There’s an old saying that “time is money,” a notion most of us can appreciate. But when you’re a freelancer, you’re actually living and breathing that truth every day! Whether your freelance business consists of a few clients or side jobs, or is a burgeoning boutique e-learning shop, getting a grip on your finances is the only way to make informed decisions about your business. And when time is money, what’s the point of being in business for yourself if you’re not streamlining your administrative work and continuously reevaluating your goals to optimize both time AND money? That’s where accounting tools come in. In a previous article, I dove into the world of time management tools—which are helpful to everyone. In this article I’d like to expand the focus to include tools that are especially helpful to freelancers: accounting tools. So let’s jump in and run through some apps and tools you might want to check out. Billing When you’re freelancing, getting paid (especially on time) is everything. Without the predictability of a paycheck, staying on top of your billings and monitoring your cash flow become essential to your survival. Here are a few tools that can help make the cash flow and invoicing part of your freelance life a little easier to manage. If you’re a solo shop or just picking up a few projects here and there on the side, you may not need robust invoicing software when PayPal’s invoicing feature will do the trick. PayPal invoices are easy to create and send from a desktop or mobile device, and you only pay a small fee when you’re paid. It’s also a great way to give clients the flexibility to pay you by credit card online, rather than waiting for a check to show up in the mail. Paydirt, an app I mentioned in my rundown of time management tools, also offers invoicing, as well as features that scale well from individuals to small teams, like online quoting and estimating, integration with PayPal and Stripe for credit card processing of invoices, and simple reporting that allows you to see uncollected invoices or keep tabs on your productivity. Due is an app focused on invoicing and on making payments easier for you and your clients. A notable characteristic is Due’s credit card processing for international transactions, which makes a lot of sense if you do business with companies in other countries. Due also integrates with apps like Wave (for accounting) and Basecamp (for project management). Harvest turns up on nearly every “tools for freelancers” list, and for good reason: it’s easy to use, scales well from individuals to teams, and is feature-rich. Harvest includes time tracking, expense logging, resource forecasting (via an optional add-on called Forecast), and invoicing. But perhaps its most appealing feature is how well it integrates with other popular apps for freelancers and small teams, like Basecamp and Stripe. Although scalable from individual to small business, Freshbooks leans a little more toward small business in its product features. Overall, the features are comparable to Harvest—time tracking, expense logging, and invoicing. Freshbook’s prebuilt reports give you a quick way to save time when you’re crunching the numbers or prepping for tax time (more about that below). And it integrates with Bidsketch, Capsule CRM, Acuity Scheduling, and other small business apps. Taxes Freelancing is a great way to build your portfolio doing work that you love with more autonomy. But when it comes to tax time, every freelancer I’ve ever known expresses a bit of longing for the good ol’ days when the HR department took care of all that pesky paperwork. But tax time doesn’t have to be a headache when you’ve got tools to do the heavy lifting. Many of the tools I’ve already highlighted, both here and in the time management article, offer reporting capabilities to make tax time a bit less … um … taxing. But here are a few others you might want to add to your list. No list of accounting tools is complete without including Intuit’s Quickbooks. And Quickbooks’ new “Quickbooks Self-Employed” is pretty ideal for freelancers. Not only is the tool easy to use, but it’s popular, which means it integrates with most banks, allowing you to easily import your income and expenses. Quickbooks can even separate work and personal expenses automatically. Springing for the Quickbooks “Tax Bundle” gets you the added convenience of quarterly online tax filing and payments through TurboTax. Wave is a feature-rich solution for freelancers and small businesses. It offers invoicing and payments, as well as a host of other features. When I’ve heard from folks who use Wave, it’s almost always to praise its accounting feature. Wave prides itself on being easy and intuitive, so if you’re someone who doesn’t use an accountant, this might be a good fit. Xero is another online accounting app for small businesses. It offers features such as bank account integration for monitoring cash flow and reconciling accounts and the ability to invite a bookkeeper or accountant to collaborate. Speaking of collaboration, I like that Xero also has a partner program for accountants and bookkeepers who specialize in helping clients who use Xero. This is good if you’re cool doing some basic record-keeping but want the help of a pro from time to time. This was just a quick overview of some standout accounting tools for freelancers, but there’s an ever-growing assortment of apps and innovations for supporting workers in the new gig economy. The ones I’ve highlighted here are just the tip of the tool iceberg, so I hope you’ll do your own research and share your recommendations with us here, on E-Learning Heroes. Leave your ideas in a comment below, share lessons learned with a new discussion in the Building Better courses forum—or follow us on Twitter, where we post the latest and greatest news about everything e-learning. Want to try something you learned here, but don’t have Articulate software? Get a free 30-day trial of Articulate 360 to check out Storyline 360, Review, Content Library, and more. Also, be sure to come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything e-learning.10 Tips for Coping With Vague E-Learning Project Requests
The typical advice when you start a new e-learning project is to find out as much as possible about the problem you’re trying to solve, the audience you’re creating it for, and your stakeholders’ vision for the solution. And while this is a best practice for a reason, sometimes it doesn’t go as planned in the real world. Maybe new regulations require you to provide training on a topic but don’t specify much other than course length. Perhaps your only guidance is that doing anything new is better than what your company is doing now. Or you could be dealing with the problem our Articulate User Conference attendees faced in this Training Trailblazers activity—stakeholders who don’t know enough about training to understand what exactly they need. So, what should you do when you need to know a lot more about a project before you can move forward? Let’s look at some useful strategies community members suggest for digging up that information! 1. Start by outlining what you do know If you feel overwhelmed by project ambiguity, sometimes the simple act of summarizing everything shared with you so far in one document can give you a better sense of what to do next. Also, if all the project conversations and decisions up to this point have been fragmented across lots of meetings and teams, your stakeholders and subject matter experts (SMEs) may not realize how little has been settled. Rounding up the few facts you have and sharing them with those partners can make it easier for you to highlight critical project gaps. 2. Create a list of questions—and experts to answer them Another way to narrow down next steps is to list the big questions that come to mind as you consider the project. Once you’ve finished your initial list, consolidate what you want to ask, ensure you’re covering all your information gaps, and triage the items so you’re asking the most vital questions first. When you finish the list, review each question and identify the best person to answer them. Project stakeholders or SMEs are logical places to start. But also consider if there are others inside or outside your organization that could have helpful information to share. 3. Analyze the problem with the project requester One source for answers can be the person or group who first contacted you for assistance. Even if they’re not experts in the material, they may have insights into what problem they want this training to solve and what they want people to do differently after they take it. If the project requester doesn’t know the answer off the top of their head, it’s worth spending some time chatting with them to try and uncover the answer. After all, if the requester doesn’t know what performance gap the training needs to fill, you’ll be hard-pressed to make that happen. 4. Get to know your audience It’s hard to design training when you don’t know much about who you’re designing it for. Learning more about your target audience can answer lots of questions about what your project should cover and formats likely to work well for them. Not sure what information is most important to find out? This article on how to do an e-learning audience analysis can guide you along the way. Your audience is also a valuable resource when your stakeholders know the gist of what they want your training to address but are foggy on the specifics. Interviewing and surveying your audience members can fill in those content gaps and give you practical ideas for what training experiences would help them the most. Not only that, but their feedback can also point out aspects of the topic you can leave out because your audience already has them mastered. 5. Research common problems and solutions If the initial request is vague about what exactly your training should cover, try exploring the most frequent issues people have with the topic and best practices for overcoming them. That way you can uncover tried-and-true ideas for your course content. This approach may not work well for niche, company-specific content or challenges. But it’s a great starting point for more general training topics, like leadership, communication, or compliance training. 6. Dig into metrics If your stakeholders aren’t sure about the specific areas your audience is struggling with, data may paint a clearer picture for you. Performance metrics can give you direct information about learner strengths and gaps. And you can infer a lot by looking into what company goals they aren’t currently meeting. This approach also has a bonus—it gives you concrete numbers to compare pre- and post-training. That’s a handy way to show the impact of what you create. 7. Consult official documentation or regulations When designing compliance training—or any courses related to legal requirements—the regulations themselves can offer guidance on the content your project needs to cover and what behaviors need to change. While it may take some work to convert this information from legal theory to real-world application, that effort puts you in a much better position to craft learning experiences that effectively meet your compliance regulations and land well with your audience. 8. Review historic courses and related training Has this training topic been covered by your organization before? Digging into what’s been done in the past may give you inspiration for what to do in the future. Old or retired courses can point out what approaches click with your audience and which fall flat. And you may even discover that you don’t have to create your project from scratch after all, but can instead rework existing course materials to meet your new training needs. To keep your course content streamlined, try investigating related courses too. That way you can spot if there are subtopics you don’t need to touch on because they’re covered in other training your audience is taking. 9. Investigate what other organizations are doing in this space Chances are, other companies are tackling similar challenges to yours. And thankfully, we work in an industry where people tend to be generous about sharing their work. Webinars, white papers, conference sessions, podcast interviews, social media posts, and articles are some of the many places you can learn about the training approaches other organizations have used. But publicly available insights aren’t the only resources to check out. Consider reaching out to former colleagues and industry connections outside your company to chat one-on-one about what training they’ve created or seen on your topic. 10. Do a needs assessment Finally, if you’re not in an emergency time crunch, one of the best ways to get all the answers you need and more is to take a step back and do a full training needs analysis. This process helps you analyze the business problem or performance gap your stakeholders want to address and determine the best approach to help—sometimes even identifying when interventions other than training are better suited for the job. Wrap-Up Vague project requests can be stressful and confusing. But these approaches can help you cut through the ambiguity, giving you the details you need to make your e-learning a success. Want more practical tips for starting a project on the right foot? Try these articles: 6 Agenda Items for Your E-Learning Project Kickoff Meeting All About Training Needs Analysis The 7 Questions You’ll Want To Ask When Deciding What Kind of Training To Create And if you’re looking for even more ideas to make every stage of e-learning design and development easier and more effective, be sure to 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). And if you have questions, please share them in the comments.A Sneak Peek at My Course Collaboration Workflow in Rise 360
Sometimes you need to work on a course with multiple subject matter experts or instructional designers. But, like with any group project, it can be a challenge for everyone to work together effectively. Luckily, the collaboration features available to Articulate 360 Teams subscribers in Rise 360 make it easy to build lessons simultaneously, so you can finish your courses faster. If you’ve never co-authored a course before, you might be wondering if there are any best practices to follow to get everyone on the same page. After co-authoring a few courses, I came up with the following tips to help ensure the success of future collaborative projects. Go Over Collaborative Parameters at a Kick-Off Meeting As with any e-learning project, I start by inviting everyone involved to a kick-off meeting to go over all the project parameters. In addition to standard kick-off meeting questions, I cover things like: Who will create which lesson? How do you want to split up the course? By section? By lesson? Who will write the conclusion? Who will create the quiz? Who will apply changes requested in the review process? Will I apply all the changes? Or will each course author be responsible for the changes that impact their lesson? What style of images should authors use? Photographic or illustrated? Black and white or color? What writing style should authors adopt? Formal or conversational? Should they write in the first or second person? In order for the lessons to feel cohesive, it’s important for the writing style to be fairly similar throughout. If I’m working with a large group of people or with people who don’t usually create courses, I typically make these decisions myself and lay them out in a document prior to the meeting. If people have questions or suggestions, we can always make changes to the document, but it’s easier to have a jumping-off point than to start from scratch in these instances. If I’m working with a small group of experienced instructional designers, however, the kick-off meeting often takes the form of a brainstorming session where we define these things together. Either way, after the meeting I clean up the document and share it with everyone via a shared document app like Google Docs in a view-only format. This way everyone can reference it as needed. Write the Author’s Name Next to the Lesson Title After the kick-off meeting, I start pulling together my outline in Rise 360. As I do that, I add the name of the author after the lesson title. That way, everyone can easily see which course they’re responsible for creating. I like to leave the names in place until the course is 100 percent finalized. Even if I plan to apply all the requested changes myself, it’s nice to be able to refer back to the person who originally created the course in case I’m unsure about something. Share Course with Collaborators When I’m ready to share my course with my collaborators, I simply go up to the Share tab, click on View Collaborators, enter the relevant e-mail addresses in the box one by one, and click Invite. Then, assign each collaborator a role. For collaborators who just need to be able to add and edit content, choose Course collaborator. For collaborators who might need to adjust course settings and publish to Review 360, for example, choose Course manager. Now my collaborators can go in and edit the course. If someone else is working on a lesson, Rise 360 will notify me with a pop-up to prevent us from overwriting each other’s edits. Create Block Templates Sometimes I need to create custom lessons, but want others to be able to use the same general format. That’s where block templates are really handy. For example, in this course on working across cultures, each lesson is structured the same way. And, instead of rebuilding each lesson from scratch, I simply saved my blocks as a template, inserted it into a new lesson, and updated my content. Check out the GIF below to see how I created my block template: Block templates are also a great way to ensure consistency when working with others. Once I’ve created my template, everyone on my team can access it, allowing them to replicate the structure of my lesson. Share Course with Reviewers When my course is ready to go, I publish it to Review 360 and send the link to anyone involved in the review process. If my reviewers don’t have an Articulate ID, it’s no biggie. They just need to enter an email address to leave comments. As they view the course, they can add any questions or suggestions they have in the box on the right-hand side, making it super quick and easy for reviewers, who are often pressed for time. Review 360 also makes it easier for me and my co-authors to interpret reviewer comments, since it takes a screenshot of what the person was looking at when they left their comment. If any comments are ambiguous or I need more information, I can simply respond to their comment inline. I can even tag my co-authors when comments pertain to their lesson, so they can respond directly. The Bottom Line With the collaboration features in Rise 360 and the tips I’ve outlined in this article, you’ve got everything you need to make sure your next collaborative project goes off without a hitch. Want to try Rise 360 for yourself, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial. And subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest product updates, e-learning examples, and expert advice directly in your inbox.6 Agenda Items for Your E-Learning Project Kickoff Meeting
Project kickoff meetings are an important part of the e-learning process. It’s the first time you meet with stakeholders, SMEs, and anyone else who has a hand in your project to get the ball rolling. But this meeting isn’t just a formality. It’s a crucial first step in starting your e-learning project. To make sure everything gets off to a good start, it’s important to use your time wisely. In this article, I’ll walk you through six key items you should discuss for a successful project kickoff. 1. Find Out Who Has the Final Word Identifying your primary stakeholder(s) is a crucial part of any successful project. There’s nothing worse than spending weeks designing a course, calling it ready to roll out, and then having someone say, “Now, let’s take it to Bob so he can review it.” To avoid this situation, you want to know who’s ultimately responsible for approving a project from the start. Touch base with them and find out their criteria for success, then have them review your project periodically. Doing this up front saves time and money on the back end. 2. Agree on Deliverables The key project deliverables can vary from one project to another depending on a variety of factors, like the e-learning development app you use, the level of course complexity involved, etc. For example, if your client wants to use an app like Rise 360, you know you can skip creating a prototype. That’s because with Rise 360, the visual design and functionality are done for you—all you need to do is select colors and fonts—saving tons of time. Take time to chat with your client and decide which deliverables make sense for their project. Maybe they don’t need a prototype or a storyboard, but they want a few extra review cycles. As long as you’re both on the same page from the beginning, it doesn’t matter what you decide. Once you’ve made a decision, make sure to document it to avoid extra work, wasted resources, and frustration. After you’ve nailed down the deliverables, it’s time to look at your timeline. 3. Commit to a Timeline Your project timeline is important because it says when you’ll hand off deliverables to the client. Work directly with your client to build the timeline, and if you make any changes later on, be sure to loop them in right away. When working on a realistic and attainable project timeline, you should: Identify the dates your major deliverables are due Note any connected projects or resources owned by other teams that will need to be completed before the e-learning launches Outline the due dates of key milestones and when you expect to have the project wrapped up Include deadlines for items the client must provide to you, so they know their responsibilities Include dates when client reviews need to be completed Budget time for rework after each stage of review Build in time at the end of major phases as a buffer for any unexpected issues or events, since no project ever goes 100% as planned Once you’ve got your timeline set, document it along with the project deliverables and share them with your team for greater project visibility. Once you’ve got your timeline nailed down, it’s time to consider your learners and their needs. 4. Think About Your Audience The cornerstone of any successful e-learning project is a thorough audience analysis. An e-learning audience analysis is a deep dive into job- and context-related details. It teaches you who you’re training and covers important facts, like what your audience knows and how best to communicate with them. For example, what’s their level of prior knowledge? And are there any cultural considerations you should be aware of? If so, knowing this up front will help you design inclusive e-learning that resonates with your entire audience. While an audience analysis is incredibly helpful, it can’t account for everything. For example, a learner might have a disability they aren’t comfortable sharing with their employer. In that case, you won’t be aware of this disability either and can’t take it into account as you’re creating the course. That’s why it’s a best practice to always design courses that are accessible. This ensures all learners have equal access to your course content. 5. Clarify Learning Objectives Once you’ve thought through who your learners are and how to design an accessible course, it’s time to drill down and identify learning objectives. A great way to start is by answering these three questions: What needs to be learned? (What do they need to be able to do after taking the training?) What do they need to know before they can start? (What level of knowledge is required to understand the course content?) How will you measure whether they’ve learned what you set out to teach them? (By passing a knowledge check? By performing on-the-job demonstration?) After you’ve identified and written the learning objectives, make sure to get them approved by your key stakeholders and SMEs. The learning objectives will determine the content you include in your course, so it’s important to get buy-in up front to reduce project scope creep. 6. Think Through Technical Considerations The technical requirements for e-learning courses can vary greatly from one project to another, so it’s important to know what they are before you get started. Some good questions to ask are: Do learners have access to the technology they need to take the course (for example, computers or mobile devices)? Do they have headphones or speakers to listen to audio? Do you need to track the course progress and completion? How will you share the course with the learner (LMS, video hosting service, browser, etc.)? Do the learners have a high-speed internet connection? Figuring out answers to these questions will help you identify potential issues learners might run into. A good practice is to identify the worst-case scenario and build your training in a way that ensures it will still function even if that happens. After all, a course is only successful if learners can access it! Wrap-Up As you can see, there are many things to consider when kicking off an e-learning project and they are all important pieces of the puzzle. And while it might seem like a lot, covering these six items in your kickoff meeting will ensure you’re off to a good start. Want more project management tips? Check out these articles: 3 Tips for Building an Effective E-Learning Project Team Keep Your E-Learning Project Moving Forward with These 3 Tips 3 Ways to Ensure Your E-Learning Clients Keep Coming Back For More And here are some useful templates: Basic Project Management Timeline in Excel Basic Project Management Plan in Word E-Learning Project Estimates Worksheet E-Learning Project Plan Remember to 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). This article is part of our E-Learning 101 e-mail course, a series of expertly curated articles that’ll help you get started with e-learning—delivered right to your inbox. You’re only a click away from becoming an e-learning pro! Sign up here to enroll.Top Considerations for Choosing the Right E-Learning Authoring App
Choosing the right course creation app is a key factor for e-learning success. But with so many options available it’s not always easy to know which one is the best match for your needs. And you’ll likely have different priorities for different projects—like creating rich interactivity or publishing content as quickly as possible—so you’ll need an app that’s as versatile as the courses you create. So how do you fully evaluate your options to make sure the app you choose meets the needs of the courses you’re creating today as well as the ones you’ll need to develop in the future? Answering the questions below will help streamline your decision-making to determine a clear winner. 1. What’s your budget? Cost is a smart way to narrow your options. But don’t forget—the base price alone doesn’t tell the full story—not all apps come with everything you need. When comparing your options, do a deep dive into everything each authoring app offers you. Does it include free assets—such as templates, photos, illustrations, or characters—that can save you money? Are there built-in audio and video recording features or will you need to purchase separate software? Does it offer collaboration features or tools that allow you to collect feedback from stakeholders? What level of technical support is included? By weighing what is and isn’t included, you can see which option gives you the best overall value. 2. How easy is it to use the app? Think about your course creators. Are they quick to learn new apps or less comfortable with new technology? Are they experienced developers or subject matter experts (SMEs) building e-learning for the first time? Do they have time to ramp up or do they need to start creating content immediately? Be realistic about what you and your team can handle and take into account any upcoming deadlines. 3. Is there a free trial? Getting your hands on the apps you’re considering can answer a lot of questions. That’s why free trials are so helpful! They let you get a feel for how different apps work before you commit to buying. A useful way to decide between apps is to create the same short course in each one. This makes it easy to compare the development process as well as the final look and feel of each course. If a process takes three clicks in one app and ten in another, you might decide you want the faster option. You might also discover along the way that one app gives you more flexibility or features than the others. 4. What level of customization do you need? Thinking carefully about the level of customization you need can also narrow down which apps will work best for your situation. Are you hoping to quickly develop e-learning courses that look beautiful out of the box? Or do you need to have complete control over the look and feel of your courses—down to the last pixel? Could you meet your training goals with a library of modular learning blocks? Or do you need to create fully custom interactions or immersive scenarios? Make sure the app you choose supports the level of customization you need. 5. Do you need to create software training? If you’re designing software training, you likely want an app that supports screen recording and software simulations. But don’t stop there—look into what features it has to save you time on recording and editing. If you make a mistake, do you have to start over or can you edit individual frames in your recording? Can you automatically add annotations to your video during the recording process? Are there options to adjust the volume or video brightness? Can you decide on the format (screencast or software simulation) after recording or do you have to decide up front? The right features can make a noticeable difference in how fast you can create software training and revise it later if something changes. 6. Does it create mobile-friendly content? Having your e-learning courses work on mobile devices isn’t optional anymore—it’s essential! Even if your learners aren’t accessing courses on mobile just yet, it’s still good to plan for a future where they are. But not all apps make building mobile courses easy. As you explore your options, see if you can create inherently responsive courses or if you have to manually tweak your content to make sure it displays correctly on all devices. And when creating your sample courses, test them on mobile devices to make sure they look and work as expected. 7. How do you want to share your courses with learners? Once you’ve created your courses, you need to decide how to share them with your learners. For example, do you just need to give your learners access to the content? Or do you also need to track learner data (like scores, completions, and more) for compliance reasons? Your answers to these questions will help you decide the kind of hosting platform to use. And because different platforms require different file formats, it’s important to have this information before you choose an app so you can make sure it’s compatible. Learn more about the different options in this article: How to Share E-Learning Courses with Learners. 8. Will it cover your future needs? Course creation apps are a long-term investment, so do “Future You” a favor: think about what kind of e-learning you’ll need to create in the upcoming months and years. Are there topics or audiences you’re not creating content for now but likely will in the future? Will your organization’s needs shift as it better understands everything e-learning can offer? Will upcoming challenges mean you’ll need to scale up how fast you’re creating courses or who’s making them? You’ll be happier with your app choice in the long run if it can also cover these future needs. 9. What support is available? Research the level of support available to customers. Are tutorials and resources easy to find and learn from? If you run into an issue you can’t solve, can you contact a support team for help or do you have to pay extra for that service? And while it might not be the first thing that comes to mind when choosing new tech, remember that connecting with other users is priceless. They can quickly troubleshoot issues, give you tips for getting up to speed on the app, and help you see what you can create with it in new ways. An active user community can help you find these people quickly. And the connections you’ll foster in those communities will make your work easier and support you along the way. 10. What accessibility features are included? Consider how easy the app makes it to create accessible e-learning courses that all learners can take advantage of. While there are many steps you can take as a course creator to make your courses accessible—such as selecting colors with proper contrast and picking fonts that are easy to read—there are some things you’ll need to rely on an app for. Does the app offer built-in screen reader support? What about keyboard navigation? Can you add alt text to images and closed captions to videos? Keep these things in mind as you research apps, and make sure whichever one you choose will allow you to design projects that remove learning barriers. Wrap-Up There’s no one-size-fits-all course creation app that works for everyone and every project. However, some companies offer complete e-learning solutions that allow you to pick and choose different apps for different projects. For example, Articulate 360 includes multiple authoring tools—including Storyline 360 and Rise 360—so you always have the one you need, no matter what the project. It also includes tons of course assets—such as templates, characters, and images—a review app, and even free online training. Want to learn more? Check out this article: Why You Need the Apps in Articulate 360 and When to Use Them. And if you’d like to take Articulate 360 for a spin, start a free 30-day trial. No matter what apps you’re considering, it’s up to you to vet them to make sure you end up with one that fits your unique needs. Hopefully, these questions will help you more easily pick the right authoring software for you. For more tips and topics related to course creation apps, have a peek at the following articles: The Basics of E-Learning Course Creation Apps 3 Types of E-Learning Course Creation Apps How to Share E-Learning Courses with Learners 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. This article is part of our E-Learning 101 e-mail course, a series of expertly curated articles that’ll help you get started with e-learning—delivered right to your inbox. You’re only a click away from becoming an e-learning pro! Sign up here to enroll.Getting the Assets You Need for Your Online Course
Course design used to involve different roles—instructional designers who wrote and designed the course, media designers who created assets and visual designs for the course, and developers who programmed the course and managed it in the learning management system. Today’s authoring apps make it easier than ever to develop online training. Nowadays, the challenge is that instructional designers are often responsible for everything: writing, designing, and building the course. Whether you’re just starting out in e-learning or if you’re looking to produce courses more efficiently, it’s helpful to identify types of assets commonly used in e-learning courses as well as places where you can find them for free. Let’s take a closer look. Common Types of Graphic Assets Photos A common use for photos in e-learning is as background images. Backgrounds help create the visual context for your course topics. And because they’re often the largest object on your slide, they’re one of the most important assets to get right. People typically use photos as backgrounds to: Add depth without dominating the slides by incorporating subtle textures, gradients, and patterns Give learners the impression that the content is displayed on a real-life object like a computer, a corkboard, or a chalkboard Create context for the content by portraying the environment where it’s used such as an office, a classroom, or another industry-specific environment If you want unique background images, consider making your own. Take a look at our article on background images for some tips and tricks. Illustrations Illustrations are another great way to set the scene and can help learners grasp difficult concepts. Common illustrations include: Folders, paper, tape, and notecards Computer monitors, projection screens, whiteboards, and flipcharts used for content holders Office objects and buildings Industry-specific objects Illustrations are also great for highlighting key messages throughout your course. For example, if you’re creating a lesson on the four main food groups, you may include illustrations representing each group. Characters If you’re designing a lot of scenario-based training, you’ll need a wide range of characters. For example, if you’re doing a course on hospital hygiene, you’ll want to use characters wearing scrubs or lab coats. If your scenarios take place in an office, choose characters wearing suits or other business attire. The key is to choose characters who are believable in their roles. You’ll also need a diverse set of characters to choose from so your course is inclusive and uses characters of different ages, genders, and races. For your scenarios to be relatable and effective, you need to find characters your learners can identify with. Read this article for some helpful ideas: 5 Tips to Help You Choose Characters for E-Learning. Callouts (or Text Bubbles) When designing scenarios, you might decide to use callouts or text bubbles to show dialogues between characters. Callouts come in various shapes, sizes, and styles. Common formats include: Cartoon-style callouts with thick borders Sketchlike callouts that feature a more organic, hand-drawn border Flat design callouts Icons Icons can be used as buttons to standardize your course navigation or to illustrate complex concepts. Examples of icons to use as buttons in e-learning include: Arrows for Back and Next buttons A house for a menu or home screen A question mark to indicate where learners can get help A folder or document for additional resources associated with the course Whether you’re using icons as buttons or to illustrate ideas, make sure the icon’s meaning is clear and easy to interpret. If the icon is ambiguous, it can make things more confusing for your learners instead of less. And when in doubt, spell it out instead of (or in addition to) choosing an icon. This brings us to our next asset type. Buttons Sometimes you need to create a button for which there is no obvious icon, for example, a Try Again button at the end of a quiz. Rather than using an unfamiliar icon and confusing your learners, use a button with text so your learners know exactly what the button’s purpose is. Text buttons come in all different shapes and sizes; for example: Rectangles (with square or rounded edges) Squares Circles The key is to make sure your buttons look and feel similar, so your learners instinctively know they’re clickable. For help, check out this article: Tips for Designing Buttons That Scream “Click Me!” Videos Videos are great attention-grabbers, so it’s no surprise we’re seeing more and more of them in today’s e-learning courses. Here are some common types of videos: Screencasts Tutorials Filmed lectures or presentations Subject Matter Expert (SME) interviews Guided tour of an office or worksite Interactive videos Fonts While it’s best to stick to two or three fonts in a course, it’s also a good idea to have a wide selection of fonts in your toolkit to help you meet any course’s design needs. Whether you’re downloading free fonts or purchasing custom fonts, there are some basic styles you’ll want to keep in your asset library. For most e-learning projects, you’ll need a font for: Headings—such as titles, subtitles, and inline headings. It should be larger, bolder, or heavier than your body text. Primary body copy—Make sure it’s legible since it will represent the meatiest part of your course. Callouts, captions, or labels—This font should contrast with your slide background so learners can easily see and read it. It should also be legible in smaller sizes. Of course, when you’re choosing fonts it’s important to ask yourself the right questions to ensure all your learners can read it easily. Here are some resources that will help you do that: 8 Questions to Ask When Choosing Fonts & Formatting Text 5 Formatting Tips for Creating Dyslexia-Friendly E-Learning Where to Find Graphic Assets Now that you know what kinds of assets you’ll need, you’re probably wondering where to find them. There are so many different options, it can be overwhelming. Luckily for you, we’ve rounded up a list of excellent options. The E-Learning Heroes Downloads Hub. In addition to all our free PowerPoint and Storyline templates, you’ll find free backgrounds, buttons, callouts, fonts, icons, and other graphics, like illustrations and images. Whether the Articulate team or a community member created the assets, you can use them any way you’d like without worrying about attribution. Content Library 360. With an Articulate 360 subscription, you get instant access to Content Library 360, which has over 8 million course assets, including photos, videos, illustrations, icons, and other images you can access from within our apps. Not to mention tons of slide templates that will save you time. Stock Photo Sites. If you don’t find what you’re looking for on E-Learning Heroes or Content Library 360, try stock sites such as TheStocks.im and Unsplash. You can also check out our article on free stock photo sites. However, when using images from these stock sites, be sure to read the attribution rules to ensure you’re not infringing on the usage rights. More on that here: Everything You Need to Know About Image Usage Rights. Free Font Websites. If you’re looking for a wide variety of free fonts, look no further than Google Fonts, DaFont, and FontSquirrel. For more tips on finding fonts, read this article: Everything You Need to Know About Sourcing Fonts. More Resources Want more course asset tips and tricks? Check out these articles: How to Find the Images You Want in Content Library 360 Finding Fonts That Fit Your E-Learning Tips & Tools for Managing Your Course Assets Visual Design How-Tos for E-Learning Developers What are your top tips for finding and using course assets? Share your recommendations in a comment below. 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.8 Simple Steps for Creating Online Training
Are you new to e-learning and looking for someone to walk you through the course creation workflow from A to Z? If so, you’re in the right place. Read on for a high-level overview of what happens in each step as well as some additional resources that’ll set you up for success. Step 1. Confirm Training Is Needed When you land an e-learning project, the first thing to do is identify the “why” of the training request. Specifically, you want to learn what problem—usually a performance gap—e-learning is supposed to fix by doing a training needs analysis. When you do this, you might find that training isn’t really the appropriate solution. If that happens, share what you’ve found with the client or stakeholder. Odds are they’ll be open to what you have to say! But if—for example—you’ve been tasked with creating legally mandated training, there might not be a ton of flexibility for exploring other options. If that’s the case, don’t worry! Just move forward with developing the course as requested. Step 2. Meet with Your Client Once you’ve explored the root of the training request, you’re ready to gather some more project details. To do that, set up a meeting with the person who requested the training—often referred to as the client or primary stakeholder. You’ll want to go over things like: High-level learning objectives Budget or resource constraints Course creation app the company uses Timelines for different deliverables Review process and who has the final say Branding requirements and style guide information How learners will access the course (email with a link, learning management system [LMS], hosted online, etc.) To learn more about what to cover at the start of a project, check out this article: 6 Agenda Items for Your E-Learning Project Kickoff Meeting. Step 3. Gather Content With the project details sorted out, it’s time to start collecting the course content. Sometimes clients make your job easy by providing you with pre-existing content—like PowerPoint presentations—you can use to build out the course. It’s fantastic when this happens, but it’s not always a given. If there’s no existing content—or if there are gaps that you need to fill—you’ll likely need to research and write the content yourself. If the course topic is specific to the company, you might need to work closely with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to get the information you need. While every e-learning project is different, the aim of most trainings is generally the same—to teach someone a new skill. As you gather information, cut out anything that doesn’t support the overarching learning objective and help reach the training goal. For more information, see this list of articles: 5 Steps for Collecting Content for Your E-Learning Project The Dos and Don’ts of Separating Need-to-Know from Nice-to-Know 3 Tips for Designing Courses on Topics You Don’t Understand Step 4. Storyboard or Prototype Ok, so you’ve collected all the content you need. Now it’s time to start organizing it in a logical way and deciding how to present it to learners. This step is often referred to as storyboarding. Storyboards often take the form of a Word or PowerPoint document. The purpose of the storyboard is to ensure you and your stakeholders agree on the course structure, content, and format, so there are no surprises later on—when it’s often harder to make adjustments. That being said, some people prefer to skip the storyboard phase and build a prototype—also called a functional storyboard—directly in their course creation app. This gives stakeholders something more tangible to interact with, making it easier for them to imagine what the finished course will look like. It’s up to you to decide which option makes more sense for your project. But whatever you decide, be sure to check out the articles below for help with this step: E-Learning: Storyboard vs. Prototype 11 Best Practices for E-Learning Storyboarding What to Include in an E-Learning Storyboard Step 5. Review and Edit Once your storyboard or prototype is ready, it’s time to share it with your stakeholders for review. When you send it to them, emphasize that it’s just a first draft—and that it’s not the way the course will look when it’s done. This helps reviewers focus on the most important things—like content and course navigation—instead of the visuals. It’s also a good idea to tell your reviewers when you need their feedback completed by, so your project stays on track. Keep in mind that you might need to go through several rounds of review before you get everything exactly the way your stakeholders want it—which can be frustrating. But remember: feedback just makes the course better! And if you’re looking for tips on making the review process run more smoothly, check out this article: 5 Steps to an Easier E-Learning Course Review Process. Step 6. Build the Course If you started out with a storyboard, this is when you’ll begin moving your content into the authoring app. In this step you’ll make decisions around course functionality, fine-tune your course navigation, and design the visuals. Of course, if you skipped the storyboard step and went straight to a prototype, you’ll already have the functionality and navigation built out, so all that’s left is the design. Either way, it’s a good idea to follow some best practices during this step to ensure the final course is easy to use and professional looking. Check out the resources below for some tips: User Interface Design: 3 Things E-Learning Designers Need to Know Tips for Designing Buttons That Scream “Click Me!” How Do I Choose a Design for My E-Learning Course? Your Ultimate Guide to Choosing Graphics for E-Learning Improve Your E-Learning Designs Using White Space Step 7. Quality Assurance and Testing Now that your course is developed it’s ready to launch, right? Actually, not quite. Ensuring your course works as expected and doesn’t have any grammatical errors or design inconsistencies is a really important part of the development process. And the best way to ensure this is with a thorough round of quality assurance and testing! When you go to test your course, have a few different people look at it and ensure everything looks and works as expected. There are a whole host of things to watch out for, so having a checklist like this one can be really helpful, to make sure you don’t miss anything. Step 8. Publish and Share Your Course Once you’ve gone through the testing phase and made any necessary edits, you’re finally ready to share your course with learners. How you do that will depend on your client’s needs—which you will have already discussed during the project kickoff. For more information on the different options, check out this article: How to Share E-Learning Courses with Learners. Wrap-Up Building an e-learning course can seem daunting if you’ve never done it before, but if you follow this simple workflow, you will get there—step by step! For more tips for e-learning newbies, check out these resources: What Is E-Learning? What You Need to Know to Create Amazing E-Learning How to Plan E-Learning Courses Like a Pro 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.Keep Your E-Learning Project Moving Forward with These 3 Tips
Kicking off an e-learning project is exciting—you get to meet the client, make design choices, and work with a talented team. But once a project starts, the momentum can sometimes lag. Sometimes this slowdown is a result of changes to the project plan, a challenging review cycle, or a miscommunication, but other times you find yourself behind schedule without knowing why. The good news is, with a little planning and critical thinking, you can avoid common pitfalls and keep your project moving! Read on to find out how. 1. Use a Flexible/Iterative Process While having a plan is important, your ability to adapt the plan to meet client needs and address unexpected changes is just as crucial. Using an iterative process to manage your project lets you continuously gather feedback and quickly adapt. For example, say you get feedback asking you to make changes outside the scope of your initial plan. If that happens, you’ll want to consider a few things: What you would need to be able to apply them. Do you need extra time? More money? Both? How far outside the scope the requested changes are. Will it require months of extra work or just a few days? Do you need to significantly raise the budget or just scrape together a tiny bit more? How critical they are. For example, if the requested changes relate to compliance or safety measures, odds are they’re critical enough that you’ll need to find a way to incorporate them. But if it’s just a question of personal preference, it might be okay to decide not to. Once you’ve answered these questions, get together with the project stakeholders and make a decision about whether or not to apply the changes. If you decide to apply them, remember to adjust your project plan accordingly. For more information on iterative and agile project management, check out this article: SAM, A More Agile Approach to E-Learning Development. 2. Maintain Open, Transparent Communication Communication is the single most important factor in project success. As a project manager, it’s your responsibility to provide the right information, to the right people, at the right time. The best project managers know the level of information each team member needs and selects the most effective communication method. For example, anything that impacts your timeline should always be communicated to your primary stakeholder. You can avoid bottlenecks in the flow of information by identifying how your stakeholders prefer to communicate—email, phone call, text, etc. When it comes to other team members, a best practice is to touch base with each of them on a weekly basis. One way to do that is to schedule short meetings to share project updates. In these meetings, encourage everyone to reach out if they need help or any further direction. If you notice certain team members seem lost and aren’t proactively seeking help, make a point to check in with them more often. Another great way to make sure everyone has all the information they need is to use a project management app—like Trello or Basecamp—to track progress and create a central location to find project information. 3. Establish an Effective Review Process One of the most common project roadblocks is an ineffective review process. According to this survey of e-learning developers, they spend a whopping 40 percent of their time iterating courses with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). But it doesn’t have to be that way. The two main things that cause an ineffective review process—miscommunication and difficulty tracking feedback—can both be easily resolved by using an app, like Review 360, that centralizes feedback. Instead of communicating feedback in an endless spreadsheet, stakeholders can leave their comments directly in the course—making it easier for them to do and for you to understand. It’s a win-win! And if other stakeholders disagree with a comment or if you need further clarification to fulfill their request, inline responses make communication super-easy. For more tips on how to simplify the review process, check out this article: 5 Steps to an Easier E-Learning Course Review Process. Wrap-Up Flexible project management, open communication, and an effective review process are all key components of e-learning project success. Following these tips will help keep your project going and ensure you meet your deadlines. For more project management tips, check out these articles: 6 Agenda Items for Your E-Learning Project Kickoff Meetings 3 Tips for Building an Effective E-Learning Project Team 3 Ways to Ensure Your E-Learning Clients Keep Coming Back For More And remember to 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).An Introduction to SAM for Instructional Designers
The ADDIE model is probably the most well-known approach for mapping out the course design process. But it isn’t the only game in town these days. One popular alternative is SAM: the Successive Approximation Model. Created by Allen Interactions, SAM offers an instructional design approach consisting of a few steps that you repeat as many times as necessary. These iterations address common instructional design pain points like meeting timelines, staying on budget, and collaborating with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). So what is SAM? And how is it different from ADDIE? Is one better than the other? Let’s dig in and uncover some answers to these questions. What’s the difference between ADDIE and SAM? ADDIE and SAM are two different approaches for crafting learning solutions that share some similar language. To better see where they differ, it’s helpful to understand how each of them works. Let’s start with ADDIE. ADDIE ADDIE stands for Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate. It’s a linear approach—like a production line—with each step depending on the successful completion of the previous one. To borrow some terminology from project managers, ADDIE is a “waterfall approach.” And in a traditional waterfall method, analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation are all treated as ordered steps in the overall development process. While this model is preferred in many organizations, some folks say this sequential approach contributes to many of the challenges faced by instructional designers, including: Prolonged development cycles: Have you ever had your project come to a screeching halt in the development phase? It’s not uncommon for new training or technology requirements to emerge in the project development phase, bogging down your productivity with re-work. Communication challenges with SMEs and stakeholders: Even the most thorough explanations and storyboards are still open to interpretation. And with a sequential approach, SMEs and stakeholders typically don’t get to try a hands-on version of the project until well into the development phase. This can mean it’s not until you’re near the end of the project—when you’re out of time and money—that you discover your vision doesn’t match theirs. No time for testing: When projects run out of time or money, what’s the phase of the process we tend to skimp on? In my experience, it’s testing. Shortchanging this step may save you time, but with risky downsides like a training product that doesn’t work—or work effectively—to address a critical performance gap. Successive Approximation Model (SAM) SAM, on the other hand, is considered to be an “agile approach” that can be scaled from basic (SAM1) to extended (SAM2) to suit your needs. Both SAM models use iterative cycles to create the end product right from the start—all while continually analyzing and refining your work as it’s being produced. Proponents of using agile methods for creating e-learning claim that models like SAM can alleviate many of the challenges discussed above—in particular, improving the project team’s visibility into the instructional design process and reducing development time frames. The basic process—SAM1—can be a good fit for smaller projects or teams. This flavor of SAM is a simple model with three iterations of the familiar instructional design steps of evaluation, design, and development. Using this approach, everyone’s ideas and assumptions can be discussed, prototyped, and tested early on, bringing you closer to a usable product more quickly. And what if your project is more complex? That’s where SAM2 comes into play. SAM2 is an extended take on SAM1. It consists of eight iterative instructional design steps spread across three project phases: Preparation, Iterative Design, and Iterative Development. In addition to the incremental cycles, another notable feature of the SAM2 model is the preparation phase. It consists of two steps to help you prepare for your design and development work fast: gathering information and then holding a brainstorming and prototyping meeting known as a “Savvy Start.” Which is better—ADDIE or SAM? When it comes to evaluating which design model is a better fit for you and your team, it really boils down to what you’re trying to achieve and what your work environment will support. When applied in the right situations and fully committed to by everyone involved, SAM’s flexibility can get you to a successful final course fast. Its iterative approach both helps you use prototypes to get stakeholder buy-in quickly and also makes it easy to pivot should your course requirements change. However, many instructional designers work in organizations that have embraced agility in theory but not so much in practice. Applying an agile approach like SAM can be difficult when your environment doesn’t encourage rapid feedback or flexible processes. In those cases, ADDIE’s waterfall model may be a better choice. Because ADDIE is a waterfall method that’s been used for years, it might make clients, stakeholders, and even team members more comfortable. And while it’s still not as flexible as SAM, many people find an adapted version of ADDIE that includes some iterative loops does a good job of splitting the difference between both methods. More Learning Whatever design model you follow—whether it’s ADDIE, SAM, or another one entirely—weighing your options for more thoughtful, responsive development practices can be a great way to build collaboration and grease the wheels for smoother training rollouts. Start by digging into these related articles from the archives. An Introduction to ADDIE for Instructional Designers What’s the PADDIE Model of Instructional Design? Best Practices for Effective E-Learning Project Management How to Manage E-Learning Project Scope Creep What design model is closest to how you really work? What are your thoughts on ADDIE vs. SAM? We love hearing from you, so share your thoughts in a comment. Follow us on Twitter and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning.
