Elearning
author Ilona Hetsevich
author 30 Sep 2014
author Hits: 7446
comments comments

More and more companies realize the need of investing money, time and effort into staff training, however, the number of businesses that can allocate a considerable part of their budgets to employee training programs is extremely small. The rest looks for alternative means of creating cost effective training courses and today’s post highlights such techniques.

The article was last updated on August 19th 2016.

More and more companies realize the need of investing money, time and effort into staff training, however, the number of businesses that can allocate a considerable part of their budgets to employee training programs is extremely small. The rest looks for alternative means of creating cost effective training courses and today’s post highlights such techniques.

Brainstorming

To make an eLearning project an effective LMS implementation, awareness is not enough. A far greater meaning is assigned to:

  • goals definition;
  • audience knowledge;
  • design ideas;
  • development perspectives;
  • scenario concept;
  • etc.

Not only these questions but many others should be discussed during brainstorming with your team.

Roles Allocation

The team organization, making a decision on its size and each member’s responsibilities fully depends on your business’ capacities both financial and labor. However, the team should certainly include:

  • A project manager or a supervisor who determines the project’s goals, policy and direction, coordinates the work and analyzes the results;
  • A Content Developer who is responsible for content creation including media and text materials, tests, learning paths, virtual sessions planning and so on;
  • An LMS specialist who knows Learning Management System like the back of his hand and is responsible for the LMS implementation, functional settings and future LMS users training;
  • A Designer who is accountable for a course layout, its convenience and usability;
  • A Tester/ Quality Assurance Specialist who is in charge of LMS system and developed courses testing and bugs search before the project launch.

If required certain responsibilities can be divided among the team players or additional specialists can be invited.

Reuse of Materials

Thanks to a unified standard course content format (SCORM) supported by all Learning Management Systems you can easily reuse your own or other eLearning experts’ groundwork available on the Internet. If you are planning to reuse your own materials you should take care of the same content structure compliance across all your courses. It will significantly simplify your course developer’s life.

And there is nothing wrong with using free resources like images, videos, audios or eLearning icons. You can easily create a base of resources by searching for websites and communities where people share eLearning content.

LMS Customization

In most cases LMS is a complex solution, oversaturated with a number of features. To make it more efficient, user-friendly and convenient for work and learning you can configure it according to your personal or future learners’ preferences.

Let’s look at some JoomLMS solutions:

  • Well thought-out User Interface
  • For example, in JoomLMS all extra features can be eliminated from the user interface, making it more intuitive and easier to deal with. Thus, a learner doesn’t feel frustrated once they enter the course. More information on User Interface Configuration is available in one of our blog posts here.

    lms appearance

  • Automatic Redirect to a Learning Path
  • Adjusting JoomLMS you can enable “Redirect to learning path (for students)” option in course Settings at the course home page and a user will be automatically redirected to a specific learning path once the course Home page is entered. The learners will see the Course Home page as a Learning Path Start page and will be able to navigate through it using “Previous” and “Next” buttons. Thus you exclude unnecessary manipulations.

    learning path

  • Automatic Course Completion
  • To make the course completion an easy hassle process you can allow students to download and print a certificate right away after passing the course by configuring an automatic course completion at the “Gradebook” settings.

    lms course completion

The described techniques can save a bunch of your time, effort and money; however the main rule you need to remember is that you will never cover the training expenses if you don’t motivate your learners before the course starts. Mandatory course participation is not a solution. Besides the course description benefits you should understand how to influence learner’s motivation. If you make a person interested, curious and excited about your course – you are on your way!

What to read next?
How to Apply a Student-Centered Approach to the ELearning Environment [Interview]
How to Motivate Students Online - Video Interview with Curt Bonk
The Insider’s Guide to Student-Centered Approach – Interview with Sam Gliksman