Charting Your Course – Ten Tips for Organizations Just Getting Started With eLearning Development

We sometimes forget that what might be obvious to those of us involved with eLearning development from day to day, is not so obvious to those who are new to the field.  Here are some tips we like to share with new clients.  Have some of your own?  We’d love to hear from you!

1. Define a Road Map for eLearning development efforts. A road map is necessary to ensure that team roles and responsibilities are clearly defined. Also, a defined plan is much easier to manager. When a road map is not clearly defined, miscommunication between team members and a misunderstanding regarding what needs to be done is more likely to take place.

2. Provide an eLearning development platform/toolset as a baseline for content creation and management.  A common development platform allows all involved to adhere to a framework of standards that is easily repeatable and produces consistent output. Failure to provide a starting point or default platform for development leads to a potpourri of challenges when upgrading, managing skill sets, etc.

3. Provide a collaborative environment where teams of people work together. eLearning development requires input from multiple people (instructional designers, graphics, subject matter experts, reviewers, etc.) and providing a place for teams of people to work together is necessary. Too often, a common “workspace” results in disjointed pockets of development with organizational content buried in email inboxes and “My documents” directories. As a result, many companies evolve into either a “funnel” or “mass author” approach to creation – both of which lead to inefficiencies.

4. Provide a means of sharing assets across an enterprise. However, one should focus on “use” before looking for “re-use”. Efficient storage and tracking of learning assets across the organization leverages the investment in content creation. Lost or misplaced learning assets are a waste of time and money, and many times cause undue rework by team members.

5. Understand there are categories of eLearning. These are termed Level 1 (simple informational courseware) through Levels 2 and 3 (basic instructional courses) to Level 4 (immersed simulation courseware). It is important to remember that different tools, techniques, and budgets apply across this range. It is critical to understand the complexity of the learning required so that the appropriate tool(s) can be utilized effectively. Using the wrong development tool can seriously handicap the type of learning that needs to be created, often crippling the learning experience based on an incompatibility between form and function.

6. Provide instructional design templates and examples for each category of eLearning. To enable the development of rapid eLearning, a repeatable framework allows resources to focus on content, not structure. Without templates and examples, time is wasted as non-developers struggle to create course structures that are consistent.

7. Understand that eLearning components have source code. If you lose the source code, you cannot update the course. Adequate source code control protects the programming investment in your course and helps future resources more easily maintain it. Failure to version and archive source code can create maintenance problems when the courses need to be updated.

8. Consider the branding of the courseware during the design phase. It is advantageous to separate content from presentation in order to provide the ability to customize the appearance of courseware for different audiences. If this is not followed, either stale player skins or the necessity to update multiples copies of the courseware player can result.

9. Understand all current and potential future requirements of the eLearning courses being designed and developed.  Do the courses need to be SCORM compliant?  Is Section 508 compliance required or desired?  Will the courses be updated on a regular basis?  Will there be multiple audiences for the same base content?  How about support for additional languages? 

10.  If you’re using an LMS for providing courses to your learners, be prepared to support AICC and multiple versions of SCORM. Learning management systems differ in their support of industry standards. If multiple standards are not considered, the courses develop may have communication issues with the LMS, or may encounter problems in the future when systems are upgraded.