Frequently Asked Questions
What are the advantages of e-learning?
Time and money. Consider how much your company wastes in sending your employees to training courses, transportation, hotel bills and employer down time.
e-learning counts on:
- The best of the solutions from both worlds: effective e-learning which combines the proved traditional teaching method with the rich resources of computer-based education to create an attractive and motivating solution.
- On-line flexibility: teaching and retaining the critical information you need, whatever it is and wherever you need it, without having to leave the office or the people who need you.
- Interactivity in real world: motivating students to start working in simulation laboratories. This allows them to test their abilities in a perfect simulated environment, increasing the possibilities of recalling what they have learned and putting it into operation later on.
- Personalised learning: by a pre-admission test that evaluates knowledge and the level of ability, each learning experience is personalised in order to ensure that only the necessary information is received.
How do we get started in e-learning?
The best thing to do to get started is to get together with a reputable e-learning consultancy (did we mention that we do this sort of thing?) to do a picture board session about your requirements, and perhaps more importantly, your organisational limitations.
What do we do with our current instructor-led courses?
Most of our clients re-purpose their instructor-led courses, or at least the ones that can be effectively delivered via e-learning. More and more of our clients these days are moving to e-learning solutions.
Is e-learning more efficient than traditional training?
Multimedia transfer gives us the possibility to fit the form of presenting information to the individual's didactic preferences. The user can choose the preferred pace of learning and the most effective way of learning for him/her (reading, listening, observation, interaction). The user is able to choose those parts of the course, which she/he finds most interesting. On the other hand, the user can overlook parts that she/he already knows.
What areas does e-learning work well in?
e-learning is not a replacement for all of your current training.
It can be valuable to look at where your trainers add the most value, which is often not in the repetitive delivery of information, but rather in the subsequent discussion of material and the relating of the content to your employees day to day roles.
e-learning tends to work well in parts of orientation training, information-intensive parts of product training, procedural training, compliance training, systems simulation training – in short, anything which is knowledge intensive.
How do we measure the return on our investment?
Return on investment is one area in which e-learning comes into its own, especially with a decentralised workforce.
It is interesting, however, that many of the organisations embracing e-learning cite cost savings (travel, employee down-time, etc.) as only one of many reasons to incorporate online learning. Today, many organisations are considering broader business impact: increased learning can improve sales, customer service and employee retention.
What is a Learning Management System?
It’s software designed to manage, track, and quantify all of the training, continuing education, employee development, certification and other learning activities in a company.
Do we need a learning management system (“LMS”) before we do a project?
Not necessarily. We are asked this question a lot, primarily because of the rather large investment LMS’s require.
Courses today can be built to a specification such as AICC or SCORM, which allows it to run in most LMS’s, when you make the decision to purchase one.
If you make SCORM compliance (probably the safest standard to follow these days) a requirement in the development of your custom courses, you should be right.
Who is it for?
Companies implement a learning management system because they’re committed to continued learning, development and knowledge transfer for employees, external and internal customers. Knowledge and expertise is a powerful edge in today’s complex business climate.
What types of learning can be managed by an LMS?
LMS-managed training can be delivered online, in the classroom, in clients’ offices, onsite at customer facilities. It can be deployed via computer-based training like CD-ROM and DVD, or in a blended approach that combines in-person and self paced learning, or in live classes. The LMS can track training in all these different ways as well.
What is an LCMS?
An LCMS is focused purely on managing and delivering the appropriate e-learning content for users when they need it. The Learning Content Management System provides an infrastructure that can be used to rapidly create, modify, and manage content for a wide range of learning to meet the needs of rapidly changing business requirements. The LCMS can use its detailed data on learner scores, question choices, and navigation habits to give content managers crucial information on the effectiveness of the content when combined with specific instructional strategies, delivery technologies, and learner preferences.
What is AICC? What is SCORM?
The Aviation Industry CBT (Computer-Based Training) Committee (AICC) is an international association of technology-based training professionals. The AICC develops guidelines for the development, delivery, and evaluation of CBT and related training technologies. This is a standard in e-learning.
The Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) defines a Web-based learning "Content Aggregation Model" and "Run-Time Environment" for learning objects. The SCORM is a collection of specifications adapted from multiple sources to provide a comprehensive suite of e-learning capabilities that enable interoperability, accessibility and reusability of Web-based learning content.
Web Resources
- AICC: Learn all about AICC here from the organization's website
- SCORM: ADL's site (Advanced Distributed Learning) - everything SCORM related.