eLearning Implementation: How To Assess Your Content Readiness?
The readiness of your content will directly/indirectly impact your budget, time frame, and the resources required. Most organizations overestimate how stable and comprehensive their existing content is. Here are a few points that can help you get a more realistic view of your content readiness:
1. Is The Content Available Currently Aligned To The Objectives You Want To Achieve Through The eLearning Program?
Most of the content available will be in the form of PDFs, PPTs, or printed versions. When they decide to go for eLearning, organizations need to assess whether the content available is aligned to the objectives they want to achieve through online learning. If no, they need to identify gaps in the content and fill in with the help of Subject Matter Experts. On the other side, if they have the content available, they can outsource it to eLearning development vendors or develop in-house, depending on the suitability of the content to eLearning.
2. What Is The Percentage Of Content Suitable For eLearning (This Depends On Your Learning Goal)?
Most organizations want to the convert their entire training program online. But it is suggested to have a blend of classroom training with eLearning. Depending on the type of training and the learning goal you want to achieve, the training delivery should differ.
For example, you have product training. The basic overview of products is the best training material suitable for eLearning. Here, the learning goal is to provide knowledge about your products to the learners.
When your learning goal is to make the learners apply that knowledge acquired or practice it, classroom training is apt. (You can also develop higher order online courses for attaining such learning goals, but while implementing eLearning for the first time, you need to start small.)
3. Is The Existing Content Organized With A Clear Outline And Are The Learning Objectives Mentioned?
If the training material available with the organization has a well-defined outline and flows logically, then the efforts to convert it to self-paced learning material will be reduced to a great extent. But most of the organizations’ existing content will not be in order or at one place. So collecting the material from all the sources and logically arranging it, depending on the learning objective, is the immediate step they need to take to make the content ready for quick conversions.
4. Is The Current Content Customized To The Organization Or Learning Needs?
If the content is general, built for a vast audience, and doesn’t require any customization (for example training such as compliance and information security training), the development of the online course requires less time and minimal effort.
5. Do You Want The Content To Be Customized?
If you want the content to be customized depending on the learners’ requirements, a lot of effort goes into tweaking your content to make it suitable to your customized Learning requirements. This involves much time and effort. When you outsource it to the vendor, he may take additional time interviewing your Subject Matter Experts and analyzing the current job tasks of the learners to get the required knowledge and customize it to your learning needs. In such cases, the vendor may charge you higher than the normal rapid eLearning rates.
6. How Often Does The Content Change?
Due to rapid changes in the micro and macro-economic environments, the requirements of organizations change. So does the training and the content. The frequency and extent to which the content changes during or after the development is a factor you need to consider. Development of courses with rapid authoring tools, such as Articulate Storyline or Lectora, facilitates the minor updates in the courses quickly and cost effectively. Organizations sometimes overlook what they already have and try to develop content from scratch. Leverage existing content by converting to eLearning using rapid authoring tools saves a lot of time and cost.
Final Word
To make the best use of existing content, these are a few questions you need to ask to assess your content readiness for your eLearning initiative. To know more about this aspect, read this eBook Advanced Guide for eLearning Implementation and learn how to:
- Evaluate your organization’s readiness for eLearning.
- Build a compelling business case for eLearning.
- Overcome eLearning barriers you may face along the way.
- Decide on whether to make or buy eLearning.
- Choose an eLearning partner.
- Implement eLearning successfully in your organization.
