The 5-Point Checklist
Now that you’ve made the decision to outsource custom eLearning, the next big question is, ‘to whom? If you Google the question, you will get a long list of companies claiming to provide the best online learning solutions. With outsourcing, time, linguistic, and cultural barriers will prove to be difficult challenges to overcome. And with so many eLearning vendors in the market, how do you find your ‘match-made-in-heaven’? Follow this checklist that shares the 5 most important things you need to look for!
1. Is eLearning Design And Development Their Core Strength?
Technology has made the development of eLearning courses a child’s play. Today, any individual with a modicum of skill in web designing can claim to be an expert in online learning solutions. However, functionalities are just part of the multidisciplinary eLearning design process. To develop learner-centric courses, you’ll need to pick a vendor who offers custom eLearning as their core service—not one of many.
Look for a vendor dedicated to custom eLearning, who:
- Has strong background in workplace training.
- Has expertise in dealing with all aspects of eLearning development.
- Has years of experience working with multiple industries verticals, including your own.
- Knows which instructional strategy to employ, what will work best for your training needs, and what will not.
How to go about it?
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2. What Is Their Expertise In Instructional Design?
Instructional Designers the content architects who decide and design what an eLearning course will look and feel like. So it makes sense for you to check if the vendor’s Instructional Designers have the expertise and experience to undertake your project.
Look for an eLearning partner with a team of dedicated Instructional Designers who:
- Focus on corporate training development and are experts in adult learning principles.
- Have years of experience in designing courses and can employ the best and most effective learning strategies.
- Are creative and come up with rich, innovative, easy-to-implement ideas for different projects.
- Are up-to-date on new-age learning trends and training methodologies.
Having a large team will ensure the eLearning vendor will be able to dedicate the same set of IDs for your projects, building a rapport between your team and theirs. This specialization on their side will lead to a quick output.
How to go about it?
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3. What Is Their Proficiency Using Authoring Tools?
Interactive functionalities are key elements of an engaging eLearning course. And authoring tools are the key to develop interactivities. Authoring tools give life to eLearning courses, and there are several authoring tools in the market, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. It is always better to:
- Look for vendors with a large pool of courseware developers who have expertise in using multiple authoring tools.
- Find out what authoring tools they use to develop courses and how they solve atypical requirements.
| How to go about it?
Check their sample courses to see how effectively they can develop highly interactive features such as animations, simulations, scenarios, and game-based designs. |
4. Is Their Project Management Process Efficient?
When you are outsourcing eLearning development to an overseas vendor, you will need to understand that time and geography are not the only factors that obscure the way. There is a huge barrier in the form of culture. To ensure these differences do not become a hindrance, select a vendor with proper project management processes.
- Find out if the partner has an agile and iterative project management process in place to avoid ambiguities later.
- Ensure the vendor offers a single point of contact during the entire process.
- Convey your expectations clearly from the start and be actively involved in every phase of the design and development.
- Have well-defined timelines to receive regular reviews and updates (daily, weekly, or monthly).
- Check if the vendor has enough employee strength and resources to undertake the project and scale up your ad hoc requirements.
- Ensure the project manager is skilled and experienced in working comfortably with overseas clients, regardless of time and cultural barriers.
| How to go about it?
Ask the vendor to explicitly explain the project management processes and the step-by-step procedures they follow. |
5. Does The eLearning Outsourcing Vendor Provide Additional Services?
There is more to eLearning than just course design and development. Services such as translation & localization and Learning Management System (LMS) administration are equally crucial for an effective digital training program.
Translation and localization of eLearning is a tricky, yet, extremely important service. If you have a global workforce, ensure the eLearning vendor offers translation and localization service for it will save you the hassle of outsourcing to two different vendors.
Learning Management Systems are complex and need a dedicated team for hosting and support. Often, even after tests and trials are run in the SCORM cloud, courses do not run smoothly when hosted on an LMS. If the vendor has a dedicated technology team, you can leverage their support to fix such issues and outsource admin tasks to them.
So there you have it, 5 steps to ensure you pick the right partner for outsourcing your custom eLearning design and development. Looking for a partner? Just go through this checklist and you won’t go wrong.
Effective outsourcing of eLearning is an art altogether. Download the eBook The Ultimate Guide To Outsource Custom eLearning to see how it can be done in an effective manner. If you are looking for more tips to ensure the successful outsourcing of custom eLearning, join this webinar presented by RK Prasad, CEO, and Co-Founder of CommLab India, in collaboration with eLearning Industry.