65 tips for your elearning budget by Nikolaos Floratos

65 TIPS

Getting the Most Out of Your e-Learning Budget for

Contributing Editor, Marcia L. Conner

65 Tips for Getting the Most out of Your e-Learning Budget |

Copyright ÂŠ 2009 by The eLearning Guild Published by The eLearning Guild 375 E Street, Suite 200 Santa Rosa, CA 95404 www.elearningguild.com You may download, display, print, and reproduce this material in unaltered form only (retaining this notice) for your personal, non-commercial use, or use within your organization. All other rights are reserved. This is a FREE Digital eBook. No one is authorized to charge a fee for it, or to use it to collect data. Attribution notice for information from this publication must be given, must credit the individual contributor in any citation, and should take the following form: The eLearning Guild's 65 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your e-Learning Budget Readers should be aware that Internet Web sites, offered as citations or sources for further information, may have disappeared, or been changed, between the date this book was published and the date it is read. Other FREE Digital eBooks by The eLearning Guild include: 144 Tips on Synchronous e-Learning Strategy + Research 239 Tips for Producing and Managing Flash-based e-Learning Content 162 Tips and Tricks for Working with e-Learning Tools The eLearning Guild's Handbook of e-Learning Strategy The eLearning Guild's Handbook on Synchronous e-Learning 382 Tips on the SELECTION of an LMS or LCMS 339 Tips on the IMPLEMENTATION of an LMS or LCMS 311 Tips on the MANAGEMENT of an LMS or LCMS 834 Tips for Successful Online Instruction Publisher: David Holcombe Editorial Director: Heidi Fisk Contributing Editor: Marcia L. Conner Editor: Bill Brandon Copy Editor: Charles Holcombe Design Director: Nancy Marland Wolinski The eLearning Guildâ&#x201E;˘ Advisory Board Ruth Clark, Lance Dublin, Conrad Gottfredson, Bill Horton, Bob Mosher, Marc Rosenberg, Allison Rossett.

65 Tips for Getting the Most out of Your e-Learning Budget |

Table of Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 65 Tips for Getting the Most out of Your e-Learning Budget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 Do More With Less . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29 The e-Learning Department of One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

65 Tips for Getting the Most out of Your e-Learning Budget |

Introduction Dear Colleagues, Last year I began being asked frequently how education departments could thrive amid declining budgets and halted sales. It was an easy topic for me to address, because over the years I have led organizations trying to do their part to bolster the corporate bottom line. Committed to helping people learn no matter the dollars available to us, I became a specialist in doing more with less. I never imagined the time would come when everyone was in a similar situation and our resourcefulness would be needed across the field. Many of us seek solutions that are both innovative and thrifty. This eBook on maximizing your e-Learning development budget demonstrates the ingenuity of our industry and our commitment to learn all-ways. You will find here tips on enduring themes such as where to begin your e-Learning programs, getting the most from subject matter experts, lending your skills to other departments, and lessons learned the hard way, to more timely themes like leveraging social media, using open source tools, and where to find free content on the net. Some of my personal tips, which were not already offered by survey participants are also included here, to extend the budget-stretching beyond e-Learning into all facets of education-focused cost cutting and revenue making. We will each need as much information as possible in the months and years ahead, not just to get through the economic downturn but also to support organizations interested in sustainability and strengthening their market position to make the most change. I believe this is a great time to be learning while short on cash, to be doing more with less. Never before in modern history has it been so easy to run a training department (or be accountable for people's learning when you are in another department yet still focused on knowledge transfer) without large budgets, blocks of free time, or even an organization to help marshal your resources. It requires lateral thinking, deep digging, and never losing sight that we each have the capacity for limitless discovery. In learning,

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Marcia Marcia L. Conner Managing Director, Ageless Learner

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65 Tips for Getting the Most out of Your e-Learning Budget Develop the courses that meet your greatest needs first. For example, develop the courses that take the most trainer time, most total learner time, or are the most expensive to hold in the classroom, rather than focusing on courses that are the easiest to create. Denise Link, Vice President, Phasient Learning Technologies

Begin by asking the right questions. Answers to these questions ensure you create the right budget: 1. Short-term and long-term, what is your goal or objective to go online? 2. Will your programs be fully online, hybrid, or blended? 3. Who will manage the LMS,WBT, or CBT? 4. Will the administration of the hardware, software, content, and course development be managed in-house or outsourced? — Coleman Walker, Vice President, Spectrum Pacific Learning Company, LLC Focus on what is most important to the business. Rather than spending your limited dollars on numerous courses that learners will click their way through, identify what behavior could make the difference for your company. Ask yourself, "What does the learner need to be doing differently to change performance," rather than what do they need to know. Knowing will get you nowhere if there is no behavior change. Mind your budgets wisely to deliver quality solutions that align with key business drivers. — Lisa Stortz, Strategic Relationship Manager, Allen Interactions The first question when I begin a project is whether we should build or buy. I always look at our own resources: tools, talent, time cycles, etc. and whether it fits in the project timeline. I have provided significant savings by pushing back on delivery times to build internally rather than buying externally. Development time increases due to available resources; however we then own the content for future revisions. If the project needs external development, we get the most of what we have to work with by starting with $0. — Kevin Thorn, LMS Administrator, e-Learning Development, AutoZone, Inc. Start with a pilot project. This gives you a strong background to build support and minimize risk. —Dr. Jasir Alherbish, e-Learning Consultant Develop the courses that meet your greatest needs first. For example, develop the courses that take the most trainer time, most total learner time, or are the most expensive to hold in the classroom, rather than focusing on courses that are the easiest to create. Develop good courses from the start. Do not develop courses to get by. Ineffective courses will not be successful, and will cost you more in the long run. Finally, match training needs and content with appropriate methods. For material with a short shelf life and high level of interest, such as next year’s benefits options, consider rapid e-Learning or a page on your Intranet. If the training consists of introducing a new product or process, spend more money on interactive training that accomplishes results. — Denise Link, Vice President, Phasient Learning Technologies

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65 Tips continued Understand your target learners to help determine and prioritize your project requirements. Assign the different learner groups priorities in the project. • Who are your learners (primary, secondary tertiary)? What are their demographics and current knowledge? • Where are they (level in organization, geographic barriers, how to communicate)? • What are their needs (blended vs. e-Learning, work balance, priorities for learning, value in the marketplace, desire to learn, technology infrastructure)? • What are their issues (for or against change, union agreements, mandatory vs. volunteer learning, time restraints, access issues)? By identifying learners in detail, you foresee problems and issues that could add costs to your budget, and you are able to account for them in the initial planning phase and budgeting process. —Kelly Juhasz, President, JUHASZ Development Group Helping someone understand how to do something, and why they need to do it, is not the answer to everything. Sometimes the business solution can be found by changing a process or hiring the right person. If you determine training is the answer and e-Learning is the best mode to use, proceed with speed. Instructional designers sometimes spend too much time on minutia and theory rather than focusing on straightforward, clearly communicated content. Your learner has a need to do something now, not after you have spent weeks crafting learning objectives as if they were literary wonders or built complex simulations. Spend your ISD time creating a clear presentation of what you are trying to communicate, and your technical time on those few pieces that need to be refined. Then use a tool for the mundane tasks like navigation, searching, and glossaries, and then aggregate it all. — Charles McGinnis, Technology Director, Abundance Software, LLC

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65 Tips continued Be sure you fully understand the learning objectives, and design a program to clearly present and measure those objectives. Gather information, analyze need, propose ideas, clarify objectives, design storyboard content with objectives, clarify content again, get sign off, inform all stakeholders, design program. This will save time so you can produce what is desired the first time around. —Cheryl Lisker, E-Learning Development Specialist, ISD, Take Charge America Research what is already in place in your organization or agency. Also research what organizations like your own, in your field, have developed, so, if possible, you can reuse documentation and content. —Carol Stoil, Learning Development Specialist, Bureau of Engraving & Printing

With more than fifteen years of experience, Allen Interactions has an unrivaled track record in delivering dynamic enterprise custom e-learning solutions that serve employees, partners and customers at many of the world’s leading companies. Allen Interactions has designed and developed the highest impact custom e-learning and blended learning available for leading organizations like Apple, Essilor, HSBC and Motorola. Blending best practices with technology, content and service, Allen Interactions assists these companies that need to execute business change, drive and improve performance, accelerate speed to profit and improve people effectiveness. For more information visit us at www.alleninteractions.com.

1. Create a communication plan from the initial kick-off meeting. Who is the project lead on both sides? Who is developing what: interface design, content, assessment? In some cases, one or two individuals do all the development, whereas in other cases a team of people works on a project and never touches the other pieces. 2. Establish major milestones in the scope document. 3. Identify smaller milestones in the production document. We recently began using a storyboard approach that details the entire project. In that document the smaller milestones are established and checked off prior to continuing. It requires a bit more project management skills, but it prevents discovering a major error too far in the project that may result in redesign. 4. Take advantage of Web 2.0 technology to share documents or collaborative space. Web conference tools like WebEx work great for everyone on the project to see, and with many of these tools you can use the whiteboard and mark on the screen to explain edits or changes. 5. Test, Test, Test. How an e-Learning module works on a testing environment may not work on a production environment. So many variables depend on the audience and delivery method. These are all key before signing off and releasing the provider from the contract. —Kevin Thorn, LMS Administrator, e-Learning Development, AutoZone, Inc. Clearly define which information needs to be part of training and which is informational. Effective learning is always coupled with actionable items or situations. Theory and ideas are extremely important, but not best learned within a training environment. You cannot learn to ride a bike by reading about it, but you can learn how a bike is built. If you then offer real-time interaction about why you build a bike and what might be better ways to build it, you have hit gold. Theory, discussed in person, combined with training on how something works, coupled with practice, is the trifecta of successful learning. —Paul Pinkman, owner, Paul Pinkman Creative Design, LLC

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65 Tips continued Now is not the time for glitz and glamour. Instead of gratuitous 3-D animations and complex Flash interactions, focus on the basics. Susan McDonald Osborn, Partner, Laurus Design, LLC

Rapid prototyping is one of the best things a group can do early in a project to keep budgets in check. Prototyping will allow buy-in from the user experience group, content sponsor, and even the end users. If the prototype also incorporates all the technical aspects of the final deliverable (coding, runtime versioning like Flash, LMS reporting, video, audio, graphics) the amount of rework and testing at the end of the development process will be greatly minimized. This also will allow for better overall acceptance of the content from end users and IT. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Jeff Gray, CTO, NovoLogic, Inc. Now is not the time for glitz and glamour. Instead of gratuitous 3-D animations and complex Flash interactions, focus on the basics: design courseware that will build the knowledge and skills of the employee workforce. Our senior-level clients want performance, not bells and whistles. Eye candy sometimes gets us in the door of organizations, but in tough economic times we may want to be serving up meat and potatoes that have a measurable impact on job performance and organizational success. â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Susan McDonald Osborn, Partner, Laurus Design, LLC

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65 Tips continued Research what is already in place in your organization or agency. Also research what organizations like your own, in your field, have developed, so, if possible, you can reuse documentation and content. Carol Stoil, Learning Development Specialist, Bureau of Engraving & Printing

Harness the knowledge of your on-staff SMEs to rely less on outside vendors and consultants. If you have one or two employees who are very familiar with rapid design tools, pair these individuals up with your SMEs to pass the rapid design knowledge on to them. Then, your rapid design gurus will not become the bottleneck, and can serve more as experts for the SMEs when publishing e-Learning modules to your LMS. —Andy Riley, E-Learning and Technology Mgr., Wachovia / Wells Fargo Plan, plan, plan. Do not talk to SMEs without having your plan of action together first. Without a plan, you waste their valuable time and yours. Find people who want to learn more about what you are doing in their spare time. Begin by giving them small parts of a project at first, so that when the economy does turn around, you have a possible hire ready. — Fredia Fuller Dillard, Instructional Designer/Coordinator, The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Assuming SMEs are allocated sufficient time, here are four tips for working with them: 1. Communication 101: Identify with SMEs the key messages, desired impacts, and job performances, keeping the big picture in their minds. 2. Learning Content Templates: Structure content development forms resembling the final output that enables easy capture and conversion of their vast knowledge into learning. This is mandatory before recording any simulation or other online content. Coach them on visualization. 3. Learner Empathy: Discuss with SMEs the intended audience's general learning skills and online habits (and tolerances). While teaching the use of rapid tools, offset hyped features and repurpose others. Engender practical creativity. 4. Ownership: SMEs own content, but you own the learning and results. Plan on reviewing and editing every output, some more than others. If you want the content mass to sing, you are the conductor. SME content can often be too lengthy or deep and must be simplified. It takes time. Be sure to plan for it. — Stephanie Fillman, Sr. Instructional Designer/e-Learning Consultant, Independent Contractor Use tools that can be pushed to SMEs so you can reduce e-Learning development time. For instance, we use Articulate because our SMEs are familiar with PowerPoint. This enables at least rough drafts to be done without many meetings, and encourages others to participate in course development. The instructional designer creates various templates along with guidelines to assist with the development efforts. —Elizabeth Israel, Instructional Designer, F5 Share budgets with marketing to produce animations that are multi-purpose. Also use multiple delivery platforms such as the Web, handhelds, and mobile. — Stephen Colucci, CEO, Interact Medical

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Use tools that can be pushed to SMEs so you can reduce e-Learning development time. For instance, we use Articulate because our SMEs are familiar with PowerPoint. This enables at least rough drafts to be done without many meetings, and encourages others to participate in course development. The instructional designer creates various templates along with guidelines to assist with the development efforts. Elizabeth Israel, Instructional Designer, F5

65 Tips continued Skip expensive, time-consuming video production and professional voiceovers. With a little coaching, your content SME can be your voiceover talent and will provide context to the training as the voice of the expert. In place of video, take photos and persuade co-workers to be your models. Connect the photos together in a photo montage and use special effects such as fading in and out. Display a photo for a few seconds and then move on to the next photo. Add a voiceover and you have a simulated video. —Maria Leggett, Manager, Legal Business Analysis, Textron Inc. To get nice sound quality for a reasonable price, purchase a good inexpensive USB microphone like one from Blue Snowball, which for around a hundred dollars can handle all of your audio recording needs. — Mark Temple, Multimedia Developer, Newmarket International Inc. Produce short Podcast from your top sales people on tips and case studies. — Cindy Xiao, Instructional Designer, IBM Keep active with your professional memberships, learning organizations, and communities of practice. You may learn valuable tips and treasures of the trade to leverage throughout your professional career. — Linda Nelson, e-Learning Instructional Designer, Iron Mountain Do not overlook universities. If you have a development project that requires a variety of external resources, take a look at resources you may be able to attain through the college student population. This is especially easy to accomplish during summer months when highly capable and enthusiastic students are looking to get a job in their field. There are also universities that make internships, co-ops, or experiential learning part of their program, so some students spend as much as 18 months in the workplace instead of the classroom. That means you can get low-cost external help for much longer durations than just during the summer. This helps you get your projects completed within or under budget, and is also a great gesture of goodwill toward our future generations of workers. — Mark Simon, Sr. Training Specialist, Eliassen Group Develop a local community of practice that shares ideas, resources and tools, donates staff time, and develops projects collaboratively. We even developed a Web site to help state agencies get started, better understand how e-Learning can be used, and provide examples of work. —Michael Baker, Information Resource Consultant, SC Department of Social Services

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65 Tips continued My best advice is to network. Many of us are in little departments with only one staff member, so I have found it invaluable to connect and network with as many other e-Learning professionals as I can. My peers have now become people I can go to for advice, examples, brainstorming, and mentoring for my own projects. Ask questions of others and answer questions when you can. This little gesture goes such a long way and costs nothing. — Tracy Hamilton, Education Technology Specialist, Southlake Regional Health • Encourage the use of everything the social Web has to offer. • Reach out and utilize resources, including but not limited to industry and conference groups on LinkedIn, Facebook, and more. • On microblogs such as Twitter and Yammer, follow strategic individuals who will aid your learning business goals. • If you want to build a physical library for employees, ask for donations of audio books, videos, hardcover books online. (I obtained over 500 resources for line-level to executive employees.) • Cut all travel related to learning and training, and use an online meeting tool instead. • Use job rotational programs instead of hiring external trainers. • Tie all courses to business results. Cut out all your "nice to haves" and improve your "need to haves." • Hire consultants who will aid you in cutting costs, increasing efficiency, and showing positive reports.

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— Faith Legendre, Sr. Global Consultant, Cisco Systems, Inc. Shop around before buying a big name tool with a big price tag. Most tools allow a 30-day trial. This offers a great test, because if you are not able to create something that looks good within a couple hours, move on. — Ron Sanders, Training Manager, U.S. Cost, Inc. Get creative. New Web-authoring tools will make life easier in some ways, but you might be surprised how little effort and money it takes to turn a PowerPoint into a simulation without a Webauthoring tool. — Joe Dunlap, Manager, Operations Learning and Performance, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana Are you having trouble getting your manager to approve the purchase of a screen capture tool like SnagIt? MS Paint, the rudimentary tool that comes with all versions of Windows, can do almost everything a screen capture tool will do. 1. Open the window that you need to capture. 2. Press Alt-PrintScrn. 3. From within MS Paint, press Ctrl-V to paste what is now on the clipboard, and then save the file as a .bmp, .jpg, .gif, .png, or .tiff file. With different keystrokes, you can also capture the whole screen, and even a window with a menu. —Mark Simon, Sr. Training Specialist, Eliassen Group

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Keep active with your professional memberships, learning organizations, and communities of practice. You may learn valuable tips and treasures of the

65 Tips continued Use PowerPoint to quickly illustrate and present branching scenarios. Just use hyperlinks to hidden pages so the end user will see only the active, pertinent pages. —Jamye Sagan, Technical Writer, HEB Grocery Company Take advantage of free Webinars provided throughout the year by different vendors. You gain knowledge and training at no cost, and you may also learn about new technologies you may want to purchase in the future. —Garin Hess, CEO, Rapid Intake

trade to leverage throughout your professional career. Linda Nelson, e-Learning Instructional Designer, Iron Mountain

Take advantage of freeware and open source applications. There are open source apps ranging from scheduling systems to Web conferencing systems. Many have blogs and user support. Take time to try them out and play around with them. When using theses products, though, have a technically savvy person on hand, and always make certain you can restore technology to its previous configuration should something not work out. —Sheri Schmeckpeper, Director of Distance Learning, Central Arizona College

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Clearly define which information needs to be part of training and which is informational. Effective learning is always coupled with actionable items or situations. Theory and ideas are extremely important, but not best learned within a training environment. You cannot learn to ride a bike by reading about it, but you can learn how a bike is built. If you then offer real-time interaction about why you build a bike and what might be better ways to build it, you have hit gold.

65 Tips continued Use online free learning objects such as those from Merlot (www.merlot.org), iTunesU (http:// www.apple.com/education/mobile-learning/, YouTube (www.youtube.com), TeacherTube (www. teachertube.com), and Intellicom (http://www.intellicom.com). —Harry Lord, Title V Web 2.0 Activities Director, East Los Angeles College Look for free stuff in the Internet and on your desk: • Design: Research already developed content before beginning your design of new courses. Look at online repositories such as MIT Open Courseware (http://ocw.mit.edu), or learning objects sites such as SlideShare (www.slideshare.org). • Development: Instead of buying new software to develop Web-based training, look at the software already on your desktop for e-Learning development. PowerPoint, for instance, can be used to create HTML or CD-ROM self-paced learning, incorporating hyperlinks, digital audio, digital video, etc. • Delivery: Cannot afford a virtual classroom or Webinar? Use Skype (www.skype.com) for free online chatting and one-to-one video calls. Incorporate the free Skype plug-in Yugma Team Collaboration software (https://extras.skype.com/1003/view) that turns Skype into a virtual classroom: complete with whiteboard, application sharing, and file sharing. —Steven R Yacovelli, Ed.D., Owner & Principal, TopDog Learning Group, LLC If you have a training need that is not specific to just your own organization, there may be a course already available out there — and it may even be free! My department was asked to provide a financial education course. It did not require content specific to my company. After very little searching, we were able to find that FDIC offered a very thorough financial education course that had free, open access. Instead of developing a tutorial from scratch we were able to link directly to FDIC’s course through our LMS. We were able to deliver the course to our staff without a single cost, and because they log in to our LMS to access the link, we were able to track participation. Many U.S. government agencies offer copyright-free content, classroom training guides and online courses. If you are in a situation where one of their courses is applicable, use them. —Jeffery Goldman, e-Learning Designer, Provident Bank Look at open source and freeware products like Moodle for your LMS, Audacity for audio production, Udutu for simple e-Learning SCORM-based modules, or Camstudio for application show and tells. Use blogs, wikis and forums to foster informal learning, while capturing the knowledge that takes place from it. And look for outside professionals to help you expedite the development process of training programs. If the programs are being put in place to make or save the company money, then delaying them is costing the company every day it is not in place. —Burke Allen, CEO, NovoLogic, Inc.

Paul Pinkman, owner, Paul Pinkman Creative Design, LLC

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65 Tips for Getting the Most out of Your e-Learning Budget |

Shop around before buying a big name tool with a big price tag. Most tools allow a 30-day trial. This offers a great test, because if you are not able to create something that

65 Tips continued For rapid e-Learning with scenario-playing effectiveness, use photos or clipart with carefully synchronized scripted voiceover and animation within Articulate. —Kuldeep Surana, e-Learning Designer, LexisNexis Technology tools like Hot Potatoes, Jing, Merlot, HippoCampus, Ning, and Rubistar are priceless tools in today's economy. —Linda Kingston, Dean of Academic Affairs, Minnesota State College, Southeast Technical Use CourseLab to develop your modules which can be hosted through Moodle in SCORM format.

looks good within a couple hours, move on. Ron Sanders, Training Manager, U.S. Cost, Inc.

—Bob Price, Learning Development Consultant, Yell

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65 Tips continued Always consider open source or freely available tools that can allow you to create images, audio, simulations, etc. for use in your e-Learning course development. Examples of such tools include: Audacity, an audio tool (http://audacity.sourceforge.net), paint.NET, for image manipulation (http://www.getpaint.net), eXe, an XHTML editor (http://exelearning.org), and Microsoft Office clipart resources (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/clipart/). When creating a resource calls for expertise above yours, search for tutorials. For example, Smashing Magazine (http://www.smashingmagazine.com) and Six Revisions (http://sixrevisions.com/) have many resources you can use. —Bruce Richards, Research and Instructional Design Coordinator, Missouri State University Use Dimdim for Web conferencing (http://www.dimdim.com). It is an open source application that will allow you to hold virtual meetings of up to 20 people for free, and it is Web based so there is nothing to install on your computer. —Brian Young, Instructional Designer, State of South Carolina Become an active part of the Moodle community (http://www.moodle.org) as a teacher, developer and programmer. It may take time and effort, but the future of this phenomenal movement is promising.

Stretch your eLearning budget How do you stretch an eLearning budget? You have to make every minute you spend on eLearning programs work for your organization.Why worry about the hassle of hiring actors, editors, or animators when our software does the work for you? CodeBaby® gives you the tools you need to enhance your courseware quickly and easily.With a diverse selection of digital characters, over 400 realistic drag-and-drop animations, and automatic lip synch that accommodates recordings in any language, we make producing mediarich eLearning a snap. Need multiple characters for role play scenarios? We?ve got you covered. Learn more at www.CodeBaby.com/stretch

—John Allan, educator, College of the North Atlantic Subscribe to a few blogs that provide infinite resources. Some of my favorites include The Bamboo Project Blog (http://michelemartin.typepad.com), Tom Kuhlman's The Rapid E-Learning Blog (http; //www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/), Tony Karrer's e-Learning Technology Blog (http://elearningtech.blogspot.com), and Cathy Moore's Making Change: Ideas for Lively e-Learning Blog (http: //blog.cathy-moore.com). —Linnaea Mallette, Training Coordinator, UCLA Office of Research Administration Use iSpring (http://ispringsolutions.com) products to convert PowerPoint presentations to Flash for better Web viewing. Their free version preserves PowerPoint narration, animations, timing, transitions and notes, and reasonably priced versions do much more. I love the new tree menu in the Table of Contents, not to mention the ease with which I can edit page titles in the TOC without having to mess with any of the text on the actual slides. For those fortunate enough to have access to a SCORM 2004 compliant LMS, the iSpring SCORM output is also an exciting option. —Becky Kinney, Multimedia Developer, University of Delaware Think Green: Not green as in more money (although that is always nice), but green as in less fluff and flutter.There is no need for a shelf full of printed material, which, most likely, will sit collecting dust. Rather, use materials such as .mp3 sound files, .pdf written files, and colorful PowerPoint presentations which get your message across in diverse ways, while remaining light on the environment.Your clients will love you for your variety and eclectic approach. Nature will love you for loving it! —Patrick Gould, M.A., J.D., Founder and Director, Gould's Learning Boot-camps

65 Tips for Getting the Most out of Your e-Learning Budget |

For rapid e-Learning with scenarioplaying effectiveness, use photos or clipart with carefully synchronized scripted voiceover and animation within Articulate. Kuldeep Surana, e-Learning Designer, LexisNexis

65 Tips continued Reuse your previous work as a template to facilitate faster development. —Kevin Yeoman, Instructional Designer, Collabera In these tightening times we all feel the pinch of diminishing resources. Bartering is the word of the day. We cannot do it all alone. Networking is key. Partnering is essential. Open a course to people outside your organization in exchange for training someone else has. Offer to co-train in exchange for an open seat in a crucial skill-development session. Offer your training site in exchange for free seats in a course or for free training material. Give as much as you receive. —Marie Ortega deOrtiz, CPM, Ed.D. (ABD), Director of Training, Kansas Juvenile Justice Authority Provide all technical requirements, template demands, and so on for your LMS before actually developing new modules. For instance, the last thing you want is to receive too large of a file from a vendor, which could take a long time to load for your end-users. —Andy Riley, E-Learning and Technology Mgr., Wachovia/Wells Fargo

65 Tips for Getting the Most out of Your e-Learning Budget |

65 Tips continued Save development time by reusing graphics from prior courses that relate to the instruction and have learning value. I keep a library of images from all the courses I have created and they add up. I also use characters in my courses, and instead of continually creating new characters I change a few features, the color of their clothes, and voilà, a new character. Occasionally, I place one of my more unique characters in a new course for a cameo appearance, no changes needed. It gets some learners’ attention when they recognize the character, which is good. When you have courses on related topics, you can use the same characters to provide some uniformity. —Jeffery Goldman, e-Learning Designer, Provident Bank

Work faster, work smarter, Word transformed... LeaderGuide Pro™ PLUS is a smart Word template that interacts with PowerPoint to build professional, consistent training documents with a logical structure. LGPro handles page layout with point & click icon-driven blocks that chunk and format content; imports and exports content between Word and PowerPoint; provides templates within the main template for assessments, cases, handouts and participant guides. Includes the new LIBRARIAN function, which automates archiving of modules and lessons for reuse and sharing, builds an interactive library of all your training materials AND populates an automated Excel workbook that catalogs, sorts and summarizes all of your archived record data. www.leaderguidepro.com

• Repurpose. Everything you do can be used for multiple clients or projects. Might need some massaging, but the general concepts may work for different projects. • Use software to its fullest extent. Most people do not know all of what PowerPoint can do or that it has the makings of early Flash development. • Find software that offers free trials. Sometimes this is enough to see if the software works for the project or future ones. Why spend the money if the software does not fit the need? —Michele Largman, Sr. Instructional Designer, Maxine Enterprises LLC When narrating a course, have the SME first do a recording in a very casual way. Have that recording transcribed and edited for brevity and conciseness. Then do the final recording with the edited script. The result is a narration that sounds natural, not stilted. It captures the personality and style of the presenter, and the way people talk in general. The beauty of this is that the SME is not so nervous trying to be perfect the first time around, and is much more comfortable when doing the real thing, working from a polished script based on his or her own dialog. —Linnaea Mallette, Training Coordinator, UCLA Office of Research Administration • Be clear in your goals. What is it that you want your staff to learn from the course? • Verify the presentation. Will this work? Does it meet our goals? • Design a test that evaluates the staff's proficiency after taking the course. This not only insures that they take the course, but that they paid attention, tried out the areas, and understood what was presented. • Before rolling out the course to everyone, have the person who will benefit most from the e-Learning take the course and then share their knowledge with the rest of the staff in the department. This saves you money and increases the attendees proficiency in what was learned. —Ilo Gassoway, Subject Matter Expert, Newmarket International

65 Tips for Getting the Most out of Your e-Learning Budget |

Use Dimdim for Web conferencing (dimdim.com). It is an open source application that will allow you to hold virtual meetings of up to 20 people for free, and it is Web based so there is nothing to install on your computer. Brian Young, Instructional Designer, State of South Carolina

65 Tips continued When you choose a development tool, consider that modules you create may need to be translated into different languages. Not all tools are equal when it comes to being able to translate contents later on. At the least, the tool should allow for easy export and re-import of all of the text in the module, including text on elements such as buttons, menus, icons, and hyperlinks. At best, the export format should allow translators to use tools, such as translation memories, spellchecking, and change tracking, that translators rely on to ensure translation quality and consistency. Exported content that can be worked with using a standard word processing program like Microsoft Word is best. Lectora, for instance, allows you export and re-import a .rtf file which retains the proper formatting. Many e-Learning development tools result in Flash files. In those cases, the text content can be exported to XML files that savvy translators can work with. Keep in mind text that is part of a graphic will always require special handling. A graphic with English text will have to be edited in the application in which it was created, or in another graphic program and replaced in the module. Failure to take these considerations into account from the beginning can lead to extra time and expense in the future when you need to adapt e-Learning modules for an international audience. It is worth your time to talk with a tech-savvy language service provider before you choose a development tool. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Myriam Siftar, President, MTM LinguaSoft

65 Tips for Getting the Most out of Your e-Learning Budget |

65 Tips continued When narrating a course, have the SME first do a recording in a very casual way. Have that recording transcribed and edited for brevity and conciseness. Then do the final recording with the edited script. The result is a narration that sounds natural, not stilted. Linnaea Mallette, Training Coordinator, UCLA Office of Research Administration

If you are converting instructor-led training materials, make sure the instructor notes are ready to work with. Often times, companies decide to convert ILT material, yet the developers find that the ILT course lacks substance and content because the instructor had delivered that content verbally during class. Ask the instructors to write or script the information prior to conversion. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Deborah Thomas, President, SillyMonkey LLC

The eLearning Guildâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Regionals Midwest July 9 & 10, 2009 Chicago, IL

New England July 23 & 24, 2009 Boston, MA

Serious Instructional Design for Serious e-Learning Professionals Work with your peers to explore the latest and most practical design strategies and solutions.

Opening Keynote Mastering e-Learning Instructional Design in the 21st Century Brent Schlenker Emerging Technologies Analyst, The eLearning Guild

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65 Tips for Getting the Most out of Your e-Learning Budget |

Save development time by reusing graphics from prior courses that relate to the instruction and have learning value. I keep a library of images from all the courses I have created and they add up. I also use characters in my courses, and instead of continually creating new characters I change a few features, the color of their clothes, and voilà, a new character. Jeffery Goldman, e-Learning Designer, Provident Bank

65 Tips continued Use your Web conferencing platform to create rapid learning sessions. Most Web conferencing software allows you to record sessions, edit them, and then convert them to a Flash or Windows Movie file. When pushed for time, edit the session to leave the good parts in, and post on your LMS or intranet site if you need repeatable training right away. Then insert snippets of the recorded Web conference into your course to give it variety and credibility. —Phillip Weiss, Principal Training and Development Specialist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Someone with e-Learning development skills can provide more value to an organization than just training. Our communications team frequently needs our help providing engaging media to support their messages. We provide short video clips from leadership, commercials for a new service or product, and logo development for new initiatives. Our ability to create and maintain Web sites has been used by our Web team for large updates and external training. Our use of SharePoint for training blogs and wikis has expanded to support many operational changes and team sites. All of this extra support came at no cost for the organization, and used all the same skills and technology that we use for our e-Learning courses. A win-win for all. —Rory Frey, Consultant Technical Training, Catalyst360° Get the most from your e-Learning development budget with a reusable learning object (RLO) strategy, and have a process to share courses, learning objects, etc. among business units. —Laura Darr, Human Performance Technologist, American Express Modularize content. Keep it simple. Keep it focused. Maintain core content that is easily customized. Use your subject matter experts to draft the fundamental content. Use a tool that is affordable and easy enough for anyone on staff to use.I have used Ignite 4 (http://www.scateignite.com) for years and I am continuously impressed at the variety of ways it can be used for capturing and sharing knowledge by different departments ranging from IT to training to HR. —M.J. Moncher, Application Process Consultant, Siemens PLM Software I have been using Ignite (http://www.ignitecast.com), for 3 years and I use it more often than Powerpoint now. In my work I have to quickly transfer knowledge, and Ignite is my tool of choice. The Web presentations are quick and easy to put together, and the audio ability is a bonus. — Gary Jolley, Infrastructure Specialist, EDS (an HP Company) • Rapid development: This will reduce the overall development life-cycle and the cost. • Content availability: Prepare the required subject content before getting into the e-Learning project. This will help to reduce the delays, discussion time with SMEs. • Less Customization: Customization eats up most of the budget and development time, so look at simple courses. Content is power. —Madhanaraj Kubenderan, Developer, dsigns

65 Tips for Getting the Most out of Your e-Learning Budget |

65 Tips continued Consider how to reuse information. There are often modules or generic information that can be used from course to course. When creating your course, consider multiple shareable content objects (SCO) so you can reuse the content easily for future courses. Also take advantage of templates that contain all the basics to save development time. You will save editing time by creating and faithfully using a style guide, also a great time saver when working with other vendors. —Jan Watrous-McCabe, E-Learning Consultant, Allina Hospitals & Clinics Use affordable high-definition video acquisition to capture outstanding performers demonstrating tasks. This simultaneously creates a visual record for performance analysis, a video model of the desired performance, and 29 high-resolution stills per second you can select from to illustrate step-by-step procedures online or in print. Having so many detailed still images to choose from makes it easier to be more economical in text descriptions, which reduces translation costs. —Eric Kammerer, Instructional Design Specialist, Domino's Pizza

Now Course Authoring Is Available to Anyone: myUDUTU Our myUDUTU course authoring tool is the most versatile and easy to use authoring tool available ... and it’s free! Using the myUDUTU tool, our clients can “get their hands dirty” while knowing UDUTU is there to help with course development, design and management if needed; plus graphics, animations, video, sound recording, scriptwriting and custom programming. What you need is up to you. The decision is yours and so is the power, flexibility and value you get from UDUTU. UDUTU eliminates the barriers and makes your elearning vision a reality. No one makes it easier!

Evaluate the process and format all developers use to store files. Is there a consistent file structure and method to name files? Is every developer using the method? Have developers who are working on files stored on their hard drive copy them to shared drives each night? Developers can waste time looking for images and documents if they are not stored away properly. If one developer needs to work on another developer's files, consistent file structure saves time. If a team member is suddenly ill or changes jobs, their work will still be accessible to other team members. Save enough time and your budget will be stretched. —Sabrina Curry, Instructional Designer, The Nielsen Company Determine if there are widgets or items of code that would benefit other e-Learning developers. These can then be packaged and sold. You will not become rich, but you can offset some development cost with an incremental revenue stream. These widgets would otherwise have sat in your code stream collecting dust. —Jay Krupp, Director, Educational and Custom Services, Newmarket International Manage review cycles carefully: Schedule them, and ensure reviewers know how to prepare to make the most of the review. Include all stakeholders. Let visuals and concrete examples help ensure reviewers understand the suggestions put forward in the design phase. Document the required changes. If gathered in a meeting, send the list of changes back to stakeholders to check for misunderstandings. Store the list alongside the related version. Insist upon formal sign-offs after implementation of the changes —Esther Bergman, Consultant, Benchmark Performance Inc.

Application Brief

Shifting Training to Online Learning: Extending Reach, Improving Productivity, and Keeping Learners Involved Many businesses have harnessed the unique capabilities of web conferencing to move formal and informal training to the World Wide Web. Web conferencing extends reach, increases productivity, involves learners and subject matter experts not otherwise available, and helps an organization package training in bite size chunks. But do the benefits go deeper? What are the best approaches to using web conferencing for training? Are there particular tricks of the trade that can be replicated?

“Being able to take the talent we have in select offices and extend it across country without having to fly across is a big deal for me and others. I have a lot of certifications and specializations. I used to need to travel at a moment's notice to train customers, which made it difficult to do other things.” – Director of Technology Services, Consulting Firm “We have a huge training issue for our software; web conferencing has solved that.” – Software Architect, Financial Services Firm “Web conferencing reduces not just our travel costs, but the costs to our customers for training. “ – VP Technology, Consulting Firm “Over the course of a day I can be in four different time zones without jet lag, it's fantastic.” – Sr. Business Development Specialist, Financial Services Firm

To find out exactly how web conferencing can work in practice for training and other applications, how one best implements, and what to expect for results, Wainhouse Research conducted a number of in-depth interviews with companies that use web conferencing every day. The findings provide direction to any business seeking to improve its training activities through best practices.

Prepare Schedule

Deliver

Learner Practice

In-Person Training

Online Training

Create Training Materials

Schedule / Pay for Customer

Schedule Online Training Event

& Employee Travel

(web and voice)

Local / Remote

Web Class / Seminar

“brick-and-mortar” event Demonstrations / Simulations

Demonstrations / Simulations

Workbooks

Application Sharing / Breakout Rooms

Test

Follow-Up

Paper or Software Test

Online Test

E-mail or

E-mail / Phone / Archived

Phone Contact

Material Review /Web Session Review

Measure

Satisfaction Survey

“Our training and help desk costs would be greater without web conferencing. For hard-to-use applications and complex subjects, we could lose the entire cost of a year of web conferencing in terms of our added overhead for training. We probably fly people less often now for major releases.” – Software Architect, Financial Services Firm “We have 70 partners who resell our products. About 5,000 people use our website, such as insurance agents who use our products. We have once-a-month trainings and do webinars with expert guests every month.” – President, Financial Services Firm

Online Sat Survey

In-Person vs. Online Training Exponential Knowledge Transfer Trainers and anyone responsible for knowledge transfer to internal and external audiences are all too familiar with the usual methods of delivering training: travel to one or more locations, ship equipment and/or training materials; hold a training event; test learners; and, if time permits, conduct follow-up after the class has ended. Traditional training frequently requires someone to travel, whether it is customer, employee, and/or trainer. The traditional approach to training requires a large investment of time and personnel and is not very scaleable. Brick-and-mortar events call for physical space, an extended training team, and significant loss of productivity based on travel time. Many companies find it a burden to deliver in terms of expense, and in fact may stint on training as a result. Ultimately the costs, challenges of measurement, and ability to get customers and employees up and running can be severely impacted.

Online training completely changes the mix in terms of training delivery. Online training takes a different approach by enabling the multi-tasker extraordinaire. It lets a business be wherever it needs to be. It allows just-in-time and scheduled delivery — by the subject matter experts who know best — of whatever a service or product needs to be effectively learned and understood. Some of the benefits of online training are obvious; the top three are saving travel costs, the ability to involve those who otherwise could not attend, and increased productivity through saving time away from the office. Other benefits uncovered in our interviews are more subtle. Greater sustained interactivity with learners over time, better service to customers, increased geographic reach are all benefits of using web conferencing for training. For many the benefits are so profound that the technology now plays a critical role in their overall workflow, touching not just training but also sales, marketing, and operations.

Trainers can cover only so much physical territory by car (red) or by plane (blue) in one day ...

“We set up customers for sales presentations and training. In our profession, it's unique. None of my competitors offer that same hands-on experience that I know of.” – Sr. Business Development Specialist, Financial Services Firm “For any consulting engagement that is remote, NY or China, one of the first things we will do is use GoToMeeting for the kickoff. Then we schedule training sessions, all using GoToMeeting. It is the ONLY way we touch the customer. “ – VP of Technology, Consulting Firm

… but one office can cover the entire country using web conferencing. 2

“We conduct internal training; it started with our software group doing custom in-house training on new releases. We conduct lots of 1-1 sessions.” – Software Architect, Financial Services Firm

Making the Transition Tips from Those Who Have When it comes to making the transition, our interviews revealed that there are two different strands of behavior as represented by two types of organizations. One group, which we call “Planners,” takes pre-determined steps, both large and small, such as holding demonstrations and “train-the-trainer” sessions to ensure success. The other group, the “Divers,” fearlessly dive in to applying the technology, quickly integrating it into the workflow by using it aggressively (and typically needing to get burned once before understanding the importance of practice). We believe neither approach is right for all situations, but that those involved in formal training roles will gravitate towards the “Planner’ approach, while those who have informal roles conducting knowledge transfer will gravitate towards the “Diver” approach. Most companies start small by obtaining a few licenses with the goal of gaining an understanding of how web conferencing will fit into their processes - and whether being a “Planner” or a “Diver” works for them. Early success is then built upon. Many users buy sufficient licenses to accommodate demand; you may need to purchase each trainer a unique license, if for no other reason because sessions often will be ad hoc as well as scheduled. Trainers need to be able to respond ad hoc to learners in need.

“We were training 1600 users of our software who are not technically advanced. It was a huge challenge as we used to go and visit them! We had to hire more people, travel more. Then we created on online university, with monthly topics, plus orientation classes for first time users.” – Director of Business Development, Software Development Firm It is important to appreciate that web conferencing is a different communication medium. Know your audience: they are busy adult learners who are bringing you into their offices - thus they are in control. You may face “competition” from the phone, email, IM messages, and people dropping in. Thus it is essential to retain their attention by keeping lessons short, briskly paced, engaging, and to the point. Paying attention to the following details will also help: slide design (keep simple, use graphics instead of text bullets, do not read the slides – tell the story “behind” them) and use of

pointing and annotation to emphasize key points. Ask poll questions and encourage questions via text chat to engage the audience. Always maintain interactivity — the most essential ingredient to working with remote learners.

“Be aware - know what you want to say and keep it short (30-45 min max); learn the hints that indicate when they've become disengaged.” – VP Operations, Software Development Firm “I appreciate webinars where there is some sort of interaction to the keep the audience engaged. We open up phone lines so people can ask questions. Normally people (are) in listen-only mode, but we have had to change to add a panelist number so people can speak to us. That's important.” – Marketing Specialist, Consulting Firm Mastering the technology is the easy part. Appreciate that web seminars are “showtime.” Just like a physical event, practice is critical. Script who will play what role, run through what they will present, and rehearse any presenter hand-offs.

“I should have practiced once or twice, but I didn't. Fumbling on practice time, not real-time is important.” – President, Consulting Firm Work with your teams to encourage them to use web conferencing as a tool, and follow up. Web conferences are part of a larger interaction process with clients — they are a means to an end.

“It’s nice to reach out to a client and help, but I encourage our team to have a client share the keyboard and mouse, and for us to show clients how to do steps, and make the client go through the motions to learn it. Passing control back and forth is important to teach clients how to fish on their own.” – Director of Technology Services, Consulting Firm “Using web conferencing for training is an art and there is always room for improvement. Be sure to close the loop and, in the process, gather feedback. After every webinar we survey our attendees; we have them rank it, then ask for comments for improvement. For those who weren't satisfied, we try to dig in to see what we could do to improve. We also make sure it's valuable to our members, we survey to find out what they want help with.” – Marketing Specialist, Consulting Firm

What to Look For The Features That Make a Difference A Wainhouse Research survey of more than 500 trainers revealed that the most important web conferencing features are ease of use, reputation of vendor, and customer support. These findings were reinforced by our interviews.

“The performance of real-time screen sharing is very important for online demonstrations.” – Director of Business Development, Software Development Firm

Ease of use

2.35

Reputation

2.34

Customer support

2.34

Transparent installation

2.29

Audio & web

“Often when customers call us, I right click, and within 2 seconds we're online. That feature is very nice. No need to log-in on a website.” – VP of Technology, Financial Services Firm “Use a simple offering so that the users can train themselves.” – VP Operations, Software Development Firm The ability to pass meeting control is important for multipresenter seminars, while remote control can help with hand-holding customers through a hands-on demonstration. In addition to the listed features, “all-you-can-eat” pricing that is charged on a per seat basis gives your trainers the ability to use web conferencing at any time without worrying about any additional cost penalty.

2.06

Security

2.02

Flat pricing

2.01

Scalable

1.94

Lowest priced

1.87

Web-based acct mgmt

1.84

Cross-platform Deployment options LMS integration

1.66 1.50 1.44

It’s Not Just about Replacement Web conferencing is not about simply “replacing” in-person training. It is a different tool — a supplementary tool — with its own set of unique advantages. Implemented correctly, it can supplement or replace traditional training — especially in the area of timeliness. This can result is increased customer satisfaction, more satisfied learners, and a competitive advantage.

WR survey of over 500 trainers, December 2006

“More important: We give better service to our customers – which gets the word around the industry. Satisfied customers get us more business.” – Director of Business Development, Software Development Firm

About Wainhouse Research Wainhouse Research, www.wainhouse.com, is an independent market research firm that focuses on critical issues in rich media communications, videoconferencing, teleconferencing, and streaming media. The company conducts multi-client and custom research studies, consults with end users on key implementation issues, publishes white papers and market statistics, and delivers public and private seminars as well as speaker presentations at industry group meetings. Wainhouse Research publishes a variety of reports that cover the all aspects of rich media conferencing, and the free newsletter, The Wainhouse Research Bulletin. About Citrix Online Citrix Online, a division of Citrix Systems, Inc., is a leading provider of easy-to-use, on-demand applications for Web conferencing and collaboration. Its award-winning services include GoToMeeting Corporate, a complete collaboration solution that satisfies all Web conferencing needs ranging from large Webinars to small online meetings. With GoToMeeting Corporate, organizations of any size can use GoToWebinar for do-it-yourself Web events and GoToMeeting for smaller, more interactive online meetings. GoToMeeting Corporate allows users to easily present, demonstrate and provide training online to anyone, anywhere in the world. GoToMeeting Corporate can make businesses of any size more productive by reducing travel time and costs and enhancing communication, ultimately leading to faster decision making and more efficient workers. For a free evaluation of GoToMeeting Corporate, please visit www.gotomeeting.com/s/WReval. © 2007 Wainhouse Research, LLC 28526/0806/1500

65 Tips for Getting the Most out of Your e-Learning Budget |

Do More With Less Does your company make something that an education supplier might be interested in receiving? One software company I work with barters their productivity software for e-Learning modules from a professional services provider. An automotive components supplier trades parts for the use of classroom space and management training by a local trade school that has a shop class needing hardto-find machinery.

by Marcia L. Conner raining departments are rarely well funded. It is the nature of being viewed as an expense against the bottom line. Contrary to analysis showing learning to be one of the few truly competitive weapons organizations can control, education almost always gets the short straw. During slow times in the economy, many organizations scrutinize training expenditures even more than usual. Thankfully there are many ways to help people learn without copious capital. Here are some tips that haven't been addressed thoroughly elsewhere.

Augment what you create with courses already available. There are millions of educational modules available to you and your organization free of charge, only requiring the legwork to find them and the time spent sifting through an Internetsize course catalog. The Open Courseware Consortium (http://www.ocwconsortium.org) offers free college-level programs from the likes of MIT, Carnegie Mellon, and UC Irvine based on an evidence-based design (there are more than 100 business courses available). The Open University (http://www.open.ac.uk/about/) in the UK has been presenting free courses since the 1960s and provides mashup tools (http://labspace.open.ac.uk).The Dummies people launched Dummies.com (http://www.dummies.com) with how-to information across a broad range of themes. There are dozens of learning object repositories (http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Learning_objects_repositories) across the globe. And you've heard of Wikipedia ... did you know there is also a Wikiversity (http: //en.wikiversity.org)? On a lighter note, Instructables (http://www.instructables.com) has wonderful and fun tutorials on opportune topics. Howtoons (http://www.howtoons.com/toons/) offers cartoons showing kids-at-heart how to build things. You may not find a course on one of these sites for your sales team to introduce customers to your newest product, but then again you might. Ask your business partners what they have in development, and devote your meager resources to creating what is absolutely unlike anything out there today.

Incorporate timely details from research organizations. Webinars and Podcasts are widely available through organizations including Gartner (http: //www.gartner.com), strategy+business (http://www.strategy-business.com/webinars), and Harvard Business School (http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org). Sites like WebEx (http://www.webex.com) and WiZiQ (http://www.wiziq.com) make it easy for people to attend public sessions on various topics from academics to anything under the sun. In the spirit on OpenCourseware, UC Berkeley (http://webcast.berkeley.edu) Webcasts select courses and campus events for on-demand viewing.

65 Tips for Getting the Most out of Your e-Learning Budget |

Do More With Less continued Supercool School allows participants to initiate and join in on learning programs for topics they want to learn about ... you can do the same within your enterprise. When enough people have joined together with a request, open a teaching position and anyone willing and able to teach may. This says to people in your larger ecosystem, "Here are programs where your expertise is requested now. Who is interested?"

Widen your net to include subject matter experts on all topics. Thinking this is all too 20th Century, though? Consider adding a supercool bottom-up, grassroots component to your education efforts. Supercool School (http://www.supercoolschool.com) allows participants to initiate and join in on learning programs for topics they want to learn about ... you can do the same within your enterprise. When enough people have joined together with a request, open a teaching position and anyone willing and able to teach may. This says to people in your larger ecosystem, "Here are programs where your expertise is requested now. Who is interested?" It is no shame for an education department to focus most of their resources on classes for the masses. The money you have should make the largest possible impact. That also may mean there is no way to take advantage of the long tail. For example, if a small group of people are interested in learning how Twitter can be used on the job, but there is not a strategic need or numbers to justify a course, most training departments would not step up. If the group has an easy way to find an instructor, though, why stop them? This self-organizing model offers a vehicle for people to enroll in and teach classes on topics interesting to only a few people, and it gets more instructors, not fewer, excited about teaching what they know.

Extend your budget by looking at what you have. Does your company make something that an education supplier might be interested in receiving? One software company I work with barters their productivity software for e-Learning modules from a professional services provider. An automotive components supplier trades parts for the use of classroom space and management training by a local trade school that has a shop class needing hard-to-find machinery. There are IRS guidelines for bartering you should become familiar with if you go this route, and you should talk with your finance department before making a big swap, but it is a worthwhile path to pursue. There are also Web sites that specialize in bartering, where what you have to offer is worth a number of points you can use to get something else. Most education groups I know have intellectual assets people would want to buy, although people in the group itself may have never considered selling. From packaged workshops and e-Learning programs to templates and cheat-sheets, and maybe even t-shirts and squeeze trinket ... look around. While I do not advocate a fire-sale (after all, the purpose here is not to rid yourself of intellectual property) consider talking with your CFO about selling education-related goods in the company store, on your Web site, or through a newsletter or company catalog to make back some of the money your organization has seen cut. You might be surprised that other businesses in similar fields, and even the local community college, are looking for new and different programs.

Consider the learning happening through informal ad hoc means. Twitter, a public microsharing network used by many early adopters, has become an integral part of my own professional practice and personal brain-building (see for yourself at http: // twitter.com/marciamarcia). I use it to connect, share, and discover information far beyond any other network. I have grown to realize the field might better be thought of as micro-learning, where the conduit is tiny and the lesson spread is vast. Across an enterprise â&#x20AC;&#x201C; be it around the

65 Tips for Getting the Most out of Your e-Learning Budget |

Do More With Less continued Twitter, a public microsharing network used by many early adopters, has become an integral part of my own professional practice and personal brain-building ... I use it to connect, share, and discover information far beyond any other network. I have grown to realize the field might better be thought of as micro-learning, where the conduit is tiny and the lesson spread is vast.

globe or down the hall â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the learning potential is endless, while the opportunities to connect to knowledge are exploding in number and variety. I use it in a way similar to how I touch base with my friends and family, briefly and frequently, and I now extend that level of care to involve my coworkers and business partners. I can find someone to review an article as effortlessly as I can offer personal experience to a colleague on how to select a Webinar platform or which organizations have successfully launched their own brand Wikipedia. This is all akin to the magic of open-source software, created through public grassroots collaboration. Whether I am working remotely or onsite, I find microsharing mediates a conversation where what we are learning is not merely exchanged. Knowledge is extended, transformed, reshaped, and built on as we actually create new trains of thought. I could go on, but instead I point you to a series of articles I write for Fast Company on this same theme (http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/marcia-conner/learn-all-levels/). I look forward to learning more with you there, or in most any social network, where people are going to seek more.

65 Tips for Getting the Most out of Your e-Learning Budget |

This article is a reprint from ...

April 16, 2007

The eLearning Guild’s

Practical Applications of Technology for Learning

The e-Learning Department of One By Greg Kearsley

ost guidelines for e-Learning planning and implementation address the needs of larger organizations and assume a certain level of staffing, IT

support, and budget. And historically, only large corporations had sufficient resources to do e-Learning. But more small- and medium-size companies are get-

ting involved with e-Learning without the availability of such resources. In fact, the main growth area for e-Learning over the next decade or so is likely to be in the domain of small companies and non-profit organizations. Typically in these settings, a single person is responsible for all e-Learning activities — an e-Learning department of one. In this article, I focus on e-Learning problems and strategies in this context (see Table 1 on next page).

Budget What are the main issues faced by the e-Learning department of one? Without a doubt, limited or no budget for e-Learning activities is the most common and most serious challenge. Many training managers receive the go-ahead for e-Learning but without additional financial or other resources. This presents the immediate problem of how to offer e-Learning courses without the funds to buy courses or a learning management system to track their use. There are a number of potential strategies to deal with the paucity of resources. The first one is to make use of the trial version of courses and tools. Most e-Learning and software vendors will make their products available on a trial basis for at least 30 days (see Resources section at the end of this article for some suggestions). That means you can offer a course or

use an authoring tool at no cost to create e-Learning, provided you can get the training accomplished quickly. And there is no harm trying out different courses or tools from different vendors while collecting feedback from your employees on which ones they like most. Such evaluations can stretch over an extended time period, as much as six months to a year, during which time you could get a good amount of training accomplished.

Case study: Buying off-the-shelf The American Diabetes Association is the nation’s leading non-profit organization supporting diabetes information, advocacy, and research. The ADA has been using e-Learning for 6 years to provide training to their staff of 900, according to Leigh Robinson, Director, Training & Development. The decision to try e-Learning was brought about by an organizational consolidation, and the need to provide training to staff in every state. ADA began by purchasing off-the-shelf courses for their e-Learning efforts. They currently offer 75 different classes with over 3000 course registrations in a year. Recently, instructional designers in the organization have started to create their own courses. This will reduce costs since ADA does not have to pay for the

Many e-Learning professionals find themselves working singlehanded. Though the challenges to being a Department of One can be daunting, there are solutions that many solo practitioners use successfully. Whether your issue is budget, lack of help or co-operation, not enough time, or just nobody to talk to, this week’s article is full of ideas you can use right away!

A publication of

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Management Strategies in-house developed courses. On the other hand, course development is time consuming, requiring eight hours of development for every hour of instruction. Originally, the most time consuming aspect of e-Learning was managing the courses; now course development issues have become the most time consuming. Advice for the e-Learning department of one? Choose a courseware vendor that offers good variety in their course offerings and an authoring tool so you can develop your own courses if that makes sense. Also look for a pricing scheme that lets you buy a block of courses or course time, and leaves you free to pick how many and what courses you want to offer.

Resources needed A second strategy for dealing with limited resources is to make use of existing resources. For example, many organizations use Microsoft PowerPoint (or OpenOffice Impress) to create e-Learning course materials, especially if those materials are for use in the context of a Web conference (synchronous meeting). There are also Learning Content Management Systems available that will let you build an asynchronous (selfpaced) course out of PowerPoint slideshows, adding quizzes or interactive learning activities. PowerPoint is available on most office computers these days and is easy to use. The other tools mentioned (e.g., a Web conferencing system or an LCMS) are examples of products for which you should have no trouble getting trial versions. The eLearning Guild provides free e-books on LMS/LCMS systems and synchronous e-Learning; these are useful resources. Indeed, e-Learning doesn’t have to take the form of courses at all. A great deal of online learning takes place informally via search engines, e-mail, blogs, and newsletters. You can harness these resources for training activities. For example, you could produce a series of e-mail newsletters that discuss specific training issues. You could also create a blog or a discussion forum with volunteer experts who will field questions on certain topics and nurture participation. In fact, asking people to contribute to a blog or moderate a discussion forum is a good way to get them involved and interested in e-Learning. Another option is to make use of a test creation program (again, either free or on a trial basis) to create tests for existing classroom seminars or training materials — and to add some outcome measurements and accountability to your training program.

Management support Another typical problem for the e-Learning department of one is lack of support from senior management or line managers. When e-Learning is not a major organizational initiative, managers (who usually focus on operational issues) tend to ignore it. The key to enlisting management support (at any level) for e-Learning is to make sure that it addresses a high

priority operational issue, such as turnover, customer satisfaction, sales performance, or cost reduction. The latter issue is a good one for e-Learning since it typically lowers the costs of delivering training by reducing travel expenditures. In fact, cost savings can be significant, in the order of 40-60%. For example, consider a training seminar on applicant interviewing intended for 100 managers in an organization that has 10 offices spread out over the U.S. To send a trainer to each of the offices is going to cost at least $1,000 per trip for a total of $10,000. But an e-Learning course on this topic, purchased for $50 per person or $5,000, yields a potential savings of 50%. Senior management needs to see a business case for e-Learning. This means that you must identify the specific operational issues that a proposed e-Learning program will address, the cost savings or revenue increase expected, and the Return on Investment (ROI) for the resources required. If you are following the suggestions outlined in this article, the resources needed for e-Learning are going to be minimal, and so your ROI should look good.

ROI example: Customer service training Companies continually lose existing customers to competitors at account renewal times because of poor customer service. In this example, a survey reveals that approximately 1,000 customers per year don’t renew due to customer service issues. The company decides to try an e-Learning solution, asking their 100 customer service representatives to take three online courses to improve their customer relations skills. The company expects that, as result of this training, there will be a 20% reduction in customer losses (i.e., 200 customers). The average value of

Most e-Learning and software vendors will make their products available on a trial basis for at least 30 days ... . That means you can offer a course or use an authoring tool at no cost to create e-Learning, provided you can get the training accomplished quickly. And there is no harm trying out different courses or tools from different vendors while collecting feedback from your employees on which ones they like most.

Table 1: Problems and strategies for the e-Learning department of one Problem or issue

Strategy

Limited budget and resources

• Utilize free trials, tools, and courses • Rely on vendors for demos and assistance • Make use of existing software

Lack of support from management

• Focus on high priority training opportunities • Emphasize ROI • Make presentations

Getting employees to participate

• Create an advisory committee • Ask for volunteers • Create dependencies and deadlines

Getting assistance from IT department

• Rely on externally-hosted courses or tools • Avoid enterprise solutions

Time needed to implement and evaluate

• Delegate or share tasks • Keep it small • Replicate what others have done

Nobody to consult with

• Participate in blogs and forums • Attend conferences

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Management Strategies each customerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s account is $150 per year or a total worth of $30,000. The cost of the courses is $150 per employee. The ROI calculation is the estimated value of the training divided by the cost of the training: Estimated value of increased customer renewals for one year = $30,000 Cost of customer service training for 100 employers = $15,000 ROI = 30,000/15,000 = 2 Note: A ROI value greater than 1 is a viable investment; the higher the number, the better the return. This brings up another aspect of selling e-Learning â&#x20AC;&#x201D; you will likely need to make lots of presentations to managers and employees.

Selling and sustaining e-Learning Because e-Learning is not something with which most people in smaller organizations have much experience, a lot of educating is required. Managers are going to be interested in hearing about how it has worked at other organizations. There are plenty of useful materials available from The eLearning Guild and other e-Learning sources (e.g., http://www.learningcircuits.org/case_studies). Employees are going to want to know why this is a better alternative to the forms of training that they are familiar with. Convenience is usually the big selling feature with employees, because they can take the training when and where they want without having to travel. The selling process for e-Learning needs an ongoing effort. Even after successful implementation, there will be new employees and new managers who need to be educated. You should plan on making regular presentations, updating everyone on results and new developments. Such presentations should review the nature of the e-Learning you plan to provide (showing a course sample is good), the business case and expected outcomes, the actual results, and the next steps. One good strategy both for selling and for sustaining e-Learning within your organization is to create a steering or advisory committee composed of a crosssection of managers and employees who are likely to use online courses. An ideal size for this committee is six to eight members. It should involve individuals who are enthusiastic about (or at least interested in) e-Learning. This committee can review courses and tools, plan implementation, and collect feedback. Such committees are a good way to establish an organization structure for e-Learning, even though none exists formally. And committee membership can rotate among departments on a yearly basis to bring in fresh ideas and allow representation from different facets of the organization.

Employee participation Another major problem that e-Learning projects

often encounter is getting employees to participate fully. To the extent that the e-Learning is of the selfpaced, asynchronous variety, employees must take the initiative to start and complete the training. This is the flip side of the convenience factor â&#x20AC;&#x201D; you can do e-Learning any time and any place, or no time and no place. Address this potential problem by having employees commit to a training schedule that indicates when they will complete all or a portion of the e-Learning activities. Using a Learning Management System, it is easy for a manager to check on the progress of an employee against such a schedule. Another strategy for increasing employee participation is to enlist volunteers to take the courses, perhaps as reviewers and evaluators. This strategy is particularly effective if the volunteers are supervisors or senior employees who command some respect among their staff. Knowing that others have taken the courses tends to create peer pressure for everyone else to take them. Finally, tie completion of e-Learning courses to participation in other training activities (the blended model), to provide additional motivation. This works well when e-Learning courses offer basic information for use in face-to-face or hands-on sessions. Alternatively, you can use e-Learning for advanced instruction tailored to the needs of each employee following a training session common to all.

Case study: Course completion issues LTP Management Group operates a number of restaurants in Southern Florida. They use e-Learning to train approximately 150 managers in a number of HR compliance areas including sexual harassment, hiring, discipline and termination, wage regulations (FLSA), and workplace injury. According to Lisa Burgs, HR Manager, they use e-Learning to reinforce company policy and training in these areas. They have been using e-Learning since 2002 with good results. LTP selected e-Learning because of the convenience it provides to managers to take the training on their own schedule. However, this is a two-edged sword. Lisa Burgs reports that the most time-consuming aspect of e-Learning is the follow-up it takes to ensure that managers complete the training in a timely manner. This is one of the reasons many organizations opt for real-time e-Learning using Web conferencing tools and scheduled sessions. The fact that the training has a specified time (and that the organization requires participation) increases the probability that learners will complete it. On the other hand, this eliminates one of the major advantages of e-Learning, namely the convenience for the employee of not being tied to a training schedule. However, it still provides the freedom to take the training from any location (including home or hotel), and eliminates the travel costs and time away from work associated with attending train-

Enterprise solutions usually refer to e-Learning systems that integrate many different functions in one system (e.g., applicant screening, training management, performance appraisal, employee records, etc.). While such systems make a lot of business sense, they require extensive involvement by the IT department. Instead, you want tools that a single person (most likely you) can easily learn and use without any IT assistance.

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Management Strategies ing events. Since a reduction in travel costs is often one of the major justifications for e-Learning, this benefit alone may be sufficient for some organizations.

IT assistance One important consideration for implementing e-Learning is the potential involvement of your organization’s Information Technology (IT) department. While you want the support and assistance of your IT department for e-Learning, you don’t want to require any more of their involvement than necessary since this normally means internal budget requests. The best way to minimize their involvement is to look for externally-hosted, Web-based courses and tools. In fact, most course and LMS vendors offer this option. This means that you do not need the IT department to obtain, install, or maintain any software. To the extent that things are Web-based, they should be available via any machine that has Internet access and a browser — which is almost any computer these days. You should also avoid so-called “enterprise” solutions. Enterprise solutions usually refer to e-Learning systems that integrate many different functions in one system (e.g., applicant screening, training management, performance appraisal, employee records, etc.). While such systems make a lot of business sense, they require extensive involvement by the IT department. Instead, you want tools that a single person (most likely you) can easily learn and use without any IT assistance. On the other hand, it is unlikely that you will be able to conduct e-Learning activities without some help and cooperation from your IT department (or the IT person in a small organization). Even courses or tools from an external host will probably run afoul of plugins that someone will have to install, or firewall issues. So cultivate good relationships with your IT staff, even as you try to find e-Learning solutions that minimize the need for their help.

Case study: Plant environments Armen Arisian is the HR manager at NYTEF, a plastics manufacturing company with approximately 200 employees located in five states. He is responsible for providing a broad range of training ranging from sexual harassment and diversity awareness for managers, to safety training for plant workers. He is using off-theshelf e-Learning courses as a way of meeting diverse training needs with limited staff and budget. One of the problems with e-Learning implementation in a plant environment is that most employees don’t have their own workstations. This is also true of many other work settings such as hospitals, retail businesses, restaurants, etc. The usual solution to this dilemma is to provide a training room equipped with one or more computers set up for e-Learning (i.e., Internet connection, all necessary software, and plug-

ins loaded). Another potential solution is to provide laptops with wireless connections throughout the facility. In this case, NYTEF created a training workstation at each location with their IT group responsible for ensuring the proper functioning of the computer. The biggest obstacle for e-Learning at NYTEF is finding the time to implement it. Even with off-the-shelf courseware and an easy to use LMS, it still takes time to organize and manage the training ... although substantially less than with classroom delivery. Armen Arisian suggests three strategies for ensuring that e-Learning succeeds: (1) make sure that the training offered addresses the priorities of top and line management, (2) get line managers and supervisors to identify what training is needed by which individuals, and (3) be sure to communicate clearly with employees about the details of the training. In other words, when doing e-Learning with limited resources, you need to be on target!

Time needed One of the biggest problems for the e-Learning department of one is finding the time needed to plan, implement, and evaluate e-Learning solutions. Most of the strategy ideas I’ve discussed above don’t require resources, but they do require a significant time investment. For example, the evaluation of a potential course or tool, or running an advisory committee can be very time-consuming. Some general advice to minimize time requirements is to keep your e-Learning projects as small as possible. The amount of time required to implement an e-Learning effort tends to be in proportion to the number of participants. So rather than offer training to all 1000 employees, pick a small sample of perhaps 50 for an initial pilot test. Not only does this reduce the level of effort, but it may also allow you to pick a subset of participants who are more likely to complete the training, and therefore provide a better basis for subsequent training. Of course, you will eventually need to offer the training to all 1000 employees, but if the initial pilot goes well, you should have the rationale to ask for the additional resources you need to complete the full training program. Another strategy to minimizing the time required for e-Learning initiatives is to distribute or delegate the responsibilities as much as possible. This goes handin-hand with the earlier suggestion to create an advisory committee, since members can be asked to carry out some of the tasks related to e-Learning. Some line managers and supervisors may also be interested enough in training, or e-Learning specifically, that they are willing to play a major role in e-Learning projects. Of course the key to this kind of shared workload is to ensure that it appeals to the self-interests of the parties involved.

Some general advice to minimize time requirements is to keep your e-Learning projects as small as possible. The amount of time required to implement an e-Learning effort tends to be in proportion to the number of participants. So rather than offer training to all 1000 employees, pick a small sample of perhaps 50 for an initial pilot test. Not only does this reduce the level of effort, but it may also allow you to pick a subset of participants who are more likely to complete the training, and therefore provide a better basis for subsequent training.

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Management Strategies Off-the-shelf versus do-it-yourself An issue closely related to the previous topic of time needed is the extent to which you go with off-the-shelf courses or try to create your online training materials. Locating and evaluating off-the-shelf courses is very time-consuming, and it’s tempting to give up early and decide to develop your own courses. For an e-Learning department of one, this can be a serious mistake. Even with a good authoring tool, the amount of time required to learn how to use it, as well as to learn the ancillary software such as a graphics, photo, or video editor, can be significant (i.e., many late nights). Likewise, learning how to use an LMS or LCMS, a blog, a discussion system, or a test creation program can require extensive time investments. And keep in mind that once you have created online learning materials, you have to maintain them. Every time there is a major change to the content of a course, the materials require revision. A popular rule of thumb is that you must update 20 percent of the content of a training course annually. In a course with 100 screens or topics, you’ll need to change that 20 percent every year. The more you can go with off-the-shelf solutions, the less time you need to spend learning course development and delivery tools or doing course maintenance. Most e-Learning vendors offer turn-key solutions that include some degree of customization to your training setting for relatively little extra cost. Keep in mind what I said earlier about vendors offering trial versions of the courses and systems so you can try them out before making any financial commitment. If you must develop your own courses or e-Learning applications, try to use tools that require minimal skills and time investments. I’ve already mentioned that a slideshow program (such as Microsoft Power-

Point) is a versatile tool that you can use to create materials for Web conferences or self-paced courses. Similarly, screen recording software, such as TechSmith Camtasia or Adobe Captivate, will allow you to produce training materials quickly and easily for any software application. Flash is probably the most widely used tool for courseware development today and is not difficult to learn to use. Knowing how to use tools such as these provides a lot of flexibility to develop online training materials without a lengthy and expensive development process. But it should still not be your first choice.

Who to talk to? One person e-Learning departments can be lonely places. Many e-Learning managers report that they have no one they can talk to for advice or just to toss ideas around. Clearly this is one of the functions of the e-Learning advisory committee. For interaction outside of your organization, you can turn to discussion forums and blogs (e.g., the Info Exchange in The eLearning Guild’s Community Connection). And of course, attending any e-Learning conference will give you many like-minded souls to commiserate with, as well as a start to establishing your own personal support network. The e-Learning world is big, so don’t be afraid to reach out to it.

About the Author Greg Kearsley, Ph.D., has been involved in the design, development, and evaluation of online learning for over 25 years. He is currently an e-Learning consultant for The Human Equation (www.thehumanequation.com) Contact Greg by e-mail to gkearsley@sprynet.com.

Resources Note: All of the software listed is either free, or offers a free trial version. 1. OpenOffice, a free alternative to Microsoft Office: http://www.openoffice.org. 2. For free or inexpensive courses, see: http://www.learnthat.com http://www.acrosspublishing.com http://www.eridlc.com http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Sloan-School-ofManagement/index.htm 3. Learning Management Systems: http://www.moodle.org http://www.eleapsoftware.com http://www.mindflash.com 4. Test creation programs: http://www.centronsoftware.com/tcpage.html http://www.testmaker.com

5. Blog software: http://www.blogger.com http://www.livejournal.com 6. Discussion tools: http://www.quicktopic.com http://www.eblah.com http://www.Webboard.com 7. Web conferencing programs: http://www.gotoWebinar.com http://www.Webex.com 8. Screen recording programs: http://www.camtasia.com http://www.adobe.com/products/captivate 9. Web-based course development tools: http://www.readygo.com http://www.adobe.com/products/presenter

Additional information on the topics covered in these articles is also listed in the Guild Resource Directory.

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