Neuroscience research is sharing tons of new data about the brain. How can we use this to help us in the field of learning and development?

Does growing leaders internally result in higher leadership success rates? And how are the most successful internally focused organizations making it work?

Attempting to capture performance with a word or a number is dishonest at best. It destroys morale, trust, engagement, and job satisfaction.

DDI contributes training to help improve the leadership skills of both Feeding America and local food bank leaders.

Consider this post a teaser for some big news to come. We’re ramping up on a new project that you’ll be quite interested in if you follow this blog. Stay tuned. We’re going to be needing your help…yes, you should be flashing back to the teachers calling on you in class right about now!

LMS’s and content creators benefit from one another. It’s a symbiotic relationship. The problem is that it’s not always (and usually isn’t) clear who will play nicely together. Our latest project is making it easier for you all to find each other and work together. We’ve been compiling a massive list of e-learning companies to see who is likely to play well together. We quickly realized that our unique position (think Switzerland) in the industry means we can share this list with the world and create a valuable resource for everyone. We’re not just publishing a list. We’re providing a searchable, filterable database that makes it easy to find what you want. We’re not going to tell you which vendors you should partner with. It’s not our style. Instead, we’re giving you the most comprehensive data set of e-learning products and vendors available, and the tools to make it useful. When we say "comprehensive data set", we mean it. There are more of these vendors out there than any of you realize. You’re welcome to submit your guesses at eLearningAtlas.com. We’ve hired people to help us do this. They’ll be reaching out to everyone. If you don’t want to wait, email us about your product right now.

We get asked all the time, "What is an LMS?" So, here’s a challenge… express it as simply, as elementally as you can. Here’s my effort: A tool that authenticates students, connects them to a topic, as well as each other, and provides the tools to efficiently deliver, track and assess the learning process. - (Think you can do it better using only 140 characters? Step up and leave a comment…) We’ve been pondering different applications and how they apply to that definition. And I can’t stop coming back to Facebook as a great candidate for an LMS of the future. A tool that authenticates students… …connects them to a topic… …as well as each other… …and provides the tools to efficiently deliver, track and assess the learning process. This is where SCORM Cloud comes in. Courses could be hosted on SCORM Cloud and delivered via Facebook. Assessments and tracking could also be integrated: Thinking about what could be is something we do a lot… Lately several of us have often discussed what SCORM Cloud + Facebook could be. I thought it’d be a good idea to expand the discussion and bring our followers into the mix. Apps in Facebook are nothing new. The social learning platform has created thousands of successful virtual farms and Vills. While many of the popular apps currently on Facebook are games, the Facebook population seems to be underutilized for eLearning. Students and Facebook have a healthy relationship — the site’s popularity was born from college students. I’m willing to make the argument that the blend of eLearning and the Facebook environment would be a useful marriage. Facebook advantages: 800+ million users (and growing) Easy to manage people and groups Users are loyal, familiar and comfortable with Facebook Streamlined registration and management process Frequent log-ins, easily accessible across platforms and devices By using Facebook to facilitate learning with students and instructors, developers could create a fast and intuitive way to group students and deploy courses. Learning within Facebook provides a platform students are comfortable and familiar with. Relationships formed via a Facebook-based experience could continue past the life of the course, creating a more genuine social experience than traditional eLearning has been able to give. The possibilities of a Learning App within Facebook are exciting to imagine and one I think could become the next big movement of eLearning. Arguably, this rush to manage learners within Facebook will start soon, and I’m excited to see it begin. We’ve built our SCORM Cloud to be flexible and adaptable with this scenario in mind. We’ve seen several integrations of our SCORM Cloud. So far it has been blended into Moodle, Sakai, Dokeos, Ilias, WordPress and Google Apps. Instead of reinventing the the learning platform, just plug our SCORM Cloud into Facebook and move on. Facebook is the next step, and one we’re excited to see someone take. Our SCORM Cloud can relieve the pain of hosting content, managing courses, tracking assessments and reporting grades. Facebook will manage students — all a developer needs to do is plug the two together. We’re open to ideas on how we can make this process easier. Group discussions, wall posts, notifications, real-time chat with classmates, leader boards… the Facebook platform offers plenty of elements that can be combined to create something cool. What could be within this solution keeps my mind racing. I hope that some momentum for this develops soon. So the logical question is, "If an e-learning Facebook app is such a great idea, why not do it yourself?" We have built the toolkit that can make this app possible… we’ve got a lot of development projects in cue. We’ve made it oblivious we’re hiring, great ideas like SCORM Cloud + Facebook are why. If this sounds cool and you’d like to jump in and create a Facebook integration, go for it. Where it goes from here is up to you. Are you willing to take the leap and become the first to navigate these waters? We know this process takes time and effort. We’re willing to lend a hand, let’s discuss what that could look like by dropping a comment. If you’re interested in working with us to make this happen, email me — chris.tompkins@scorm.com. Some images from: benstein & FindYourSearch

Folks like to use Cloud because it makes the business of SCORM a lot easier—we’ve done most of the heavy lifting for you! SCORM Cloud hosts services that allow you to test content, deliver courses, and house learning data in one straightforward platform. We try to design all our products with our user’s experience in mind, but from time-to-time the things that may seem clear to us are a little cloudier to others. To help clear things up, we’re starting a new blog series dedicated to addressing some common SCORM Cloud questions. The "What Now?!" blogs will be basic, short, and will usually link to our support forum for those who want more meaty explanations. To kick it off, I’ll be telling you a few things you should know about the "Delete" button. Stay tuned! The post SCORM Cloud: What Now?! appeared first on SCORM - .

There has been much concern of late regarding the Court of Justice of the European Union’s declaration that the US-EU Safe Harbor framework is invalid.  The implications for data protection are significant, and Rustici Software is fully committed to ensuring that we are able to protect your privacy and security and to fully meet our commitments in this matter. The situation is still fluid, and we await further information from the European Commission and related authorities.  There are indications from the EC and US authorities that they wish to complete a new framework as soon as possible.  The US Department of Commerce has indicated that it will continue to administer the Safe Harbor program in the interim. Until the authorities reach a new agreement, two alternatives are available:  EU Model Contract Clauses and Binding Corporate Rules (BCRs).  Because of the significant administrative burdens and lengthy approval process of BCRs, many companies have elected to implement Model Contract Clauses in the interim. Rustici Software currently uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) for all data transfers between the EU and US that are affected by the recent ruling.  AWS released a Customer Update on October 9th where they announced that they have fully implemented Model Contract Clauses: Today, we’d like to confirm for customers and partners that they can continue to use AWS to transfer their customer content from the EEA to the US, without altering workloads, and in compliance with EU law. This is possible because AWS has already obtained approval from EU data protection authorities (known as the Article 29 Working Party) of the AWS Data Processing Addendum and Model Clauses to enable transfer of personal data outside Europe, including to the US with our EU-approved Data Processing Addendum and Model Clauses. AWS customers can continue to run their global operations using AWS in full compliance with the EU Data Protection Directive (Directive 95/46/EC). The AWS Data Processing Addendum is available to all AWS customers who are processing personal data whether they are established in Europe or a global company operating in the EEA. For additional information, please visit AWS EU Data Protection FAQ. The full text of the AWS advisory is available here. AWS’ Data Protection whitepaper further describes the effect of the Model Contract Clauses: On March 6, 2015, the AWS data processing addendum, including the Model Clauses, was approved by the group of EU data protection authorities known as the Article 29 Working Party. This approval means that any AWS customer who requires the Model Clauses can now rely on the AWS data processing addendum as providing sufficient contractual commitments to enable international data flows in accordance with the Directive. For more detail on the approval from the Article 29 Working Party, please visit the Luxembourg Data Protection Authority webpage here: http://www.cnpd.public.lu/en/actualites/international/2015/03/AWS/index.html. It appears that AWS’ implementation of Model Contract Clauses will allow our EU-based clients that utilize our Cloud Services to continue to comply with all relevant laws and regulations.  However, we are currently making a closer examination of these matters to ensure that we are correctly protecting our EU clients’ interests and fully complying with all applicable regulations. We will update this page and our privacy policy as developments warrant.  If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us via your normal support channel, or send an email directly to our privacy team at safeharbor@scorm.com. Warm Regards, Your Friends at Rustici Software   The post Regarding The US-EU Safe Harbor Framework appeared first on SCORM - .

"When we were looking out for partners to validate content created with Adobe Captivate, Rustici Software was the automatic choice. With the SCORM Cloud now integrated within Adobe Captivate 9, our users can now validate their eLearning content easily" -Akshay Bharadwaj -Senior Product Manager - Adobe Captivate A lot goes into building an elearning course. From subject matter expertise to instructional design and more, creating quality content is hard. And it gets more complicated when you consider how your content will behave in the LMS that ultimately delivers it to your learners. Testing how content will behave in an LMS before you hand it off to your client can help identify unexpected behaviors and allows you to correct them before those issues are out in the wild. We see about 70,000 courses uploaded to SCORM Cloud each month so authors can make sure that what they created actually behaves as they expect in the SCORM player. That’s why we’re super excited about a recent collaboration with Adobe that integrates SCORM Cloud directly with Adobe Captivate 9 for testing. Now you can directly preview courses you build in Adobe Captivate 9 on SCORM Cloud to see how it behaves within an LMS player, without the hassle of uploading the content to your LMS for testing. With just one click, you can automagically see your content play in SCORM Cloud. No more downloading/ uploading/overwriting/versioning steps. One click handles all of that and gives you immediate insight into how your course will play in an LMS. "When Adobe first approached us about connecting Captivate 9 to SCORM Cloud for testing, we were really impressed. Helping their users streamline the testing portion of content development is so important, and building it into the authoring tool eliminates a lot of extra steps for their customers. We’ve had a long history of working together to help solve the complexities of implementing e-learning standards, and this collaboration is a great reflection of that partnership." -Tim Martin -President, Rustici Software To see how it works, check out this walk through. Pretty cool huh? The post Adobe Captivate 9 + Cloud - One click testing is here! appeared first on SCORM - .