TIS has won this award for its remarkable initiatives to promote the cause of Learning Disability (LD).  We took up this cause in 2002 and one of our first steps was to fund and sustain KEM LD certification clinic, the only one in Mumbai, India. Besides funding, we have also consciously used our core skills to help the LD cause by developing student management software and also a book called brain teasers that helps LD affected children to grasp concepts easily. TIS also conducts the Tata Learning Disability Forum (TLDF) - a knowledge sharing platform for national and international experts on LD. Over the years, the TLDF has evolved as a forum - from spreading awareness about LD to urging the community to come together and help students with LD. Currently, TLDF’s efforts are directed towards early detection of LD and spreading awareness of LD to other regions in India besides Mumbai.

Formerly the Chief Marketing Officer, Rajesh will now provide Sales leadership in the Asia Pacific & Middle East markets. TIS is committed to increasing its presence and serving customers in the Middle East & APAC region. Rajesh will spearhead this mission and take our innovative suite of learning solutions to these markets which are experiencing strong growth and are maturing rapidly in terms of their learning & development strategy. Rajesh’s unique experience with deep understanding of all facets of the organization will help TIS achieve greater success in the Asia Pacific and Middle East market. He is a TIS veteran and has set up TIS’ Middle East operations in the past.

Ms. Manisha Mohan(right) from TIS receiving the award from  Ms. Fauzia T Khan (left), Minister of State, Govt. of Maharashtra Tata Interactive Systems (TIS) was honored with the eMaharashtra 2012 Award for the best multimedia content for K12 (jury’s choice) on 27th April at the Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan, Nariman Point, Mumbai. The award and certificate for best multimedia content for K12 were presented by Ms Fauzia T Khan, State Minister, General Administration, Public Health and Family Welfare, School Education, Cultural Affairs, Information and Publicity, Government of Maharashtra. The eMaharashtra award exemplifies our commitment towards developing superior resources for the Multimedia Industry and providing excellent education and superior resources to students. TIS along with Bombay Community Public Trust (BCPT) and NGO Muktangan collaborated to provide high-quality standardized interactive English teaching aids based on the government prescribed curriculum to help children in state-run and private vernacular medium schools overcome the English barrier and become employable. We were responsible for designing and developing the DVDS. Muktangan assisted in guiding the teaching methodology used in DVDs and providing a platform for user-testing. Bombay Community Public Trust (BCPT) helped in fund raising, administration, accounting and project coordination. Apart from these three, Tech Mahindra Foundation also provided financial assistance and NGO Learning Space Foundation helped with distribution of the DVDs in municipal and village schools across Maharashtra. The DVDs have already reached over 75 schools across the state of Maharashtra and are helping several students overcome the English language barrier to employment.

 TrainingIndustry.com’s annual survey of training companies has declared TIS as one of the Top 20 Content Development Companies globally. This recognition makes us proud and stands testimony to our efforts in delighting our customers. As a strategic partner, we strive to enable the success of key organizational initiatives of Fortune 500 companies.The list of Top 20 companies by TrainingIndustry.com is designed to help organizations in their search for the right training partner. Selection to this year's Top 20 Content Development Companies was based on: Industry visibility, innovation and impact Capability to develop and deliver multiple types of content Company size and growth potential Depth and breadth of subject matter expertise Quality of clients Geographic reach

The entry that clinched the award for TIS was the ‘Philips Outdoor Lighting Controls’ game developed for Philips Lighting. ‘Philips Outdoor Lighting Controls’ is an investigation game where players extensively use the interview format to deduce information about customers and use that information to build compelling solutions. The game builds on the technical knowledge of sales people. It gets them to apply their knowledge successfully in sales scenarios that they are likely to encounter. The scenarios allow sales people to identify the different stakeholders involved, ask the right questions, select the right solution and put together a value proposition for the client successfully. We have a strong capacity to conceptualize and produce quality learning content that helps enable organizational initiatives across industry verticals. The 2012 LearnX award is yet another acknowledgment of our capabilities.

Tata Interactive's Learning Forum (TLF) provides a highly interactive platform for thought leaders across domains to get together, interact, and inspire each other.The annual Tata Interactive Learning Forum 2012, now in its 9th edition, will be an exclusive, invitation-only event. The theme of TLF 2012 is - Running Learning Like A Business: Focus On Outcomes, Effectiveness, and EfficiencyThe event is scheduled to be held at The Mayflower Renaissance (Marriott), Washington DC, on October 3-4. The TLF this year will serve as a launch pad for TDRp - Talent Development Reporting Principles - an exciting initiative to provide a framework to measure and report talent development outcomes and their impact on business results as well as key effectiveness and efficiency measures.In addition, this year’s event also partners with the Brandon Hall Group who will present their research on the interrelation of the learning and talent management functions, with a focus on delivering measured business outcomes for the enterprise. The event will encourage the CLOs to put on their CFO hats.Expect to meet the CLOs, VPs, EVPs in Training, HR & business functions, and share industry best practices and participate in thought-provoking discussions. TLF 2012 promises to be an exclusive event to meet and network with like-minded peers across industry segments.

TDRp is a groundbreaking initiative to bring consistency and discipline to L&D reporting in particular and to talent development reporting in general.This industry-led, grass roots effort is now complete for L&D and hundreds of organizations are in the early stages of implementation. TDRp provides a simple yet powerful framework to plan, measure, and report on the business outcomes, effectiveness and efficiency of talent initiatives which has the potential to fundamentally change how investments in human capital are managed and viewed. The Tata Interactive Learning Forum this year will serve as a launch pad for TDRp - Talent Development Reporting Principles.Dave Vance, co-author of numerous TDRp publications and former president of Caterpillar University as well as 2006 CLO of the Year, will share the complete TDRp framework for L&D along with sample statements and reports.He will also share the latest developments in extending TDRp to the other key HR processes like talent acquisition and performance management, and he will provide an update on the efforts underway to establish TDRp as an ANSI standard.If you are not yet familiar with TDRp, this is a great opportunity to learn about it and consider how it can add value in your organization.

In this video, Poushali Chatterjee, Principal Learning Designer - Key Accounts at Tata Interactive Systems talks about the various changes in digital media, employee profiles, workplace practices and learning design which have made social and collaborative learning one of the most effective approaches for organizational learning. She talks about Push vs Pull learning, just-in-time learning and learning strategies designed as performance support instead of creating training curricula.

Simulations have been used in training since the Stone Age, even before humans evolved into ‘Homo sapiens sapiens’! I say this in the semantic sense of the word since target practice is also training, and in target practice, you substitute your hunt or enemy with a target. This also brings us to the definition of training simulations as the ‘act of imitating a real-life system (or process) to acquire certain skills’. As we evolved, so did the complexity and diversity of our tasks. These new tasks required new skills and these new skills required new tools. So now, we have a huge variety of skills and systems, tools and processes, problems and solutions. It was only a matter of time after the invention of computers that we would start using them to create a simulated ecosystem that could recreate these in a virtual realm. Computer-based training simulations today, are a result of these evolving needs. Choosing or designing a training simulation will depend on your TNA findings and the derived learning objectives. CBT simulations are as diverse as their areas of application and their attributes. These could range from a 2-hour SimBls™ (simulation-based learning objects) to an intensive 5-day TOPSIM seminar! A simpler way to choose your CBT Simulation would be to understand their characteristics. Types of CBT Simulations Here is a quick table that looks at the classification of CBT simulations based on their attributes:   Let’s wrap this one up for now… In our next post, we shall discuss the ‘heart’ of the CBT simulation - the model. Please share your views, suggestions, and questions in the comments section below. We look forward to hearing from you! References: http://www.systemdynamics.org/conferences/1998/PROCEED/00099.PDF http://www.systemdynamics.org/conferences/1998/PROCEED/00099.PDF

Say hello to Tin Can API, a new and improved version of SCORM that has the potential to open up a world of experiences in the field of learning. Tin Can makes tracking much more meaningful, and helps overcome several shortcomings of SCORM. For starters, it recognizes the fact that learning happens through interactions with learning material, people and several other avenues. And it is not restricted to a browser. Information that Tin Can tracks is relayed to an LRS - Learning Record Source. The LRS can exist within an LMS or independently, by itself. It is, simply put, a repository of learning records. SCORM has limitations to the kind and amount of data stored. Tin Can will help overcome these limitations.   What makes Tin Can better? Tin Can is in sync with e-learning industry dynamics: With Tin Can there is a possibility of tracking simulations, mobile learning, informal learning, experiential learning, social learning… This is much closer to how the learning industry is progressing beyond LMS enabled, web-based learning courses. Tin Can is device agnostic, platform agnostic and delivers richer instructional experiences. These are just some of the features that indicate Tin Can’s potential for the future of e-Learning compliance. Tin Can helps you record learning, as well as performance Tin Can records learning in all forms - formal or informal. So from a youtube video that you watch to an interesting blog you come across, and which you certainly learn from, every bit of that learning is accounted for, thereby giving a truer picture of your learning interactions, over and above formal learning. But where Tin Can truly surpasses SCORM in this context is when it records performance. Not only can it track what you have learnt, but it also has the potential to measure how the learning has impacted your performance, thus making calculation of ROI possible.  Tin Can makes data accessible LRSs can share data with analytical tools, reporting tools and what more, with other LRSs. It’s almost like a stored record of every learning experience that has shaped your life so far! And you can move with a record of your learning experiences from a school to a university or to a corporate, thus making it possible for a learning/training program to be tailored for you and not imposed on you like a blanket plan. With time, sophisticated reporting tools can help generate inferences and conclusions from the data which was erstwhile not possible.   What benefits accrue from adopting Tin Can? 1. You are not tied to a platform You can access content from your tablet on the way to work, resume learning on your office computer and possibly take the rest of the course on your smartphone. Intermittent network connectivity to an LRS will serve the purpose, continuous network connectivity is not mandatory. Tin Can thereby supports mobility in learning in true spirit. 2. Learning content need not be delivered only through an LMS You are free to host content online or offline.  Experiential learning, social learning and learning from non-conventional formats can now be keyed into a Learning Record Source. The LRS will hold records of your learning and achievements. Every course does not have to run on a single platform. Parts of a course can run on the learner’s mobile phone, the other chunks can be based on social learning for instance. Diverse sources can come together to deliver a single course, something that SCORM could never help us achieve. 3. Uninhibited use of the best technology possible While SCORM compliance meant using certain browser based technologies, Tin Can totally liberates content authors to use the technology that can best deliver learning, and stay reassured that Tin Can would allow tracking. So if you think a mobile game, a serious game, or a simulation can explain a concept better, go ahead and create the learning from the learner’s point of view. Because Tin Can does not see these are obstacles in the process of tracking/recording. 4. Detailed tracking With SCORM you can only track status of course completion. With Tin Can you can dig much deeper. You can track performance for parts of a course, spot problem areas, or areas where the learner is above average… Flexibility in reporting is truly possible with Tin Can. 5. Make learning dynamic If you are training engineers for on-site operations and business acumen in an industry as volatile as Oil & Gas, you can ensure that the changing external inputs reflect in the course by pulling in data from external sources or from within the course itself. This gives a huge impetus to on-the-job support. Especially for people who work on site or who are employed in sales. At Tata Interactive Systems we believe that Tin Can may be the future of the e-Learning industry. The way the dynamics of the e-learning industry have changed over the last decade, SCORM compliance is no longer the only factor in deciding if a course will deliver learning in an effective manner. The way the world learns today, Tin Can compliance is certainly indicative of a sound and effective learning program. Get in touch with us to know more about Tin Can.