In a quest to prepare a workshop on the use of social networking technology for business school alumni I stumbled across an interesting tool by Forrester called the Social Technology Profile Tool. This tool enables you to find out your social technology profile. It is one of the nice spin offs of Forrester research in this domain. For additional information you can view the presentation of the different stereotype profiles. Social Technographics Explained View more presentations from jbernoff.

Guest blog from Kay Buckby MITOL (Member of the Institute of Training and Occupational Learning) One of the things that surprises me is how some organisations remain sceptical about the value of elearning. Elearning is not a consolation prize to traditional classroom training - it can be a highly effective and efficient way to learn, with distinct advantages to both the learner and the organisation. Here are 7 reasons to consider investing in elearning: 1. Learners can learn at their own speed. How often do learners confide that they are either bored because of the slowness of others or struggling to grasp a concept that other learners appear to understand? Well designed elearning means a learner can learn at their own pace, re-do sessions, ask questions to the forum and share knowledge with others. 2. If you have a remote team, learners can learn at a time to suit them. Most of us work in remote teams now - now there is no excuse to leave anyone out. Access to electronic files makes scheduling easy, eliminates geographic barriers and therefore knowledge and skills can be updated to suit business needs. 3. You will save money on training costs. When you consider the investment in face to face training, well designed elearning is the cost effective solution. 4. You can tailor to learner experience. Elearning can adapt for learner competence, experience and ability making the time spent learning stretching and not repetitive. 5. You will gain analytics to help you develop your people The metrics on traditional face to face learning and coaching are poorly measured in the main. Well designed elearning produces metrics that will enable you to assess talent, needs, gaps and additional needs. 6. You will be able to roll out initiatives more quickly Elearning can cope with large groups more effectively than face to face training. 7. Consistency of message Even with trainers notes, face to face delivery has a human element. I was part of a roll out of face to face trainers and one trainer "threw in a model" that she thought was useful to one group - bang goes consistency! Online courses from The Development Company: Minute Taking Skills: http://www.elearningmarketplace.co.uk/product/minute-taking-skills Running and Chairing Meetings: http://www.elearningmarketplace.co.uk/product/running-and-chairing-meetings Kay is a qualified trainer and coach. She works mainly with Managers and Leaders to enable them to be the best they can be. A firm believer that learning should be interactive and non linear, Kay storyboards the elearning developed by The Development Company using the same interactive nature she uses in face to face learning.

If you've worked for half as long as me I'm sure you would have already noticed the incredible importance Powerpoint seems to assume in our corporate lives. I'm also sure that you've received dozens of .PPT reports, agendas, project charters and documents in your working life. So much so, that it doesn't even seem wrong anymore! Let's take a step back -- what kind of a tool is Powerpoint again? A presentation tool. And why are we using a presentation tool to create awful documents? In today's post I want to address the practice of slideumentation, while keeping in mind people's motivation when creating such artifacts. A few clarifications:Have I ever created a slideument? YES many timesDo I work with people who create slideuments? YESAre people who create slideuments stupid? ABSOLUTELY NOT. On the contrary they're the most intelligent people you'll meetDoes ThoughtWorks have slideuments? YES, we're not perfect, are we?Does this blogpost represent a ThoughtWorks viewpoint? NO, these views are mine and mine alone!I hope that the FAQ ensures I don't lose any friends for writing this blogpost. With that said, lets proceed.Why Slideumentation is just wrong!A couple of days back I chanced upon this video. It's a fairly hilarious take on how to avoid slideumentation. Garrey Reynolds of Presentation Zen fame has said enough about why slideumentation is just bad, but let me give you my reasons of what I consider slideumentation and what I dislike about them."Slideuments are documents we create in a presentation tool. Slideuments are often created for a dual purpose -- to share over electronic media and to present in front of an audience. Often, we create slideuments only because it's apparently easier to create documents using slideware. In such cases, we don't even present the slideument. We only send it across over email or put it up on slideshare or discuss it at a table with our bosses."I'm not going to define slideuments further -- I'm sure you get the idea. But as you may have noticed from my definition, we end up creating slideuments for two reasons:We have slides that we need to present and also share with people who may miss the actual presentationWe wan't to quickly create a 'visually interesting' document using an easy to use interface.Don't worry, very very smart people create slideuments. Hillary Clinton's one of them. So let me first tell you why slideuments are a bad thing in my opinion:If your reason is #1 (above), then remember that if your slides can stand without you, your talk is kinda redundant. You might as well save people some time by sending them an email, writing a nice document (I'll come to this in a bit) or by putting up a blog post! Remember that your audience can read faster than you and if your slide says everything you needed to say, then you're not being much of a presenter, I'm afraid.If your reason is #2, then you have plenty more reasons not to slideument:Slideuments full of bullet points are documents most people will never read. Ask yourself -- how many such documents have you picked up and read from the first slide to the last?Slideumented reports hide complexity. To be very frank, bullet points are nothing but headings for more detailed information. Slideuments generally include only these headings. What about the details? It's complexity that's hidden somewhere at the back of your mind. By creating a slideumented report of your work over weeks and months, you've stopped all of that information from becoming explicit. What would have otherwise been a table of contents is now a many page report. Needless to say, this is a recipe for disaster.Slideuments encourage bad presentations. You might create the slideument only for a reading purpose, but someone is likely to use your slides and create 'Death by Powerpoint'!Slides generally operate at a much lower resolution than documents. Slideumentation creates extremely low quality documents that generally don't portray your professionalism.So, that's my case against slideuments. If you search for slideuments on Google, I'm pretty sure you'll see a lot more criticism.3 Parts to a PresentationSo, if we're agreed that slides are slides and that they shouldn't be able to stand without our narrative, then where does all the valuable information go? Garrey Reynolds says that you should consider three parts to your presentation:The Visuals: These don't have to be slides. You can do presentations in many different ways. If you do use slides however, they should contain simple visuals that explain the topic you're talking about at the time.Your Notes: Of course, you need to have some notes handy just in case you miss a point here and there. All slideware tools have a notes section built in, where you can enter your notes about the topic on hand.The Handout: This is where you can add additional detail. So if there's a complex chart add it in here. If you want people to refer your talk after it's over, then provide them a handout. Your handout should be able to live without you. Your slides should not.I cannot possibly tell you all there's to know about presentations, inside this blogpost. So I strongly recommend that if there's only one book you read about presentations, please read Presentation Zen and start to follow the Presentation Zen blog.Use a Word-processor for Documents, pleaseNow for the more difficult part - creating interesting documents. Now you'd think that this is a simple task, but apparently not. People seem to use Powerpoint as page-layout software more than a presentation tool. The pity is that the tool was never designed for the purpose and has some obvious failings when it comes to dealing with large amounts of text.So first things first -- you can create very interesting documents in just a few clicks using your good old word processor. Take a look at the documents in the image above. Those are templates from Microsoft Word! Now the next time you want to send a Powerpoint file as your 25 page report, think of how your favourite magazine would represent the same information. Then, select a template from your favourite word processor and start filling in the details. After a few rounds of working with templates you should be able to create your own stuff and lend your own brand to your documents. Here are a few tips on what kind of document you should create for some standard purposes.Type of DocumentSuggestionExamplesQuarterly/ Monthly/ Annual UpdatesTry a newsletterHere are are a couple of examples from Microsoft Word:Example 1Example 2ReportsTry Toyota style A3 Reports. Limited to an A3 size sheet, these reports are an example of simplicity in action. The thinking behind A3 reports is:"If you can't express it in one page, then it's perhaps not worth expressing." Obviously this means two things:You need to put in serious thought to simplify your report. I mean simple - not simplistic.If your report is simple and visible on a single page, then it'll perhaps be much easier to read for the people who eventually see it.Here's example template. Contact me for specific examples.AgendasIf you're sending out an Agenda for a meeting, perhaps a simple one page document will suffice, but if you're keen on trying something fancy, then try the events template from your word processor.Here's an example from Microsoft Word.Project Plans/ ChartersPlease, please, please don't pass around project plans in Powerpoint.Its tough to keep track of changes and at some point somebody will have an out of date document;There's always hidden complexity that you're bound to overlookInstead, try a project wiki. When you have to present reports, try the A3 format. When you have to make a presentation, make a presentation with simple visuals. When you need more detail, keep referring back to your project Wiki.There are quite a few wikis available on the big broad internet:Mediawiki is the wiki that powers the internetTWiki is a popular wiki that satisfies a number of enterprise use-casesWikispaces allows you to create a free wiki without the nightmare of hosting and maintainence.Confluence is my favourite wiki and is a full fledged enterprise knowledge sharing tool.Announcements/ EventsLast but not the least, if you're making announcements or creating a slideument to describe an event, please try a brochure. They're professional, easy to create and extremely good looking.Here's an example from Microsoft Word.As you might have guessed by now, I'm a sucker for good presentations and I just can't stand the misuse of good presentation tools! I hope my post today was helpful to you in some way. Please let me know what you think, by adding your thoughts to the comments section of this post. I understand this is a controversial topic, and I'm perhaps sticking my neck out for trouble, but I just can't help expressing myself on this topic.© Sumeet Moghe, 2009

Business Week published a nice article on how the Indian Tata Group builds a culture of innovation. The word ‘culture’ may suggest that innovation is hard to grasp. Not true in the Tata case. They have implemented very practical formal instruments to foster innovation in the organization. These instruments range from the Tata Group Innovation Forum, an Innovation Competition and Innovation Labs to 5 hours per week for personal projects. The good thing of this example is that it showns that your can build innovation into the DNA of an organization, even with the size of Tata. In my opinion it is about a combination of formal instruments and consistent internal communication. Tata shows that this can be the winning formula!

The world of e-learning development is moving at a fast pace, with gamification taking centre stage and its predicted use moving us beyond learning into solutions tools, using wearable technology for learning, something I’ve written about in the past but is hitting the headlines again, and Artificial Intelligence systems being used to provide a framework for personalised learning. However, there is still a large proportion of organisations and individuals that have still not engaged with any form of e-learning. Is this because of a lack of awareness of the benefits of e-learning, reluctance to move away from traditional delivery methods, or perhaps a lack of confidence to embrace technology for learning and development? Frequently we hear that "e-learning doesn’t work in my industry" or "e-learning is a poor substitute for face to face training", but when questioned these statements often come from those who don’t like the idea of it, haven’t actually tried it or have had a bad experience of some form of e-learning. There are without doubt poor examples of e-learning, just as there are poor examples of traditional training, however the advantage of e-learning is that an organisation can ‘try before they buy’, something not readily available with face to face workshops or courses. How often can a learning and development manager trial a selection of face to face courses to find out which best meets their needs, have bespoke changes to a course to cover their own specific learning objectives and have it available 24/7 to all staff? Of course they can’t, but e-learning offers this and more. So what’s the problem? I think that many of the barriers to the adoption of e-learning revolve around the fear of losing those aspects of face to face training that work well, trainers believing that their position is threatened, moving trainers out of their comfort zone and of taking a foreseeable risk in adopting something new. No-one can blame anyone for thinking that these fears are real, but actually they stem from a lack of awareness and understanding of implementing e-learning, or a lack of training and support to implement it effectively. Adopting e-learning as part or whole of a learning and development strategy does not mean staff undertaking training in isolation, or trainers being made redundant. On the contrary e-learning works best when it is combined with practical activities that enable the learner to practice the knowledge and skills learnt through e-learning in a supportive environment to develop competency. The most widely used online learning is for compliance training; induction, updates to legislation and regulations, and sector specific requirements. This training can be covered in a far more engaging and effective way than using traditional methods. Many years ago I trained IT practitioner apprentices, and the health and safety unit was the one training day that however varied and active I tried to make it, it was a challenge to keep the apprentices engaged. With e-learning I could deliver the same content in a fraction of the time and make the content engaging and interactive, with instant feedback on activities that motivated the apprentices to progress. Although a complete advocate of e-learning I am the first to say that e-learning alone is not always the most effective method for all training requirements. However, I would say that a blended approach; a combination of face to face and e-learning, can rarely be improved upon whatever the industry. Not just from the perspective of effectively developing knowledge and skills, but improved knowledge to competency. Much of which is down to the learner being able to revisit the training as often as they like to reinforce learning, and being able to learn socially online from others, a very effective and empowering form of learning. But for trainers, teachers and learning and development professionals the move to delivering an effective blended model of learning and assessment is not something that they can always take in their stride. Planning the model, sourcing or building online learning content and supporting the learning are new skills for many; it’s rather like ICT teachers who teach office applications being asked to teach programming. Whether live webinar training, developing learners online peer collaboration skills, developing online social learning, and delivering assessment and feedback online, professional development and support are required, and planning is key. Without doubt the easiest, most cost effective and often the most effective training method to fulfil a training requirement, particularly in the workplace, is wholly delivered e-learning of some form. But we shouldn’t overlook the fact that for many the transition to implementing e-learning is not always as straight forwards as it is for others. Author: Carolyn Lewis, Managing Director of Elearning Marketplace and Learning Technology Consultant working on many government funded commissions, and supporting private and public organisations.

First things first. I could really get into trouble with my wife if she reads this post. Let me explain. I was having a conversation with one of my friends about elearning and the associated costs and I almost laid a wager to say that you could produce quality elearning in a relatively short time on a pretty low budget. Now this is something all of us (at least in internal teams) have had to go through haven't we? Someone comes to us with an urgent request for creating elearning and gives us all of $100.00 to work with! I've felt like 'old mother hubbard's bare cupboard' in such instances.So, let's come back to my wife. I decided to take on the challenge and give myself 10 hours on a Saturday and a budget of $0.0 to build an elearning module. Obviously it's a bit of stretch to call my work top-class, but given the time-constraint I placed on myself, I'm happy to have a first-cut which I guess I can easily show to an internal client if necessary. Now if my wife was to know that I was doing elearning work in all the (long) breaks that I took yesterday, from helping her around in the house, from watching movies and from following the India-South Africa cricket match; she is going to be livid. So, you and I have a secret to keep. If we're agreed on that, then let's start breaking down what I did and how you can do some similar things.Course SpecificationsSharing Effective Feedback by Sumeet Madhukar Moghe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.Based on a work at www.learninggeneralist.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at www.learninggeneralist.com.I decided to build a course on Effective Feedback because this is something I continue to need at work and is in line not just with some conference submissions I've been making, but also with a webinar I'm doing in April (more on this later). I don't consider myself to be a subject matter expert, but I guess it's a topic I'm fairly passionate about, so I played the role of the SME as well. A few more details:Course Duration: Approximately 25-30 minutesTools Used: Articulate Studio '09Course Location: You can access the course here and you can download the zipped, offline version here.Development Time: 10 hoursHow I Aggregated ContentFeedbackView more presentations from sumeet.moghe.Given my time constraint, I decided that I was going to have to trim down my research in a big way. So I decided to repurpose some of the content I'd used in the past, to deliver face-to-face presentations and workshops. One of them is what you see above and the other is here. I also used a lot of Patrick Kua's writings, since I found his blogposts to be a very astute assessment of the skills behind effective feedback. That gave me a fair amount of existing content to repurpose and helped me move forward very quickly.How I Designed the CourseI decided that I was going to keep my course navigation mostly linear. I also decided I wasn't going to do anything hugely fancy with the course. I took the approach of sketching out a few mockups (like the one above) using Balsamiq, to give me an idea of where I wanted to go with the course. I also did a few quick sketches on paper to draw out the flow of topics in the course. I must say, I could do some more work on the design and language, but I'm postponing that to another iteration. The key for me was that I didn't want to detail out every screen. The fact that I was using a rapid tool meant that if I had the general flow and navigation thought through, I could move through the development in a fairly quick, iterative fashion.How I obtained Media AssetsMedia assets for your course are always likely to put a drain on your budget and I had none! I decided to go cheap and use free media assets. Here's what I did.I did almost all of my graphics editing using Powerpoint. The only other tool I used, was the free application - Poladroid. It's quite easy to create vintage style polaroids using the tool, and it gave me an opportunity to have some fun along the way!I used the Design Comics toolkit for all the characters in the course. They come in various poses and are open-source, so you can choose to edit the SVGs if you choose.The other images are royalty free pictures from my favourite free-photo resources -- stock xchng and I also used some of my favourite Microsoft illustrations.Lastly, I used a snippets of a video from the Carnegie Mellon University free podcasts. It's that of my favourite speech ever -- Randy Pausch's last lecture. Lastly, I got my Artculate player skin free of cost from Kineo, for filling out a survey to support some of their research.Myths about Rapid ElearningSo, with all that in place, I was able to put together this elearning module on feedback, which you're free to download and use for non-commercial purposes. My aim with this experiment was to bust some of the myths associated with rapid elearning in particular. I'm not going to say much more than what's on the link, but I do want to reiterate that Rapid elearning doesn't have to be CRapid elearning. Rapid elearning doesn't mean that the speed will kill your quality.It means that if you spend a reasonable amount of time designing and planning the right approach, you now have the tools to reach an implementation quickly.It means that you can go through several iterations of the course with your clients.It means that the cost of change for your courses remains low.It means that your dependence on programmers and costly tools remains low and you can empower your teams and SMEs through a familiar tool and familiar interfaces.It means that you can respond to your organisation's learning needs faster and effectively, as long as you have the willingness to put some thought into your design and learning strategy.If your approach towards design remains sound, then coming up with something really creative isn't tough! Sometimes a little inspiration can help.What did you think of today's blogpost? Hopefully, you'll never have to build a course with no budget and with 10 hours to finish it, but my hope is that you can respond to similar situations with increased confidence in the future. My course is still a work in progress (and I can share the source files if you'd like), but I'd love to hear some feedback about that as well and maybe get some free QA! As always, your comments will help me in a big way, so please comment liberally on this post and drop me a line if you'd like. Till next time, ciao!© Sumeet Moghe, 2009

Blended learning is an effective training delivery model being implemented across the globe, however with so many variations of the model and range of learning technologies available how do those in charge of learning and development decide which has been the most effective and cost efficient? Well the answer is that most decisions are based on price and learner feedback, because the return on investment of the training isn’t worked out and there aren’t processes in place to include the measure of effectiveness. Some interesting research conducted by IS Interactive Services, with over 500 senior learning professionals, on the future of blended learning backed up the fact that very few organisations measure the return on investment (ROI) of their training budget.  It found that only 28% of those surveyed measure training against business KPIs and the most common form of training evaluation is ‘happy sheets’, the learner evaluation. With a variety of data analysis methodologies it is surprising that more businesses don’t measure training ROI. There is a strong business case for training staff, evidenced by a wealth of research and surveys, as it improves staff retention, performance, motivation and loyalty, but if a business doesn’t gather the evidence to prove this then where is the business case? Some time ago there were some figures out on the ROI of Corporate Training that said that $1500 invested in training per employee results in 24% higher profit margins. Certainly e-learning can improve the ROI of the training budget, in fact calculations done in the US found that it can be 50-60% greater than for traditional training, which itself can have a 4 x ROI, if done well*. For some guidance on measuring the ROI of e-learning take a look at the article on TrainingZone. * Syberworks E-learning Benefits and ROI Comparison of e-Learning vs Tradtional Training

Who doesn't want to create engaging elearning? But when managing projects, you're often balancing time, cost, money, scope and team. Sometimes, the mix of these factors means that you end up having to design simple and quick, linear courses - where every learner moves along only one predictable path in the course. That said, I'm a big believer in doing more with less and today I want to share with you three ways to make the most of when you have to create courses using linear navigation. So without further ado, let's get going. Tip #1 - Try a Webcomic Approach. If you've seen the Google Chrome comics by Scott McCloud, you'll realise how powerful a medium the webcomic is. The reason why webcomics are so effective is because they not only simplify complex topics, but they also make these topics seem less intimidating. More importantly people are used to flipping pages in a comic and so linear navigation doesn't seem odd to your audience. So if you have an engaging story, a comic approach automatically draws your learners to click the Next button. I can understand that Scott McCloud's work can make you feel it's really difficult to do, but if you look at the video above, you'll realise that its quite easy to create comic scenes quickly, provided you have the right image repositories. I recommend the design comics toolkit and elearningart's character packs, to get you kick started with this approach. If you want a sketch like feel to the elearning art character packs, then take a look at this tutorial. Once you've created your scenes, there's the question of integrating the visuals into a story line. If you want to use Powerpoint, then the above video can be a good starting point and you can then use Articulate Presenter to stitch together the elearning. If you want an online magazine style effect like in the video, then you could use a tool such as Issuu or Yudu. Now, I recognise that you'd love some inspiration to get started, so here are two webcomics that I really like: Secret in the Cellar by the Smithsonian MuseumTelstra's 3Rs of Social Engagement (while this includes talking characters, remember that you can get them at a very low cost using Codebaby Studio)Tip #2 - Use Effective Interactivity A couple of months back I'd written a post titled "The tools don't matter, use your creativity". If you look at the example from that post, you'll notice that it's a fairly linear course, as is the original course by Kineo. That said, the use of effective interactivity makes both courses easy to get through. One of the reasons I'm a big fan of Articulate Studio 09, is that it puts the power to create effective interactivity in the hands of less skilled people such as me. Here are three of interactions from the rapid elearning blog, that Tom (by his own admission) built with very little effort: Mini Cooper - A replica of an interaction from Allen Interactions using Articulate Engage5 Common Quiz Mistakes - A demonstration of quizzes using Articulate QuizmakerEthics Refresher - an excellent example of how you can develop scenarios using only a form-based authoring tool.Now before you started thinking of me as an Articulate salesman, let me tell you very frankly that I'm nothing but a very passionate user of the tools. And by the way, don't believe me - rapid elearning is no myth; take a look at the examples! Tip #3 - Use the right LanguageIf you're on a really tight budget for the year (and yes, I understand because I've been there), then Articulate isn't your only option. Remember that you have some free options for linear elearning, in the form of the following tools: ExeLearning -to create HTML based elearningUdutu - the free, yet full-fledged authoring toolXerteand CourseLab5 ways to make linear navigation more interestingView more presentations from Cathy Moore.That said, one of the most underestimated tools for corporate elearning is Slideshare. If all you have is a well made presentation, then Slideshare is your way to convert it into flash based elearning. If you look at examples like this and this, you'll notice that indeed it's not impossible to create engaging, interactivity free elearning (yes, I classify that as elearning) without fancy tools. I've taken too much time to come to the point here though, but both these presentations are excellent examples of how to use language appropriately to create interest in linear courses. One of my favourite resources with tips to use language to create interesting elearning courses is the one above. Cathy Moore does a great job to illustrate how clever use of language can make your linear elearning course extremely interesting to navigate. So really my third tip includes all five of Cathy Moore's tips. Take a look through the presentation to know more!For today's post, I'd like to give away the course files for the example in Tip#2. You can download them here. I'm sorry I can't give you the comic from Tip #1yet, but I promise to make it available once I have the opportunity. It's my passion to try doing more with less, so this blogpost is quite close to my heart. How did you like the examples in today's post? What methods are you trying at work to ensure that you can make the most of your budgets?  I'd love to hear from you, so please feel free to add your thoughts to the comments section. Hope you enjoyed today's article.© Sumeet Moghe, 2009

Clive Shepherd twittered a nice presentation ‘e-Learning Sucks’. It covers the fact that most e-learning design just follows traditional instructional design models (’lectures’). I come across this phenomenon often when subject matter experts use authoring tools to braindump their knowledge into powerpoint like e-learning modules. They call this rapid e-learning, but a good friend of mine tends to call this e-sleeping (in the presentation you see why!). eLearning Sucks View more presentations from Red Magma. From the nice design of the slides you can grasp where the critique comes from: media & game design. Although I agree that principles of media & game design can be excellently applied to e-learning this is not the only route. Not all powerfull stuff on Internet looks great. You just have to be creative in using the strengths of internet to support learning. Conclusion: nice work and good points, but there is more to good e-learning design when you ask me.

As JISC says, "e-Learning is fundamentally about learning and not about technology. Strategic development of e-learning should be based on the needs and demands of learners and the quality of their educational experience." I would add to this that effective e-learning is also about meeting the employers needs and not about superfluous visual or auditory affects, but the quality of the content and user engagement to effectively meet the learning objectives, whether set  by an employer or learner themselves. With so much discussion going on about what is the current or next big thing in e-learning authoring, e.g. gamification and augmented reality, it easy to lose touch with what the demands of learners and employers are and what is a quality learning experience? Whether you’re commissioning an online course to meet a specific workplace requirement or buying off-the shelf e-learning, the quality of the outcomes for employers and learners should be based on the fundamental criteria as below and not whether it has the ‘wow’ factor. The course meets your learning objectives This is the most important factor and can only be evaluated if you are clear exactly what the learning objectives are. The balance between delivery of information, interactivity, visual effects and self-assessment activities is appropriate for learners This is tricky as we all have different likes and dislikes. I have on many occasions evaluated an online course and felt it lacked the hook to get me fully engaged whether through interactivity, interest or visual representations, and then a colleague or customer has chosen that particular course over another that I have preferred. I know companies that have evaluated online courses and found them excellent against a set of quality standards, however reviews of those courses by many learners haven’t been positive. Fancy visual affects might look at first to be engaging but actually they can detract from the purpose of the course which is for the learner to learn. For an employer the important factor in finding the right balance for learners is that the content is varied in its delivery. Information that is delivered in a varied, visually pleasing way whether this is with video, animation and/or graphics with text combined with some interaction will keep the learners’ interest. If every page looks pretty much the same and the only interaction is pressing the ‘next’ key it can be extremely boring, especially if a large proportion of that page is text. Video is a popular medium for learning, but if that video is set in an uninspiring environment, and pushes information at you by a person standing talking throughout the video, like a lecturer at the front of a classroom with no props, it’s unlikely to be an effective learning experience. Very importantly there should be opportunities for the learner to do self-assessment activities to check their understanding of the information that has been delivered, at appropriate points through-out the course. It doesn’t have to be a set of questions and answers, much more engaging and effective is a workplace scenario where the learner has to make decisions based on the knowledge they’ve gained in the course. It is at the appropriate level for learners, including language and complexity of content Language that is too complex for a learner will quickly disengage them and stop them from taking on board the information the course is delivering.  In many aspects of education it is advised that the level of the language is one level down from the level of the subject matter. So for instance if delivering a maths level 2 course in the UK the language should be level 1. Whether a course has the right complexity of content comes back to the learning objectives. If a course provides too much detail or complexity over and above the required objectives, or a topic is wrapped up in a lot of superfluous words then the learner will become disengaged or will skip content. It is either sufficiently generic in context or is contextually appropriate to the learners’ role In many cases a generic context to an online course provides a better learning outcome, as the knowledge and skills learnt are transferable to other roles and employers. However, some training requirements are very specific to a particular job role or industry, and in this case the context of the course should be appropriate to the role environment. The alternative option, which at Elearning Marketplace we often support organisations with, is to take an off-the shelf course and make bespoke changes to meet required learning objectives. It is easily accessible by learners With the vast range of different devices now available and some individuals and organisations having strong views on what they use, its important to make sure that the online course you choose runs without any glitches on the devices to be used. If mobile devices are to be used it is important that the course is mobile responsive. This means that when the course is loaded on the device it changes its format to fit the screen, it is then easily navigated and read without having to pinch and expand the page, or scroll across the screen. However, not all mobile responsive e-learning runs on all devices. In particular courses that use Flash don’t run on Apple devices unless an additional browser is installed. More recently many of those developing e-learning are publishing in HTML5 which enables their courses to run on any mobile device. However, there are some fantastic courses that are currently being developed that still use Flash to obtain the required output, so the important point is being aware of what you are purchasing. A fully accessible online course is one that enables any learner to access it whether or not they have a disability. Knowing your learners and any specific needs they might have will enable you to select a fully accessible course that can be visually or physically altered by the learner to meet their requirements. In summary, don’t let your choice of e-learning be swayed by the ‘wow’ factor, but concentrate on what will provide learners with the best learning experience and outcomes. You can go to great lengths to choose the right online course, but the fact is that you are unlikely to please everyone.  Let me give you a recent example of when we completed a UK government funded project, which produced nine online scenario modules mapped to a Diploma qualification. The trialling of the modules took place with the required audience, which were 16 to 24 year old apprentices. We collated all the learner feedback from the trials and found that approximately 60% enjoyed the interactive activities and felt engaged in the scenarios, and approximately 40% found the interactive activities frustrating and slowed their progress.  Thankfully our customer was very happy!