In this series of posts we stroke our elaborate moustaches, straighten up our turbans, and look into our crystal balls to determine the future of eLearning in 10 years time. In our last future-telling session we discussed how mobile learning, MOOCs and gamification are only going to get bigger in the coming years. In this post we’ll be examining a few more eLearning trends that will play an important role, namely Instructor-Led Training (ILT) and social learning. We’re also going to tell you what’s probably going to happen with virtual reality technologies and wearables. Instructor-Led training You might be wondering how come "Instructor-Led Training" is part of the future of eLearning. It does seem more like a throwback to the past with its demands of physical attendance, traditional classrooms and actual teachers telling you to keep quiet. Maybe you are forgetting, but that’s actually how the majority of education is currently run — in every school, college and university worldwide. Physical classrooms, teachers and whiteboards rule the day. Instructor-Led Training, in that aspect, far from a step back represents a step forward: it’s all about the incorporation of eLearning into all of our traditional educational institutions. Whereas in the past you had traditional schooling and eLearning, and the two did not meet, in the future no actual school and no physical classroom will be considered complete if it doesn’t incorporate an eLearning element. Social learning Social networking is not some new category of computer use that Facebook (or Friendster/MySpace/Twitter/etc) invented. It’s just humans communicating over a computer network, something that we have been doing ever since there was a public internet (through BBS systems, AOL, CompuServe and what have you). Still, for it to really catch on it needed the capabilities of the modern web (circa 2005) and a good enough implementation. In the same vein, humans have also been communicating, exchanging ideas and making friends while studying since forever, which makes "social learning" something that will inevitably catch on. It just needs the right platform and the right technical capabilities (e.g. effortless tele-conferencing through our browser, something that still has modern CPUs spiking). Whether social learning hits the big time sooner or later we don’t know, but we do know that it will be increasingly more popular in the upcoming years. Virtual Reality and Wearables Virtual reality sounds so good in theory. It’s even impressive as a demo. But, at least in its current state (and including much touted products like the Oculus Rift), it’s not really gonna fly outside of small (but important) niches. There are several technical limitations with how convincing (or nauseating) the "reality" part in VR is. Those will probably be overcome with time, but at least for the next few years, you won’t want to be wearing a VR headset for prolonged periods of time. Another major issue to the adoption of VR for eLearning will be the lack of content. There hasn’t been any great re-imagining of educational content for VR — it’s all about virtual tours and game-like experiences. It’s also expensive to produce quality VR educational content (it’s like making your own mini Pixar movie or AAA game title). It surely won’t be something that a small or medium educational institution will be able to slap together (not to mention that the tooling to do so isn’t really here either). As for wearables, they’re too limited by their small (or no) screens, lack of input methods, inefficient speakers, battery performance, etc. to be actually useful in eLearning (besides supplementary and novelty use). Back to the present "The future is here", famous sci-fi author William Gibson once said, "it’s just not evenly distributed". This is very much true for eLearning’s future, as all of these trends and technologies we mentioned are already available in one form or another. They are just not prevalent or mass-market enough yet. That said, they are quite mature already, which means that you don’t have to wait for 2025 (or even 2020) to begin incorporating them in your eLearning offerings. While most competitors are satisfied with bread-and-butter solutions, your early adoption of future eLearning trends will ensure that as these grow stronger you’ll be along for the ride. The post The future of eLearning, part 2 appeared first on eFront Blog.

Here are some questions to help determine if your organization is ready for a Learning Management System (LMS). Are you ready for eLearning? Answer the questions below and build your business case! Why do you need an LMS? Who will use the LMS? Which learners and which trainers? How many are there? Is there any internal (IT & business) support for an LMS? Which type of employees do you have e.g. office-based, factory-based, warehouse-based etc? Do your learners have access to computers and mobile devices? In what ratio? What activities are your employees doing e.g. working on a computer, working with their hands, driving transport, traveling a lot? Do you currently have a training program for staff? What kind of training do they do e.g. class-room, on-line, outdoors? Where are your learners based e.g. nationwide, globally distributed, single office? What is the average age of your learner population? Does your staff need to be certified or do compliance training at present? How much does your organization spend on training staff? Will there be any cost saving from using an LMS? What type of content will you have e.g. SCORM, TinCan (xApi), PDFs, Video etc? Who will create content? Where will the content come from? How much content will there be? How will the content be updated and how often? Do you need to regularly test your employees’ knowledge? How will you do that? How much does that cost? What will eLearning deliver that does not currently happen? What is that worth? Who is your most senior supporter/ stakeholder for eLearning? How influential are they? How much is your LMS budget? Do you have a budget yet? Who would support your budget request? How influential are they? If you didn’t buy an LMS would anyone notice? What would the top three business benefits to the organization be if you used an LMS? Could these benefits be gained any other way without using an LMS? We’re almost certain you answered yes to a few of these questions, and we’re glad! Because here at eFront, we have all these and many more solutions to eLearning and traning questions. If you would like to have a conversation about: a) how to get started with eLearning, or b) a move from an open source LMS to a commercial LMS, or c) a move from your current LMS to eFrontPro just send an email to birt[at]efrontlearning.net to receive a fast response, and some helpful insights! The post The LMS (eLearning) Needs Analysis appeared first on eFront Blog.

Do you like microbes? If not, don’t worry because micro-learning has nothing to do with them, and is perfectly safe for your health. Micro-learning (from the Greek word "micro" meaning small) is all about getting your eLearning in small doses, as tiny bursts of training material that you can comprehend in a short time (contrast with the hefty tomes you had to read at school to study a subject or the typical content-heavy eLearning class — which would be classified as "macro" learning). As with most eLearning related terms there is some vagueness into it, or rather a flexibility if you wish. People use it to refer to several different ways of learning. All, however, share a few common characteristics to a greater or lesser extent: Micro-learning is performed in short time bursts. Micro-learning requires little effort from individual sessions. Micro-learning involves simple and/or narrow topics. All of the above make micro-learning a natural fit for mobile learning, and while the two indeed go well together, there’s nothing that says micro-learning has to be confined to mobile devices (or conversely that mobile devices can’t serve as platforms for macro learning just as well). Here are some real world examples of micro-learning to help you understand its practice: - watching small instructional videos on YouTube. - flashcard learning: this involves applications that present the learner with small cards (flashcards) with limited content such as new foreign language words, parts of the human anatomy, countries, chemical elements, etc., to aid in memorizing them. - solving mini educational quizzes - receiving small nuggets of information through email, sms, IM, etc. (e.g. "word of the day") Of course learning, and by extension micro-learning, is not just about consuming content. Here are a couple of examples of micro-learning being practiced by having the learners produce their own content: - learning to write in a new language, or learning creative writing, by having to compose small sentences. - learning how to draw by being given a theme that you have to sketch quickly (similar to the "Draw Something" game for iOS). Micro-learning is not just a byproduct of our short attention spans in the internet age or a subpar eLearning methodology for when we don’t have much time. In fact science backs it up as a credible and effective method of learning. Research has shown that we learn more (and retain it better) when we study in short focused bursts than when we’re forced to sit through hour long classes — but of course your younger self that was bored to tears at school knew that already. It just so happens that micro-learning is also a great fit for the modern age, when everybody has a mobile phone, and lots of people have plenty of dead time, such as long commutes to work. And while primitive forms of micro-learning such as flashcards and quiz books have been known for over a century, when combined with modern eLearning they get even more powerful, as they get to tap into vast content repositories, add multimedia elements, employ gamification strategies, or take advantage of techniques such as spaced repetition (where content is shown to the learner at specific intervals that enhance its retention). That said, micro-learning is not the be-all end-all solution that will replace all other forms of eLearning as it has its own share of compromises and disadvantages. With its emphasis on small isolated chunks of learning, micro-learning is not so great when it’s essential to have a holistic view of the training material, and be able to connect disparate elements of it into one coherent picture. For example, while doctors frequently employ micro-learning to memorize medical terms, nobody seriously suggests that it’s a credible method to study pathology. Sometimes you just have to soldier through an extensive body of material and understand it thoroughly, and micro-learning is unsuited for that use case. In general, micro-learning is unsuited when there’s a large body of material that needs to be studied and comprehended in detail. So while it would be great in order to learn "business English" or some other dedicated vocabulary, it would’t work for learning how to speak English properly. Or, in the same vein, while micro-learning would work to learn the timeline of events in European history, it wouldn’t work to study its deeper motives, interactions and undercurrents. Again, the above are not meant to dismiss micro-learning in the least. Just to show that it has a specific place in a broader range of eLearning methodologies. That said, that place is big at the moment, and will only get bigger, as micro-learning is, as we said, a natural fit for mobile learning, and mobile use is poised to dominate desktop internet use. In this new landscape, micro-learning will be a permanent fixture in eLearning, as it hits all the sweet spots: - It’s fun and engaging (by keeping it short and taking advantage of multimedia and gamification) - It works (people remember stuff they’ve been taught through micro-learning better) - It’s casual (you can do it anywhere and it doesn’t demand too much of your time) Last, but not least, while it can be implemented by itself effectively, micro-learning also works as part of a larger eLearning offering, that is as a casual/micro companion to traditional training. And if you want us to summarize this post in a micro-learning sized chunk, that would read something like: "Micro-learning: it’s learning in tiny chunks and short bursts of time. Great way to learn in the small. Goes well with mobile. Will only get bigger in the future.". The post Everything you wanted to know about micro-learning (but were afraid to ask) appeared first on eFront Blog.

The ultimate goal of learning and professional development is to instill the habit of being a "life-long learner" or continuous learning. Do we mean that you need to have your nose in a book or your fingers on a screen 24/7? Not at all! Life-long learning implies to the cyclic update, reflection, social interchange and again update of knowledge. While some of us unconsciously hunt for new knowledge and revel in "cognitive growth", most of us need a bit more guidance in terms of achieving learning mindfulness. Does it seem like a lot of work? It actually isn’t. All you need to do is to align yourself with your learning needs and organize your time for learning. The adult learner is wired to learn independently, by default. Don’t worry, after reading this article, you will not only improve as a learner, but also consciously develop stronger learning habits. Extant research is rife with findings which indicate that learning and innovation are the only elements for organizational growth. If you are not seeing any performance growth in your employees, you can safely conclude that they need training. Sometimes, learning is not needed in the form of training at all! Sometimes all you need is to have employees talk to each other about their performance experiences. Sharing concerns, pitfalls and milestones and even solving a tricky problem at a task can be a great learning tool! And where can your employees hold this productive talk? Two locations: a casual meeting room or employee lounge, where employees are not compelled to think and act formally and second, your learning management system, through its collaborative elements. The environment of the physical place should be similar to coffee time or break time. Let them vent out without any inhibitions! You never know how one thing may lead to another and they might end up offering private training sessions. As an employer, provide such volunteers and experts with all the resources they need for these informal training sessions. And don’t forget to offer recognition and praise for their contributions! The second place, as mentioned above is your organization’s learning management system, where you can hold a formal training. As a mentor for training, your primary task would be to post meaningful discussion topics under relevant training. A mistake most managers do after posting an excellent question, is let the discussion taper off. You need to direct wayward conversations in the direct direction. And when enough has been said about the topic, summarize all key points. Ask all participants if you missed anything. Watch another set of comments march past the page! So what exactly have you established through this exercise? You have developed a sense of contribution and responsibility to implement ideas and suggestions among all participants of this discussion. When you see healthy input of valuable experience from experts, you know that you have established a community of practice. This is your ultimate goal. Create a fear-free and happy conversation environment, both online and offline. Be consistent with these practices and watch how your company evolves into a learning organization. Congratulations, this means you have created continuous learners! Study this simple three-part model for acquiring continuous learning habits. Remember, in order to be successful, you need to learn more each day. Think about it this way, the more you learn, the more you are flexible towards changes in the unknown situation or future. As your organization’s leader, teach these three skills to your employees to develop a learning organization! Follow these tips to boost your learning habits and ultimately your performance at work: Be your Best at your Work No matter what your job is about, try to be the best at what you do. Be an expert. Have people asking you questions or consult with you. Be clear on your job expectations. Regularly ask for feedback from peers and how you can improve. Get clear on what your expectations are on your current job. Regularly ask for feedback and ways on how you can improve. If you are the best in your job, people will look up to you and will also ask you for directions on learning and other tips. Become a Leader Being the best sometimes also means leading through inspiration. Your peers know how much you value your time. They will begin respecting your time, by listening to you carefully and taking notes (at least mental notes!) of what you say. Leadership is not reserved for managers and bosses only. Anyone who has knowledge and knows how to demonstrate it in order to motivate aspiring individuals, is a leader! Set aside one day a week in which you talk about leadership qualities with your employees. A great activity is to play games with team members to develop these skills. Another way is to assign mandatory leadership related eLearning. Suggest a valuable leadership book to your employees by Harry S. Truman, in which he says "Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers." Keep Skills Fresh Many soft skills like flow charting, diagramming, labeling, worksheets and documentation require updates. eLearning training for these is not recommended as they simply involve reinventing the wheel. Not only they are expensive in the long-run, they fail to measure the impact on performance. For such skills, create a wiki for the online training which is offered for free by the vendors. Not only are they up to date, but they are also free and self-paced. The tutorials offered online are short and can be viewed by multiple people, multiple times. YouTube videos also offer a great learning tool when dealing with "learning by doing" activities. Being a continuous learner requires you to develop daily learning habits and an inquisitive attitude. Adopting the above three tips will help you get started and move in the right direction. Good luck! The post 3 Ways to Boost Your Learning Habits for a Superior Performance appeared first on eFront Blog.

An eLearning course design and development is a major project that needs to be handled using the formal protocols of a project management life cycle. Here’s a good place to start if you are still in the "head scratching" phase of your new project. In this article we describe a no-nonsense list of 18 essential steps to deliver a successful eLearning project. Feel free to print and paste over your work area for quick reference. Let’s get started. Consider yourself as the key communicator and instructional designer and developer who manages the team and shares milestones with the customer. Your task is to listen to the customer and create a course from scratch. 1) Research When a topic is given to you by the customer, expect them to introduce you to a subject-matter expert (SME). Have your experts in the team meet with the SME. Analyze training topics and sections. How is the current training taking place? Try to keep it similar and uniform, improving and refining in the process. How can the topics be taught in an interactive format? Highlight the content that needs to be reinforced through interactivity. Determine the technical resources available to the customer. Does the customer need a CBT (computer based training) or a WBT (web-based training)? What type of LMS does the customer have in their organization? What course authoring tools will integrate easily? Cover all platform compliance, SCORM and Section 508 issues here. 2) Determine Instructional Needs Understand and analyze the learning audience with the customer. This is the first step in determining instructional needs. Discuss the organization needs and expectations form the course. Establish the parameters and scope of the content that needs to be converted into the eLearning course. 3) Course Design Now let’s refine our research further. In the context of this course, what are the "pre-course competencies" of the learning audience? In short, what do they know already? What are the course objectives and test items declared by the SME? Create the course outline, divide it into sections and present it to the customer and SME for approval. Create a Detailed Design Document that demonstrates learning interactions, themes, activities and navigation logic. 4) Create a Prototype Create a quick prototype using a graphic tools like Visio, which looks like a final course. It should include the following: Recruit talent to play characters. Write a partial script. Shoot photographs, and record audio (narration and characters). Creating a look-and-feel and sound treatment, and produce graphics, animations, sound effects, and music for the partial script. 5) Conduct a Pilot Invite the customer with a sample of learners to test this initial prototype. Record their feedback and integrate the changes in the prototype. 6) Storyboarding / Scriptwriting Using sticky notes or other papers, label and number them and create interactive scripts and branching scenarios using the content. Note: here you will reinforce or enhance the content that you highlighted in step 1 with the customer. 7) Produce Media Produce video, create graphics, shoot photographs, record talent voices, score and record music and sound effects. If you don’t have the equipment or resources to produce media, consider subscribing to media providing services. Purchase photographs, voice talent, graphics etc. 8) Produce Courseware Assemble the media in the form of mp3, jpg, wmv etc, in your course authoring tool. 9) Test Course Review the course for adherence to the scope and objectives, quality of media, any typing and grammar errors, and software bugs or glitches. Make appropriate corrections to the course based on customer feedback. 10) Customize the LMS Customize the learning management system to run the course smoothly for the customer. This step deals with a CD-ROM based LMS or a web-based LMS depending on the request of the customer. 11) Write Manual Write Course Administrator’s Manual and Systems Administrator’s Manual to describe the purpose and administration of the course from both training and IT perspectives. It is advisable to hold a meeting with the customer with their facilitators and IT administrators at this stage. 12) Beta Review of Courseware Present tentatively finished courseware to the customer for review. This stage will determine how close or far you are from completing your project! 13) Final Changes and Testing Make any final changes and corrections to the eLearning course based on the Beta Review feedback. 14) Test Lab Pilot at Customer Site Now is the stage where you bring the completed project to the customer’s IT Department for installation and testing. Configure and verify the complete enterprise-wide deployment functionality. 15) Installation and Configuration Install and configure to go live on the web-based LMS or distribute CD-ROMs to individuals for a computer based LMS. 16) Train the Facilitators Orientation of the customer’s IT staff and facilitators to the eLearning project and possibly the LMS to be used for learner collaboration. 17) Roll Out Implement the training and advertise the eLearning course. Record any issues and integrate into the development of the eLearning course. A successful eLearning course is developed by incremental improvements! 18) Measure ROI and Evaluate the Course Use the data and metrics that gauge the effectiveness of the eLeanring program available through the LMS and surveys to determine ROI of the training. Determine all issues and feedback and create the next version of this course. The post The 18 Essential Steps of a Course Design appeared first on eFront Blog.

Scenario-based eLearning is quickly becoming the main focus of eLearning design. This is owing to the fact that eLearning programs are required to emulate the real-world/job context of the learner. You depict the real world by adding scenarios to your eLearning courses. Here are 5 effective ways to ensure your scenarios are convincing and yield authentic responses from your learners. If you have sought the services of a SME, hold on to them tight! Offer more coffee and donuts and don’t let them go easily While we are not making a stalker out of you, we are trying to explain the power of expert scenarios in developing your eLearning courses. SME’s are out there, in the battlefield, facing real challenges in the real world. You may have the best content, through extensive research and the best practices knowledge. You may have consolidated all concepts beautifully in your eLearning project, but believe us, it might still not take off! More and more line managers suffer with frustration over employees not delivering according to the eLearning training they just completed! Why?Because most eLearning programs fail to integrate with the real world. Each organization has unique performance problems in mundane routine-work. These problems are directly related to performance goals. When such performance problems persist, the organization faces failure to accomplish its operational and strategic goals. ELearning trainings need to address the organization’s goals in such a way that they are achieved despite all performance hurdles. When we talk about an organization’s culture-specific problems, and bring them into our eLearning programs, we are actually action-mapping. We tap into a problem, we pull it into the eLearning program through images and dialogues (scenarios) and we give learners a few choices to make to rectify the problem. So what are we trying to accomplish in our eLearning program through our precious SME? Ask him/her of their experience in detail regarding a recurring performance problem and also its desirable solution. Now make that part of your eLearning program. Not only that, ask your SME to talk about several real world problems and their desirable solutions. Now put them to life in your eLearning courses. Consider this example: A member of your team is often an hour late to work on Monday mornings. What should you do? A. Ask the team member why they’re late. B. Refer the team member to the human resources for counseling. C. Dock the team member’s pay for the missed hour of work. This question, if posed in an eLearning program is a no-brainer! Really! It does not talk about the context of the problem and neither are the characters believable. How could we improve this question? Let’s add flesh to this question. You will end up with a convincing, real-world scenario for your eLearning program. If you ask yourself: What is the context of this problem? The above question is weak. It doesn’t tell us who did what and in which context. Suppose the strategic goal of the organization is to reduce employee absenteeism by 70% in the first quarter. With this goal in mind, you need to create an eLearning program for managers, who control employee attendance and performance. The manager will be responsible to modify the behavior of a late-coming employee. Encourage managers with this slogan "When a team member consistently fails to reach a standard, encourage them to share why they’re struggling." Consider this altered question for the scenario: Jamie has worked on your team for two years. In the last one month, he’s arrived an hour late on each Monday. He doesn’t seem as cheerful as he used to be, and a couple of times you’ve noticed that his eyes appear bloodshot. Jamie is married, and had a baby three months ago. You chipped in money for his baby shower! You ask Jamie to come into your office after lunch. When he arrives, his eyes look bloodshot again, and he looks uneasy. How do you start the conversation? A. "You’ve been a great member of the team for two years, so I’m surprised that you’ve started coming in late. Is something going on?" B. "I’ve noticed that you’re coming in late on Mondays, and I’d like to help you get back on track. What can we do to help you get here on time?" C. "I want you to know that no matter what the situation might be, I’m here to help. Could you help me understand why you’ve been coming in late?" There you go! Isn’t this a much better way to pose a scenario? You can use an office setting with a character cut out of a young man for Jamie and one of an older guy for the manager. The characters and dialogues are much more believable. Why so? 1. We gave people names, which in a way also gives them a face. Your learners will try to place a Jamie in their life. Jamie immediately comes to life. Your learner will be able to empathize with him! 2. We provided cues that may or may not be relevant — the bloodshot eyes, the changed mood, the baby born 3 months ago. Management challenges occur in the real world! 3. We put people’s words in quotation marks, creating a layer of voice and an added dimension of reality. Now your eLearners can hear Jamie talk to his manager. 4. Finally, another cue that we wrote a more challenging question is that it’s not obvious (to me, at least) which answer is correct. We have phrased the correct answer in a way that it seems attractive and "selectable"! 5. Again, we asked the SME to tell us in detail when employees come late and how managers address the issue. Without SME, we could not have crafted such detailing in our scenario! Scenario building is actually action-mapping. By creating eLearning programs through action-mapping, you create efficient and effective courses that yield better performance. Your eLearning programs are no good if they fail to make behavior changes in your learners. Find out what is really bothering a team before creating an eLearning program for them! The post Ways to Action-Map your eLearning Scenarios appeared first on eFront Blog.

No matter how experienced an Instructional and/or eLearning Designer you are, there will always be room for improvement. An eLearning course is still raw material until you fill that room. How do you do that? Simply by asking the best people: the learners who have taken your course. In this post, we will look at the 5 parameters you will need to take into consideration when you set up a post-course evaluation. Learning Expectations Anyone accessing an eLearning course has certain expectations with regards to its learning objectives and the topics covered. Getting an insight into those expectations can help you change or improve the way you advertise your course and include material that you, deliberately or not, omitted. Examples: How close was the course to what you expected? How satisfied are you with the material covered? Content eLearning content has to be engaging and fun. But, most importantly, it needs to reflect in the clearest manner possible the learning objectives as set by the SME. We always take for granted that a good instructional design will inevitably lead to this result, but we can never be sure until our learners confirm it. Examples: Did you find the content of the course sufficient? Was the material of the course clear and easy to understand? Rate the content based on how engaged you felt throughout the course. Timing A good eLearning course does not need to be long. In a fast pacing environment, 20-30 minutes is enough time for someone to be adequately trained on a particular subject. Having said that, it is still possible to receive a good rating for a course that is longer than usual, provided it is captivating. Examples: How long do you believe it took you to complete the course? Do you think the course should be shorter, the same or longer? Interactivity Α plain and flat presentation of the eLearning material is always a no-no. Instructional Designers do know that, but this doesn’t always mean that they never give in, especially when they have to deliver numerous courses in a short period of time. On the other extreme, there’s always the risk of adding too much interactivity, making the course nothing but wearisome and repetitive. Examples: Do you feel you had an active role in this eLearning experience? Did you remain concentrated throughout the course? Overall experience This is the section you are likely to check out first when you take the evaluations back. This parameter will measure the final impression the learner acquired. Even if they found the course longer than needed or less engaging than expected, they can still rate it high. Do your quantitative and qualitative analysis and start working towards an update. Examples: Rate your overall eLearning experience. List three reasons why you think that this course was helpful. Suggest three things you would like to see changed in this course. Conclusion The most interesting thing with post-course evaluations is that you receive feedback you might not have expected. It is insightful and positive to hear back from your target audience and this is why you should always implement a post-course evaluation. Tip: for even better results, bring together an evaluation group during the beta stage of the eLearning course development, prior to rolling it out to the market. The post 5 parameters to measure in a post eLearning course evaluation appeared first on eFront Blog.

You’ve acquired a Learning Management System. You’ve been sold a "Just In Time" eLearning tool that, apparently, anyone can use. You have a laptop full of tired old PowerPoint presentations that are churned out every time there’s a need for another induction course, fire safety training or anything else that’s boring, but mandatory. So, all that’s needed now is to find a cheap and willing resource - maybe an intern, or a trainer who doesn’t perform too well in the classroom - to spend a few weeks converting them to eLearning. The result will be a library of courses that can be used over and over again at no cost, reducing training time, delivering key objectives and driving business growth. Right? Well, not quite. Hidden within this scenario are some of the most common and costly mistakes that training managers can make when trying to roll out eLearning on the cheap. 1. Don’t simply re-use existing course content It’s certainly possible to create eLearning courses internally based on existing resources, and there’s no reason why existing PowerPoint presentations, or extracts from recorded webinars shouldn’t play a part in this. But, an eLearning course isn’t the same as face to face training. There’s usually no teacher present to involve, engage, excite and motivate the students, or to pick up the signs that someone doesn’t understand something, or isn’t being stretched. The design of the material has to do all this - and that isn’t a job for a novice. Today’s eLearning authoring tools are certainly very easy to use technically - but they’re much more difficult to use effectively to promote learning. For that, you really need the services of an eLearning professional, with real experience of talking to relevant stakeholders, learning needs analysis and instructional design. 2. Don’t overlook the importance of objectives eLearning courses, like any other training interventions really do need clear objectives. Otherwise, there’s no way of knowing whether they are working, and whether they are going to lead to real improvements in business performance, or tick the right regulatory compliance boxes. Objectives need to state clearly what the learner will be able to do at the end of the course - not what they will "understand", "be aware of" or "appreciate". They don’t always have to be in the form of a traditional list -"At the end of this course, the learner will be able to …" - they might be hidden in games, or real life scenarios, or online role playing exercises. The instructional designer will need to know the target audience to figure out what will work best. But, without any clear objectives, the course is likely to flounder, meander and not really deliver. 3. Don’t make everyone follow the same path A common mistake when first designing an eLearning course, especially if the content is taken from a PowerPoint presentation is simply to use the first module or section as the model for everything else. However, the first module for a face to face course isn’t always the best introduction to an eLearning course - and there’s no reason to force all learners to go through the course in the same order. Some may already be familiar with some topics and want to concentrate on new content. Others may spot a topic they recognize and want to start with that. In many courses, there’s no right or wrong way to work your way through the content, so make sure your course structure doesn’t impose one unnecessarily. 4. Don’t overfill the course with too much content One of the temptations in writing an eLearning course is to include anything and everything that might be useful. Different stakeholders will want to ensure that their pet topics are included, and no-one will be willing to compromise. The result is a cluttered course, full of unnecessary information, tangential issues and volumes of content that don’t really offer any real-world benefits. Stop. Re-read the objectives - what new skills do you want users to achieve? What actually needs to be in the course, and what might be better provided in the form of links to PDF documents, existing internet or intranet content or other resources. Don’t overfill the course - and don’t overfill the screen either! Some experts on presentation skills counsel against ever having more than half a dozen words on the screen at once. Elearning courses can save time, but only if they are carefully crafted to make the best use of learners’ attention. In Part 2, we’ll look at six more important mistakes to avoid. The post 10 Common mistakes when developing and delivering an eLearning course: Part 1 appeared first on eFront Blog.

There is always a gray line between using original ideas and adding your own to them to create a new idea AND to use the original idea as it is. While attribution is needed in both scenarios, people often don’t attribute when deriving an original work and labeling it as their own. In this article, we will share the latest updates on the correct way to derive existing material for your courses and how to attribute them legally. With your eLearning courses serving the international student body, it is better to be safe than sorry! I can recall many instances of copyright infringement in terms of derivative works on an international level. With the world still undivided on the language frontier, derivative works are more common than we can imagine. Having read so many Stephen King, Sydney Sheldon, Nora Roberts and many others, I feel a sense of déjà vu when I see a derivative movie based on the novel. Many times, the author of the book on which the movie is based is never mentioned. This tells me that the movie producers had purchased exclusive rights to the "originality" of the idea of the movie. On the contrary, movies like Harry Porter and Lord of the Rings famously attribute derivative works to their authors, linking the movies intimately to them. This invariably helps with marketing, especially if the movie is made as a series. The basic criteria for creating derivative works According to the US Copyright Protection documents, there are two ways in which a copyright work can be derived for commercial use: 1. Receive permission from the original author on copyright works for derivation. 2. Derive works that are a part of public domain. These are the instances of the different types of derivative works and their examples: A motion picture based on a play or novel (Pride and Prejudice) A translation of a novel written in English into another language (Inkheart by German author Cornelia Funke) A revision of a previously published book (The Bible Testaments) A sculpture based on a drawing (Statue of Liberty) A drawing based on a photograph (Artists impressions on photographs) A lithograph based on a painting (example of Presidents Obama’s lithograph in the YouTube Derivative Works (in Copyright Law) A drama about John Doe based on the letters and journal entries of John Doe (Movie based on the diary of Abraham Lincoln) A musical arrangement of a preexisting musical work (background music copied by different countries to compose songs in their own language) A new version of an existing computer program (simplified computer programs for children) An adaptation of a dramatic work (The remake of the movie Cinderella) A revision of a website (customizing a website for personal business) An overview of the documents and circumstances that allow materials to be found in the public domain Items usually falling in the public domain are historical works of deceased authors. These are archived works found in libraries and online repositories. Many authors create original work only to share it with the public for free use. These are mainly for educational purposes. Latest works in the public domain can also be used for marketing a cause or a business. Several "open source" computer programs build and maintain a community of programmers who constantly use the software and improve it based on their needs. A good place to find how original and copyright works enter the public domain is at the online site: Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States 1 January 2015. Research concerning exclusive right to create derivative works; especially derivative works delivered in an online environment The copyright for derived works based on copyrighted material or public domain material is limited to the "spin off" material. Any work that is new or original in the derived work can receive copyright. A very good example here is the derivative works based on extant research literature on any topic. In the field of education, many researchers have improved or built upon the research experiments of previous authors. We see them attributing the previous authors rigorously throughout their work. We also see them presenting their original discoveries based on previous researches. Most of the journals with these examples are available online through membership. An interesting practice when using two different research papers created by the same author in different times, is to attribute their work using their name as - Collins (2000) and Collins (2015). Perhaps the online environment has the most strict rules in attributing copyright works. Public domain works attributed in copyright works are to be attributed in the exact same way as they appear in the paper being used for a study. The several formats of citing and attributions like APA, MLA, Chicago and Harvard to name a few, stress the significance of attributing all works in an appropriate manner. All newly created derivative works need to declare the new material amended to the original works, the year of completion, the time of publication (distribution of derivative works) and the names of the original as well as the authors who re-created the work. Make sure you create this information for your eLearning courses for legal safety of your organization. Analysis of special considerations for educational institutions The main issues in the online educational environment is the translation of an original course into the local language. Local institutions that provide translations of original notes and lectures from international institutes need to declare the original authors to their students. This will promote fair use of the material. It will also encourage the students to look for more material created by the original author. Institutes should also educate their students of the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988: The Berne Convention formally mandated several aspects of modern copyright law; it introduced the concept that a copyright exists from the moment that a work is "fixed", rather than requiring registration. It also enforces a requirement that countries recognize copyrights held by the citizens of all other signatory countries. Knowledge of international fair use of copyright works will encourage you to develop and distribute their own research work with confidence. For an educational or a research institute to be safe from any legal sanctions dealing with copyright laws, the practice of investigating the copyright status of each item used should be made common. Make sure that your eLearners receive reminders and short tutorials on citing copyright material appropriately. In fact, create a short tutorial on copyright and derivative works to be included in your learning management system for free viewing! The post Attributing Derivative Works in your eLearning Courses appeared first on eFront Blog.

It is with a certain sadness that we announce that we shall stop further development for the 3.6 branch of eFront by the end of 2015; this affects the open-source edition of eFront as well. Our team will focus on eFrontPro, our reshaped vision for the next-generation LMS. We will keep supporting customers of Educational and Enterprise eFront editions up to the end of 2016. We shall also offer ample opportunities to upgrade to eFrontPro during this period. References, downloads and support material for the open-source edition will be transferred to a new web-site during the next couple of weeks. I would like to take this opportunity to talk a bit about eFront Open-Source. At this moment we do not have any plans to offer an Open-Source version based on eFrontPro core. It’s not that we don’t like Open-Source. We really do. Heck, eFront was built on top of several Open-Source projects, from PHP to MYSQL. It’s just that merely giving a project away as Open-Source is not enough. Open-Source is not about the license, it’s about the community that is created around a project. In the case of eFront, while there was some interest in the FOSS edition, and we’d have loved to see a large community develop around it, there was never a huge uptake. Whatever the reason for that, rather than keep piling up new editions of eFront FOSS to linger in open source limbo in some code repository, we decided to pull the plug, and focus all our efforts and resources on the commercial version of eFrontPro. Of course, existing FOSS-licenced eFront releases will continue to remain FOSS indefinitely, so if you’re happy with those you can install them as always and build upon them to your heart’s content. We would like to thank each and every one of you that spread the word about eFront FOSS, helped with suggestions, bug fixes and translations or with direct support to other fellow users via the open-source forum. We had a good 8-year run. And for those that want to convert to a commercial offering, eFrontPro is a radically more modern, user-friendly and capable product that only gets better with each passing day. The post Announcing the end-of-life for eFront 3.6 branch, including eFront Open-Source appeared first on eFront Blog.