138 Tips on How to Save Time, Money, and

Transcription

138 Tips on Saving Time, Money & Sanity in Your eLearning
© 2014 by The eLearning Guild. All rights reserved.
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138 Tips on Saving Time, Money &
Sanity in Your eLearning
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Forty-nine Tips on Saving Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Project Management Time-saving Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Graphics and Media Time-saving Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Content Time-saving Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Working with SMEs Time-saving Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Authoring and Tools Time-saving Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Instructional Design Time-saving Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Forty-five Tips on Saving Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Project Management Cost-saving Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Graphics and Media Cost-saving Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Content Cost-saving Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Working with SMEs Cost-saving Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Authoring and Tools Cost-saving Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Instructional Design Cost-saving Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Forty-four Tips on Saving Your Sanity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Project Management Sanity-saving Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Graphics and Media Sanity-saving Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Content Sanity-saving Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Working with SMEs Sanity-saving Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Authoring and Tools Sanity-saving Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Instructional Design Sanity-saving Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Work Life and External Resources Sanity-saving Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
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Introduction
Dear Colleagues,
Time, money, sanity: They always seem to be in short supply. So what can you do
when you’re running low on one of them … or all three?
Certainly one of the best things you can do is turn to your fellow members of The
eLearning Guild. When we asked our members to share their best tips for saving
time, money, and sanity, they provided a wealth of information … from nitty-gritty details about how to make sure you don’t go overbudget on voiceover talent to
making your amateur video look polished, from knowing what to do in-house and
what to spend money on to recognizing the individual strengths of stock photo
sources, there are tips here that can help with a wide range of issues.
I hope you find many valuable tips in this eBook, and are able to use the advice
right away to save time, money, and your sanity. I also hope to hear from you
the next time The eLearning Guild invites its members to contribute tips—we’re
always impressed by the thoughtful, creative ideas shared with us.
Sincerely,
Karen Forni
Publications Manager, The eLearning Guild
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Forty-nine Tips on Saving Time
Those of us without a time machine are constantly rushing to finish our
projects; these suggestions might be able to help. From the simplicity of
using templates to bypassing your SME to go straight to the source, our
contributors have found creative ways for you to save time.
Project Management Time-saving Tips
When you are working on multiple tasks or projects, set a timer so you make
yourself efficient on what you do. This way you don’t end up spending too many
hours going back and forth on different things.
Grace Gil, Petco
If you want to save time (and money) on your eLearning projects, you’re going to
have to do something counterintuitive. The temptation is to rush, rush, rush and
even skip steps to try to get to the finish line faster. The problem is, more often
than not you’ll end up wasting time, not saving it. Worse yet, you may end up with
unusable eLearning because you assumed you knew what the learners needed
and were mistaken, or you thought everyone would have broadband access and
too late you find out that there are learners still on dial-up. Make sure you don’t
skip those crucial analysis steps and that you don’t jump into developing the
learning before determining its design. Rework will not cause you to get the job
done faster, and too often, rushing will prove the old adage, “Haste makes waste.”
Joe Ganci, eLearning Joe
Double or triple geek—i.e., use two or three computers simultaneously when
working. Screen sizes are limited, and it takes time to switch between applications. When you get a new computer, keep the old one as it will be fine for word
processing (documenting design work, etc.).
Jeremy Hall, Hall Marketing
Make certain that the procedures you are capturing are already developed on
paper and signed off on prior to development.
Gayle Steinman, Michaels
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I believe time is money. The outcome of analysis needs to be robust and involve
only the representatives from important functions. Define and document requirements and standards (if any), get a sign-off from the client or pilot learner,
and then begin the actual development. Set benchmarks for the team to meet
and give them tools and facilities to be their best. The team could also start prototyping during the business requirements phase, and thus be able to showcase
the intended outcome. This reduces scope creep to a great extent.
Ali Ahamed Thamejudeen, Allscripts Corporation
Save time by getting upfront buy-in of the user who wants you to create the
eLearning. There’s nothing worse than spending time going down a path that
doesn’t meet the customer’s needs!
Karen Loftus, AZ School Boards Association
Have clear documented content (subject matter) and instructional design in
place before commencing to develop eLearning modules. Figuring out midway
leads to a lot of time loss—which you may sometimes realize too late.
Hemanth Kumar, XLPro Training Solutions
With the right learning-management system (LMS), you can automate administrative tasks (classroom and eLearning), support internally hosted and externally
hosted eLearning content, integrate digital resources in multiple formats, and
move towards “portable” LMS for an agile workforce.
It’s essential you purchase the right tool for your organization. Here are seven
questions you should ask before buying an LMS:
1. Is it easy to implement? You want a system that can be up and running
relatively quickly and is in line with your rollout plan. This will reduce the
overall cost of ownership, and you avoid getting bogged down in a drawnout implementation phase.
2. Is it easy to customize and configure? Every organization is different, so it is
important that the LMS you select can match the way you work and not the
other way around.
3. Is it secure? You want to be completely sure that the selected LMS is secure
and that the learner’s personal and financial data is safe.
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4. Is in-depth reporting available? As usage builds over time, colleagues and
management will want access to useful data such as compliance levels or
performance appraisals.
5. Does it have strong functionality? This is a key area many organizations get
caught on and become locked into using a particular LMS due to the amount
of additional development time they have paid for.
6. Is it scalable? You want to select an LMS that can grow in line with your
organization and your learning and development strategy.
7. Do you want to work with this vendor? You’re going to be working closely
with your LMS provider, so it’s important to select a partner you will enjoy
working with.
Ciara Cunningham, Aurion Learning
Graphics and Media Time-saving Tips
Read your script out loud before sending it to voiceover talent; it helps you find
odd sentences.
Monk Schane-Lydon, monksvoice.com
Provide a pronunciation guide to the voiceover talent, especially for regionalisms.
Monk Schane-Lydon, monksvoice.com
Use GoAnimate.com to rapidly create animated video and use internal people to
do the voiceover and insert it.
Stephanie Van Den Biggelaar, Alberta Health Services
If your organization ever records people practicing new skills, such as coaching,
interviewing, or influencing, use this audio or video material as source material
for your eLearning. You can ask learners to analyze the interaction or use it to
demonstrate model performance.
Eric Kammerer, Domino’s Pizza
Use resources in the organization to record audio for your courses. Ask if anyone
has a hobby related to recording audio, such as singing in a band, radio work, or
maybe someone who simply has a great recording voice. Train that person how to
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use simple audio recording freeware such as Audacity (audacity.sourceforge.net)
and provide them with audio recording tips. Provide them with an audio script
for your course and a deadline for recording. Using this method you do not have
to be present when your audio talent is recording, saving you time. You also avoid
having to pay for expensive audio talent.
Kimberly Read, MasterCard
If your course requires customized graphics or animations, sketch the idea on
paper before you begin your graphic design. Use your smart phone or tablet to
take a picture of your sketch and include it in your storyboard for your client to
approve. This allows you to make sure your client agrees with the concept of the
graphic or animation before you invest time creating it.
Larla Bogle, AT&T
If you need screen captures for your training, ask a subject matter expert to capture the images for you using a simple image-capture application such as Snagit
(techsmith.com/snagit.html). Provide them with a storyboard that includes a
detailed description of the screen you need and specifications for the images
such as size and file format. Ask them to capture the images by a deadline that
provides you time to edit the images as needed.
Content Time-saving Tips
Audit and keep an inventory of all your content, especially when developing for
several audiences. This will save time (and possibly money!) by being able to efficiently reuse content and avoid duplicating development efforts.
Justin Wong, Oracle Eloqua
This one actually will save you both time and money and also the sanity of learners. Always focus on delivering variety in your content while keeping navigation
and other global screen elements consistent. Some eLearning designers think
that eLearning should be like a media-rich video game, where just figuring out
how to navigate at every level is a major and different challenge. Remember that
learners are there to learn the content, not try to figure out what those buttons
mean at the bottom of the screen. Use consistency in your navigation and in
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lesson approaches while spicing up your eLearning by making it challenging and
interesting. You’ll save time and money and keep your learners focused.
Send content material before any training event (virtual or other) via email in PDF
format and ask participants to read it and be ready for an evaluation. In the event
(eLearning or class), start with specific evaluation from facilitator or eLearning
course about the content. It allows all stakeholders to save time and money.
Germán París, PyB
When assigning a social-media assignment (such as “Find X links of interest and
post them to Twitter, G+, or Facebook using the following #hashtag”), I always
ask the students to keep track of their own interactions and to provide the URL
of their posts so they can submit an aggregate of those in an assignment in the
LMS. It saves me from having to use a checklist to make sure I properly give
credit to every learner for every micro-interaction, and makes learners accountable for claiming their points on their own work.
Mathieu Plourde, University of Delaware
Create and use your own design and development templates. I always use the
same document types and construction: design plans, objective worksheets,
detailed outline/storyboard, image lists, scripts, and others. I created a basic
document of each type (including some generic “boilerplate” text and additional
sections). These master documents are saved in their own folder. Whenever I
start a new project, I simply copy the master documents into the project folder.
This has saved me tons of time.
Mary Vivit, Fairchild Semiconductor
The best tip is, “Stick to the basics.” To do that, you need to know the content you
have to work with. Try these with the content you have: Is the content already
well structured and has it been extensively used in some form of training or other? If the answer is yes, then perhaps you don’t need to spend time in chunking
and validating the flow with the key stakeholders. If the content is extensive but
with gaps, don’t wait for the gaps to be filled. Instead, proceed with the SB or design document and present to your stakeholders. They will appreciate and relate
to the gap as they go through it. There are very good chances that the input they
provide will be more valuable than you thought. If the content is too scattered or
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there is no content, go for workshops, finalize, and get a sign-off on the content.
This will save a lot of time in the future by avoiding multiple iteration rounds. This
approach also holds true for a situation where you have multiple stakeholders.
With multiple stakeholders, the biggest challenge is to get buy-in from everybody. Phone calls and emails can be extremely tedious and frustrating owing to
fact that they all have their own schedule and priorities. The bottom line is: Man
is not a machine and the cognitive part of the brain can’t be automated. You have
to play with the process you have and build in efficiency within the process by
looking at what steps or parts of the process you can skip without hampering the
quality of the product.
Anurag Dayal, Infopro Learning
Utilize curation sites to save web links and documents for specific topics. The
more folders the better in order to be able to access specific information when
needed. I use LiveBinders (livebinders.com) and Dropbox (dropbox.com) and
have found them to be beneficial timesavers when I need documents and/or websites for information and research.
Sandy Wagner, Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center
I have a Q&A personal wiki where I keep the answers to all the questions I have
been asked about the course content. I prefer not to share the wiki, and I maintain the personal connection with the students; that way I can find out if they
need more help when I give them an answer to their question. Most of the questions are on how to do something, so the answer is a step-by-step instruction,
and keeping this wiki saves me time as I can copy and paste the answer and add a
personal touch to it.
Rodolfo Siles, PM4DEV
Create your own publish-settings library. Screenshot your publish settings and
load it into a document for quick reference. Use previous modules to reference
your own best practices for your LMS. Example: 80% required, bookmarking,
three attempts Pass/Fail, % slide views, bookmarking off.
Sara Dickens, Childrens Hospital LA
Sometimes it can be difficult to coordinate timelines between the people who
produce online content (instructional designers, programmers, etc.) and the
people who distribute the content (LMS admins, etc.). Most distribution systems
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require some lead time to post and test content. Get a head start on this process
by producing a “stub” file. This file, created in your authoring tool and packaged
for SCORM, can contain a few opening pages, a summary page, and a few test
questions. Package it for SCORM, being careful to include all the metadata as if
this was the real release. LMS admins can post and test the stub while you work
on the rest of the content. What does this accomplish? It gets the course into the
appropriate system and tested for launch and completion. After you have filled
in the blanks, it is much easier for the LMS admin to replace the existing content,
quickly test, and you are on your way!
Arthur Wakefield, Western Union
Look before you leap! Lots of wonderful content is available on sites like The
eLearning Guild. Take a little time to study before you commence your projects. This
is a very fast-evolving world, and many new tools are emerging to make your task
easier! You will not only save a lot of time in development, but also enjoy it more!
It’s not always necessary to create reams of learning content to achieve learning
outcomes. The most successful eLearning content is short and concise. By identifying key learning points, and communicating them simply and with creative user
interactivity, you can achieve learning goals in little-to-no time. So, take our word
for it and cut course length—it will make your learning short, sharp, and strong!
Working with SMEs Time-saving Tips
I have found often, that it is considerably faster for me to learn course content on
my own (through study, job shadowing, etc.), than to wait for your SME to give
me the exact info I need. I know it sounds crazy, but just give it a try. If you are
designing training for tellers, go see what it’s like to be a teller for a week. You
will come back knowing what the difficulties are, what the branch environment
is like, what is most important for you to know, and what logical flow the training
should go through. Then, you can use your SME for the purpose of filling in the
details you didn’t have time to learn.
Nicole Boswell, Zions Bank
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I wish I’d known this when I first started. Do not fall for the old line that you
need to provide education for “off-shifts.” You might hear, “Weekenders feel so
left out!” But if you go to all the time and expense to offer a weekend time for a
course, no one will show up. You know why? BECAUSE THEY ARE WORKING!
The only reason you should ask your SME to come in at an off time, or rearrange
your own life to do it, is if management fully supports it in the following ways:
• It must be mandatory education with pre-registration and a stiff penalty for
no-shows
• It must absolutely require face-to-face brainstorming or introduction to
new equipment (and not just be something that they can read or watch a
video or PowerPoint about)
• You must be informed of the manager’s plan for covering learners’ work
while they are at your class
• You must be informed of the contingency plan if “they are just slammed”
and they rescind Step 1
Alice Peterson, LRHS
When you’re starting a new project and arranging that first meeting with subject
matter experts (SMEs), contact them and ask them to send any topic-related
documentation or existing training materials to you prior to the meeting. Review
all existing materials by yourself. When you’ve finished your review, make a list
of questions you have about the topic. Chances are learners have these same
questions or misconceptions after they complete training. Meet with your SMEs
and ask about each topic-related question on your list. They will be impressed
that you have already reviewed their materials and how prepared you appear.
You will have a good grasp of the challenges learners will have when trying to
independently learn the procedure or concepts and an excellent understanding
of any holes in the existing documentation.
Authoring and Tools Time-saving Tips
Use the quick-access toolbar (QAT) in PowerPoint when developing courses.
Each person can customize it to their exact needs. It saves you so much time
when you aren’t hunting and pecking around all the myriad menus, sometimes
four or five clicks deep, in PowerPoint. And they even let you put little dividers
between different sets of icons so you can arrange it to your optimal setup. I feel
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hobbled when I have to sit down and work at someone else’s machine and don’t
have my shortcuts at hand. Applying drop shadows, line widths, cropping, the animation pane, the selection pane, alignment ... the list goes on and on. I have about
25 must-haves and a few less-used but important shortcuts on the end. The QAT
saves me so much time each and every day.
John Goldie, Salesforce.com
For an ISD, learn the basics of how to use Photoshop or other graphics editing
software, and how to code in HTML5 (if you are producing web-based eLearning). That way, you can directly make minor edits on the fly without having to
throw them over the fence to your graphics person or programmer.
Peter Berking, ADL Colab
When working with an eLearning authoring tool that allows you to import slides
from other projects (such as Articulate Storyline), look for ways you can import
and rework slides rather than create new ones from scratch. For example, in a
project I am working on, we have six modules for the training program. In the first
module, we introduce three scenarios to demonstrate the concepts presented
in the module. These scenarios are continued through the rest of the modules.
I created a Scenarios Menu slide that allows the learner to click an image to go
to a scenario. There are a number of triggers on this slide to ensure the learner
reviews all three scenarios and to visually track which ones have been reviewed.
Once I created this slide for Module 1, I imported it into the subsequent modules. This was a huge time saver since all the triggers, variables, image states, and
conditions also imported with the slide, and I just had to do some slight edits to
the triggers based on the slides in the new module. I also did something similar
with quiz slides I had created in Module 1. We wanted a consistent look and feel
to the modules and quizzes, so importing was the best way to do it while also
saving a lot of time by not having to recreate the quiz slide as well as the triggers
I had created to provide response feedback. I just imported, edited the title and
onscreen text, and it was done. One thing to watch for though when you import
in Storyline is that you also import the Slide Master associated with the imported
slides. This will happen even if the imported Slide Master is the same as the Slide
Master you are using in your current project. Once I import, I change the layout
slide in the Project View so I am only using the ones I need and then go into View
Slide Master and delete the duplicates and/or the ones I am not using anymore.
David Hicks, RBC Royal Bank
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Customize your ribbon bar to save development time on your courses.
Mikki Teneyuca, TASBO
Build a learning/teaching tool affordance grid. It will save time setting up
successful learning environments. The grid needs to reflect tools (social media,
conference tools, device-specific tools like mobile apps) you have used in the
past, with learning affordances linked to each tool, along with a brief description
of the learner group who used it, a space indicating whether it worked or not, and
with which training it was implemented. Each time you build a new training solution or you adapt an old one, add new tool information to the grid. That way you
keep an overview of what you have used in the past, whether it worked, and with
whom it worked.
Inge Ignatia de Waard, Open University
If you take a course that has a creative interaction, use a capture tool, such as
Snagit or Captivate to record the interaction. Look through the interactions for
inspiration when you begin a new project. If you can locate the original designer,
do not hesitate to ask if they would be willing to share their coding or provide
you with course files you can use as a template. Imitation is the highest form of
flattery and is a great time-saver.
Larla Bogle, AT&T
Instructional Design Time-saving Tips
Make friends with the marketing team. They nearly always have style guides,
fonts, colors, templates for layout, and even image assets you can use. They’re
already paid for, and someone else already spent the time designing and purchasing those on-brand elements.
Lisa Cummings, Your Creative Groove
My instructional design work involves working in higher education to design
and develop online courses. This work involves handing off a good bit of the LMS
work to others, often interns, to do. It also involves working with subcontractors
to develop content in tools such as Storyline. Once this work is completed by the
intern or subcontractor, it comes back to me for review before moving on to the
next step. Often, edits need to be made, so instead of writing detailed emails with
explanations and screen captures, I’ve started creating screen recordings with
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audio as I review and point out what needs to be fixed. These screen recordings
require no editing since they are for an audience of one for short-term use. Not
only are these videos a time saver for me, the people I do them for say they are
very helpful because they get to see and hear exactly what I’m pointing out. As
needed, I provide explanations of how to do something as I am pointing out what
needs to be changed. There are a variety of tools which can be used to accomplish this video/audio review, but I use the video recording capability of Snagit
since I am not limited to the five-minute maximum length imposed by some of the
free tools. Using a shortcut created in Snagit to FTP the video/audio file to my
own remote server, I can then easily capture the link and provide it to my oneperson audience.
Donna Pepper, Pepper Tec
Prior to the event, provide eLearners with the opportunity to tour the “classroom” and see the tools that will be utilized during the event.
Erin Weber, the Institute of Internal Auditors
Decide on your color scheme, typeface, and design prior to creating slides. I have
created trainings in the past where I left a default font and then went back later
once I decided on a font. The problem with that, in my case, is that my training
was almost 100 slides with multiple paths. It is easy to miss a slide and a lot more
work to edit all of the slides after you have created them.
Rob Morgan, James Madison University
Repurpose development methods and code for new courses.
Michele Largman, Maxine Enterprises
Save time by getting organized with all of your design elements. Consider electronic folders for each aspect you use—images, photos, textures, people, company artwork, icons, design elements, etc. For example, in my design elements
folder, I have sub-folders with various PNG or JPG images of banners, arrows,
check marks, call-outs, chalkboard graphics, decorative elements, hand-drawn
boxes, and hand-drawn objects.
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Identify a measurable, performance-related goal for your training—this is the
most critical step in making sure your training content is lean and focused. It allows you to quickly determine what should be included in your training and what
you need to throw out—saving you time (and quite often, heated discussions with
your clients!).
Anita Falconer, Level Up Learning
Design activities—not content. Forget about writing pages and pages of information—there is an abundance of it out there on the Internet already. What your
learners need is a place to apply it! Design activities that mimic the real-life
settings in which they’ll need to apply what they’ve learned. Put any content that
is absolutely necessary for the learner to complete the activity in a job aid and
provide a link to it.
Anita Falconer, Level Up Learning
Start on paper! Making a storyboard or a flowchart for your training session before you start to use a software creation package will save you time in the long run.
Shelley Upton, Aberystwyth University
Create smaller modules for bigger impact.
The use of hashtags will make it easier for users to search for content, and easier
to find that topic in search. That is of course dependent on everyone involved in
the eLearning program agreeing to append a certain hashtag about a topic! If you
are not already using hashtags for eLearning, the first thing you need to do is create a hashtag identifying your subject, project, workshop, or any other topic you
want to track. Before you embark on a hashtag frenzy, you need to research what
you’re about to hashtag before you actually use it. You can use hashtag directory
search services like tagdef.com and hashtags.org to see if your desired hashtag
is in use. If you introduce hashtags into your eLearning early, it will also increase
learner and user engagement. Facebook has said that it would roll out additional
features, including trending hashtags, in the near future, so we will see then if
there are any additional benefits to the eLearning quest! Happy clicking!
13
As you write your storyboards, keep asking yourself, “Is this content necessary to
help the learner do what you want them to do on the job?” It will save you from
developing unnecessary screens.
Mary Gannon, MGM Learning
Have you ever spent too much time figuring out what to say on a particular storyboard screen? Next time, try sharing your ideas with a colleague, friend, and/or
family member. It is amazing how talking to someone with help you clarify what
you want to say. (It is amazing the ideas that can be gained from talking to children and/or young adults.)
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Forty-five Tips on Saving Costs
It’s the eternal struggle: How to produce the best work for the least
amount of money. You may think you’ve cut every bit of money you can,
but these tips may surprise you.
Project Management Cost-saving Tips
When I worked for a nonprofit healthcare system, I was the only ID for four hospitals. I established an internship program with an online university. I got 10 hours
a week from each instructional-design intern (per semester) and they got college
credit for doing the internship. The interns were all remote, so we didn’t have to
find space for them. We used free tools to communicate and share files. While I
did dedicate time to mentoring the interns, the benefit we got far outweighed the
time commitment on my part. Now that I have my own consulting business, I hire
some of my former interns to work for me! It’s a great way to identify talent.
Jeanne Bernui, Designs4Learning
Goals for eLearning projects must be “embedded” in organizational goals: sales
increase, territorial expansion, process reengineering, or any other. That way,
you will easily find the support and resources for eLearning initiatives.
Miguel Miní, PUCP
Reduce sales-rep travel costs by delivering training and product-marketing information via a live webcast instead of in a face-to-face training session. This also
reduces non-productive time, as the recorded version of the webcast is made
available online so your intended audience can view it when it’s most convenient
for them.
Renee Seker, BlueVolt
Start finding freelancers or smaller companies who develop eLearning for you;
they mostly are much cheaper than the average larger eLearning companies.
Frank de Wit, Learning2.nl
Build a generic decision tree to help you set up future learning. The generic decision tree will allow you to see what type of new learning needs to be set up, with
what tools, and what type of learning approach. Address the following options:
15
stakeholders involved, target group, training approach (e.g., peer-to-peer, oneto-many), main learning devices used by the target population (laptops, tablets,
smartphones), tools available in house, learning approach used, and success
indicators or learning goals.
Evaluate learning outcomes to focus on key business goals. To ensure you’re using your time and money wisely, it is important to evaluate your organization’s
learning from time to time. By comparing learning outcomes to the implementation cost, you will be able to enhance your decision-making when planning
eLearning and when managing current projects. Weighing the value of a particular eLearning project may seem obvious, but is often skipped over. Before implementing a new learning program, take the time to pin down results that you can
reasonably expect. Then when the training is in operation, you can assess whether or not the eLearning has achieved its objectives. In learning and development,
there are two types of data it is important to track: quantitative and qualitative
information.
The best way to track qualitative data is by speaking with staff about how they
have put the learning into practice and improved performance. Quantitative data
is the information often referred to by those infamous three little words; Return
on Investment (ROI). There are a number of challenges to overcome with using
ROI: 1) Choosing a technique or method to use; and 2) The length of time it can
take to assess the different criteria to measure to determine ROI. So is there a
rapid approach for an impatient world? Well yes, there are in fact two such approaches you can use: critical mistakes analysis (CMA) and fast-track proficiencies. Many organizations struggle to develop precise and meaningful ROI based
on classic accountants’ techniques because they rarely calculate the cost and
value of people’s time and efforts. By taking the time to analyze and evaluate
your organization’s eLearning, you will receive information that will allow you
to direct cash flow and effort towards learning that achieves results. This means
you will also gain the flexibility to shift training focus to key business areas.
Consider an open-source learning management system. When comparing opensource systems to proprietary systems, the functionality was richer, user experience was comparable, and price was not even close—open source was significantly
16
less expensive than other options. Even though we did not have the IT capability in
house to manage the system, we hired an eLearning consulting company to handle
the implementation and provide support, and still came out quite a bit ahead.
Jessica Butsky, Singh Management
Take the time to think about the bells and whistles that your organization needs
in an LMS. Don’t waste money on things that won’t be useful to your organization
or students.
Graphics and Media Cost-saving Tips
These days it costs a lot of money to obtain a stock-photo account. We all know
that images are required many times in eLearning lessons. To save money you
can do the following if you cannot afford a stock photo account: 1) Take photos
of staff members in different poses and with different facial expressions. Be sure
to get legal sign-off from them to be able to use their image. 2) Create your own
characters or backgrounds using PowerPoint, Illustrator, Photoshop, or Flash.
Creating your own images will save you a lot of money!
Cheryl Venhuizen, Health Care Service Corp./BCBS
If you don’t have high-quality video equipment, record a lower-quality video with
a cheap camcorder or smartphone and insert the video into your course with
either a YouTube or surveillance camera look. This makes it look like the cheaper
video quality was on purpose.
Instead of buying expensive A/V equipment, I use my library card to check out
the equipment free and rent a recording studio.
Melissa Ennis, Advanced Energy
Collect your stock photos. Buy photos with no restriction to use. Use an iPad to
take talking-head type of video. Use self-portrait video, if possible.
Isabella Lam, PwC
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Use PowerPoint for prototyping, visual screen design, making your own graphics,
and user testing.
Vico van den Eventuin, Netherlands Army
It may seem a bit counterintuitive but we’ve found that using a professional
audio studio for recording and editing the narration and other sound we need
for course modules saves both time and money. The engineers work at a higher
hourly rate than our developers, but they are so much faster that it works out.
We can also count on them to deliver the files in the format we need and to maintain version control as the inevitable revisions roll in.
Joel Copeland, KMi Learning
Don’t pay for voice talent twice! You might be tempted to go with someone’s rate
instead of ability (in narrating, acting, editing, and experience) and wind up paying to have the voiceover redone because of amateur quality, long turnaround
times, or mistakes that need correcting. These are all time, money, and sanity
problems! Budget for voiceover, find your solid talent within that range, and trust
her or his ability to deliver. Once you find your talent(s), you can punt that part
without worry!
Diane Maggipinto, d3 voiceworks
If time allows you to gradually purchase images over a period of weeks, a subscription to a royalty-free service is generally less expensive than purchasing individual
images by the piece. Usually subscription services charge a flat fee for a period
rather than a piece-by-piece fee. This typically calculates out to be less expensive
per image than buying one image at a time. Storyboard all the instruction and make
a complete list of all the images you need, particularly if you need several images
for a curriculum or series of learning events. Then purchase a one-month subscription to a royalty free site where you can download several images each day.
Instead of purchasing images for photo-real courses, consider asking if there is
someone in the organization with a talent for photography. Sometimes photographers moonlight on the side and will be willing to stage and take photos for less
cost than it would be to purchase images from an image website. This method
can also improve the instruction, particularly if you need to capture the actual
equipment, context, or facility where the instructed performance takes place.
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Explore the differences across different stock imagery providers. For example,
iStockPhoto (istockphoto.com) images average 1 to 15 credits per purchase (and
even more if you require a high-quality, high-resolution image). Each credit costs
about $1.50. Shutterstock (shutterstock.com) images all cost one credit which
is about $5. If you need a high-resolution image or an expensive vector-icon set,
you’re better off buying from Shutterstock. If you need a web-resolution image,
you can get one inexpensively through iStockPhoto. And remember, when purchasing credit packs from a stock-image company, check RetailMeNot
(retailmenot.com) for discount codes.
Crystal Rose, The eLearning Guild
Use your own camera and a couple of staff members to take meaningful and
relevant photos. It’s easy to find photos on the web, but the copyright could be
an issue. But make sure you get some kind of agreement in writing from the staff
about how the photos will be used.
Annette Deligny, Warringah Council
Professional audio talent can be expensive. When using voice talent to record
audio, negotiate free retakes in your contract. If you can’t do that, record voice
later in the process when it appears the script has been validated and approved.
Heather Porterfield, National Institute for School Leadership
Save money in the long run by reading the fine print on the media you purchase
and/or use. Verify you can use it in the commercial (or other) format you plan
to use it. And don’t mess with fudging on the use of a designer’s copyright: Give
acknowledgment where appropriate.
If you have no funds to purchase a lighting kit when shooting a “talking head”
video, rely on these two no-cost tips:
• Don’t have an individual stand directly in front of the wall. Have them step
forward a couple of steps so they are maybe two feet away from the wall. This
will eliminate a shadow behind them and makes your video look much better.
• Take an ordinary desk lamp (without the shade) and set it about a foot in
front of the person. This helps balance out the lighting from above and can
eliminate the shadows below a person’s nose, eyes, etc. This simple tip really makes a difference in the video quality.
Melanie Sobie, Wisconsin Department of Corrections
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Content Cost-saving Tips
To increase the shelf-life of the eLearning, always keep industry dynamic information such as pricing information out of the eLearning content. Share that
information as a URL link to the source content or as a downloadable resource
such as a job aid that you can easily replace in the eLearning package.
Maria Leggett, Time Warner Cable
Our company uses a virtual learning environment (VLE). We use it for online
content and file storage with a range of files from documents to video. Using a VLE
means all our documents are secure (we can restrict access or open files up to individuals, groups, or the public) and we can access everything from anywhere in the
world. The files on the VLE are always current—so no more non-current copies—
and we’ve saved a fortune in printing costs. We have no need to maintain our own
web server—another saving. Among other things, we have an online chat facility
and shareable calendar. Altogether, this is a real saving in money, time, and sanity!
Allison Allen, Outstream Consulting
Don’t have a big budget for professional voiceover? NeoSpeech (neospeech.com)
is an awesome and very realistic sounding text-to-speech software. We have
saved over $10,000 a year on our voiceover work.
Terri LoGiudice, the Wendy’s Company
Utilize the collection of free images in Microsoft Office Clip Art without having
your images look too much like clip art. Choose an image, ungroup it (applicable
images only), remove any parts of the image you do not want (background, objects, other people, etc.), change the colors on the clip art to customize it for your
project, regroup the image and you’re done. You get a customized image free
without having a clip-art feel to it.
In order to save money down the road, whatever you create for the web, be it
eLearning or simply content for information, make it WCAG (web content accessibility guidelines) compliant! You won’t regret it!
Guy Levert, Shared Services Canada
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Finding your images—firstly, it is important to clarify that you can’t copy and upload images from Google. If you don’t have a bank of images, you can find images
at commercial sites such as shutterstock.com, istockphoto.com, or 123RF.com.
If you would like to find free images, you can use the Creative Commons area on
123RF.com or stock.xchng.org. You can also use the Flickr search tool Compfight
(Compfight.com) to help you search for photos that you can use. Remember to
read the guidelines on proper attribution! If you want to add your own text to
the photo to illustrate a point you can use an online editing tool like PicMonkey
(PicMonkey.com) or iPiccy.com.
You certainly don’t need to spend any extra money to create high-quality eLearning content. To spice up your next project, use a few features you already have easy
access to. You can do this by focusing on the style and look of the eLearning content. Try creating a greater visual effect by applying different font types and sizes.
For example, use a larger font size for the first word of each paragraph of content.
For instance, use a 16-point font size for the first word and a 12-point font size for
the rest of the words in the paragraph. To enhance this visual effect even further,
use a different font type and color for the first word of the paragraph. This is a
simple method, and it adds very little time to the development of your eLearning
project. More importantly it is free, which is one amount that fits into any budget.
Charlotte Morris, Pepco Holdings
Working with SMEs Cost-saving Tips
Consider rapid prototyping and/or rapid authoring methods, especially when
there are various stakeholders or SMEs involved. This will allow all stakeholders
to see the progress and address any issues along the way, avoiding costly design
or treatment changes in traditional methods.
Tap into your network of internal experts by providing tools to empower employees to create their own training content. It’s amazing what people can do with a
smartphone or tablet to easily create video-training materials at little to no cost.
The key is to have an LMS with a powerful video management platform that lets
employees record and upload their own videos with no need for additional software or specialized editing and production skills.
Melissa Bathory, Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts
21
By organizing more in-house training, you can gain control and reduce your
organization’s expenditure on learning and development. Begin by identifying
who could write or design eLearning in-house (training team, subject matter
experts). Staff will need training on how to write for eLearning and how to use
rapid authoring tools. Writing for the web is different from writing for print. It
is important that content is concise, relevant, and necessary. Content should be
credible and consistent.
Authoring and Tools Cost-saving Tips
Purchase authorware that can serve several functions. For example, some
eLearning authorware has the ability to edit video and images and capture
screen recordings all within the same application. This is more cost effective than
purchasing several separate authorware applications that only serve one purpose, such as image editing only.
Before purchasing authorware, search for freeware that might fulfill all the functionality you need. Free audio-editing applications such as Audacity might serve
your needs just as well as audio editing applications that cost several hundred
dollars. Likewise, several free photo-editing applications could get you by without having to purchase expensive applications meant for professional graphic
artists that offer robust functionality you will never need.
If you haven’t had a go with Adobe Edge Animate to produce interactive animations, you might want to; it’s surprisingly intuitive to use. It even has built-in
tutorials to lead you through the functionalities! If you have a need for animated
content that you’d normally outsource, give this app a trial and see if you can get
up-to-speed with it quickly. You might be pleasantly surprised.
Tom Marshall, CQ TAFE
Subscribe to The Rapid eLearning Blog by Tom Kuhlmann (articulate.com/rapidelearning/). You will discover many tips on creating your own clip art, developing
backgrounds, locating free eLearning tools, and much more. Not only will you
save money but you will save time.
Barb Herman, IAPMO
22
Use available open-source resources. Do course development using soft chalk,
animation, and free web development platforms.
William Lanza, Northern Virginia Community College
Make use of eLearning authoring tools like Articulate Storyline, and make sure
the companies you work with comply with this. Let the companies hand over the
materials they created, it will save you lots of work and money if you want to
make (smaller) changes after the eLearning is used.
Frank de Wit, Learning2.nl
Save money by utilizing any free demo time a vendor offers before you purchase
their product. Thirty days might not seem like a lot of time, but if you use it judiciously you can often make something that really fits your need, and get a feel for
the tool at the same time. Free is good!
While warranties might not be your thing when you buy something new, sometimes purchasing one- or two-years’-worth of upgrades at the time of your purchase can save money down the road when the next cool thing comes out in v2
and you don’t have it in v1.
Instructional Design Cost-saving Tips
Evaluate traditional learning and training solutions vs. simple performance-support aids. Sometimes, the latter is all you need.
Sonia Wadhwa, InfoPro Learning
When planning for live meeting or training sessions, look at your workshops and
decide what you can move online. With a platform like Adobe Connect Pro that
has breakout capabilities, you can recreate many of your live workshops exactly
as you would live. This reduces the total number of live training days resulting in
considerable cost savings, and participants come to the live training prepared to
DO and not just learn. In a sales training this means your participants come ready
to roleplay and not just learn about the product.
Lee Deaner, RVIBE
23
24
Spend on content, ease of access, and enhanced learning ability. Avoid unnecessary expenses on “bells and whistles” driven by fads that don’t add much value to
the context.
Gamify your learning to get the maximum worth of every penny spent on learning. It works!
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Forty-four Tips on Saving Your
Sanity
It’s the part of the job that keeps you up at night: One little issue that
niggles at you, be it dealing with colleagues, addressing a persistent
programming bug, or worrying if learners are actually absorbing the
content. Let our tipsters pull you back from the brink!
Project Management Sanity-saving Tips
Learn to say no. If you are asked to take on something else and you are feeling
overwhelmed, just say no (if you can, that is).
Your boss is driving you up the wall? He has no clue what it takes to create good
eLearning? Has she given you very little time and very few resources but is
expecting you to create stellar learning online, fully tested, that will be revealed
with great fanfare at the company convention where all the top honchos will be?
Oh, and that’s in three weeks? Yikes. You may think you have no choice but to
give up sleep and meals for the next three weeks and do the best to make your
boss happy, knowing that the task is nearly impossible. There are two ways out of
this insane situation:
• Determine what is truly possible in the next three weeks. Remember you
need to sleep and eat to be able to do your job. Then tell your boss what is
possible. Don’t overpromise and under deliver. Your boss may not be happy
to hear what you are able to promise, but she will be much more upset if you
fail to deliver anything usable.
• Quit your job! What, times are tough? Yep, I know, and knowing there are
plenty of jobs available in the fast-food industry brings little comfort. However, your sanity requires that you at least start looking for a more reasonable place to work. Of course, when things calm down, talk to your boss and
lay out your resource needs, but if he’s unreasonable, start looking.
Save your sanity (SYS) by remembering the acronym SYS—“so you say.” When
the battle cry resounds in your organization, “They didn’t know! They need more
education!” Make sure it’s really not a policy, process, or accountability problem
first. Believe it or not, people will fib a little and say they didn’t know when really
25
they received the education, but decided somehow their old method was better,
or the new method was unsupported. As a preventive measure, have individual
conversations with managers, shop stewards, and other gatekeepers about
avoiding that battle cry as the go-to response to an error or near-miss.
Alice Peterson, LRHS
It is sometimes hard to keep your sanity when you have a lot of work and little
time to do it. My tip for saving your sanity is a simple one ... schedule your work.
I schedule my work down to every task and break each day. Breaks are a really
important part of saving your sanity especially when managing all the moving
parts of developing eLearning. I used to feel like I didn’t need to schedule breaks.
I thought I would just take one when I needed one. However, most times on
eLearning projects, I felt like I didn’t have time to take a break. That was a bad
decision. When I don’t take breaks I either burn myself out or negatively impact
the quality of my deliverable. My scheduling process: Each morning before I start
work I list the tasks I need to complete. I prioritize them and estimate how long
it will take me to do each task. Then based on this list, I schedule my day hourby-hour. I try to schedule high-priority tasks or my least favorite tasks during the
time of day when I am at my best (for me it is mid-morning). Then I schedule my
favorite tasks during the part of the day when I am starting to wind down (late
afternoon). I usually get a second wind of energy from doing something that I
love, so I am able to power through the afternoon. As I stated, I also schedule 15
to 30 minute breaks between tasks to transition to the next task. During that
time I check and respond to emails, make calls, get up and walk around, and/or
have a water or snack break. Taking breaks helps me shift gears and recharge
quickly before starting something new. Overall, scheduling my work has helped
me be more productive and most importantly save my sanity. I feel in charge of
my days because I always know my priorities and what I should be doing next.
This is especially helpful when I am interrupted or asked to work on something
else. I can just glance at my schedule and determine if I truly have time to take on
something else and what will be impacted if I do.
Imani Mance, the Home Depot
To save my sanity (and time and money) when it comes to managing multiple
projects, I use Teambox (teambox.com), the cloud-based project-management
app from Google. It’s simple enough to manage quickly, but complex enough to
add a lot of value.
• Project tracking: It helps me manage and track projects at the macro and
micro level. I can break an eLearning project down into tasks, assign them
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to team members, track those assignments, and get feedback and questions
from assignees. It’s all captured and easily accessible within the project.
Team members love it because they have their own portal to track their
tasks, ask questions, and check off completed assignments.
• Reusable Task Lists: I set up generic task-list templates that follow my typical eLearning design and development process, and then I pull those lists
into new projects so I’m not continually reinventing that wheel. All I have
to do is some individual task customization, depending on what the new
project entails.
• Communication: I set it up so that I’m notified by email whenever a task
deadline is coming up, someone has a question or comment about a task, or
someone completes an assignment. It’s also a place to post team conversations, notes, and other information about the project. Nothing gets lost.
• Files: You can store your team’s project files here, and I set it up to sync
automatically with Dropbox.
• Access: Generally I access it on a PC, but I also use the Teambox iPad and
iPhone apps. There’s more limited functionality for the app on mobile
devices, but I’ve always been able to manage projects or retrieve the information I need wherever I am. Teambox has lots of other great features, but
these are the standouts that keep me organized, relaxed, and sane. I, and my
team members, love it.
Jackie Van Nice, Training Stone
Use a mind-map tool such as Text 2 Mind Map (text2mindmap.com) to sketch out
your training prior to creation. This will allow you to easily see any branching that
you may have and ensure that you will not have any dead ends in the training.
You may prefer to use post-it notes, a whiteboard, or a computer program but
make sure you have most, if not all of your slide’s paths laid out prior to creating
the first slide.
Often the first solution that people might think of is “create computer-based
training.” Get them first to consider some alternatives they could use instead of
an eLearning course:
• Observation and/or coaching (with positive or negative incentives for behavior modification).
• Job aid (for memorization-type tasks).
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• Classroom, OJT (for interactive discussion, or hands-on practical training).
• PDF or HTML reading with tracking via email (e.g., user guides, how to...).
• Video demonstration (hands-on, software demo).
• Login-script screen pop-up reminder (e.g., code of conduct) for compliance
and awareness.
eLearning should be used for interactive feedback while learning, adapting to
learner, and for assessment capability.
Jeffrey Orman, Atomic Energy of Canada
Explore with pioneer expertise. Explore new learning hype (e.g., MOOCs) with a
rational, small first project. Build this new, small project after having a conversation with early pioneers who have tested the new learning or training option.
Do not use any new idea because it is a hot topic and management urges you to;
use it based on a real need and the potential of that new learning option to solve
that specific need. It saves you rushing off the deep end and having to cope with a
backlash that puts you in a potentially bad spotlight.
In your initial meetings with the client, be sure to explain how important it is to
use as few words as possible. Besides increasing comprehension, it ensures you
do not lose the learner’s attention. Nothing bores a learner more than making
your eLearning into an electronic book.
Graphics and Media Sanity-saving Tips
Invest in a program like Camtasia (techsmith.com/camtasia.html) for polished
screen recordings. Also, use the power of voice! When you work on a project
for your client, even if you cannot meet, record your update. Go over everything
screen by screen, and record yourself walking through the draft product or the
final product, whether it’s a program evaluation you are building for a client,
a PowerPoint project, a prototype, or whatever. Attach a checklist. This is SO
MUCH better than sending an email (because it will be one message ... it could
end up being six to 10).
Irene Knokh, University of Michigan Showcase
28
You can save your sanity by ensuring that learners share in the responsibility of
learning and mentoring their peers. You need not be concerned with covering
every iota of possible knowledge the learner needs if you can ensure their continued learning in the topic being learned. One great way to do that is using social
networks. Set up a Facebook page or group that learners can join so they can ask
questions and receive answers from other learners who may know more. Use a
Twitter hashtag that is unique to your learners and the content. Create a YouTube channel where learners can upload videos of themselves performing the
tasks covered by the content. There are so many other ways, so don’t limit yourself. Most learners will love having a live, vibrant, active set of resources through
which they can continue learning after they have received the eLearning.
Take care to organize your images right from the start. Choose a naming convention and a set place to store the images. That makes it easy to identify them for
the storyboard and the final eLearning development program. It sounds simple,
but it’s taken me a long time to learn it!
Annette Deligny, Warringah Council
Content Sanity-saving Tips
Within organizations, have one source or a process that coordinates multiplesource authoring. This will prevent issues in standardizing content, conflicts in
content, and integration with your LMS.
Most every movie you’ve seen will have errors in it, usually in the form of continuity problems. A curtain is completely open from one camera angle but is half-closed
from another. You’ll find lists of movie errors all over the Internet. Think about
this: movies are completely linear media. Everyone sees the same movie, each
frame of the move in the same order. There is no interactivity in Hollywood movies. You don’t determine what scene to see next. On the other hand, eLearning, at
least well-designed eLearning, is highly interactive. You challenge the learner, you
ask the learner to interact, make decisions, and determine the next action that
will be performed. This leads to branching scenarios, and every decision point,
every branch, can be error-prone, can be buggy. The Academy Awards give Oscars
for film editing and for sound editing and part of that is making sure there are no
“bugs” in movies. If they give awards for editing movies, we should be giving awards
for editing eLearning, where the task is in many ways more difficult. Not only do
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editors, or quality assurance (QA) personnel, need to ensure that continuity is
maintained (or that you don’t see a boom mike hovering overhead), they also have
to check and recheck every possible combination of decision points and branches.
If you sacrifice QA time, you will have buggy eLearning. To avoid that, make sure
you have good, thorough, nitpicky QA people and do not rush them.
Make file management easier by setting up the same series of folders for each lesson you develop—final slides, audio, images, script, resources, etc. Then be religious
about putting items into the folders as you receive or create them. This makes it
easier on yourself and for others who might need to access them in your absence.
Harriet Stroupe, BCA
Work with your IT department. They are in charge of the strategic data management in your organization, just like the financial area checks the money and
resources.
Miguel Miní, PUCP
Know which aspects of eLearning content development needs to be “DIY” and
where you need professional help and proceed accordingly. If going for gamified
learning, better to use professional help.
Use a logical scheme to name asset files for your projects. For example, use the
letter S for audio (sound), G for graphic, A for animation, P for picture, and the
like, so when searching you can filter for the appropriate asset type. To facilitate
the naming process, use a free or shareware renaming app. For the Mac OS, NameChanger works well. A quick search identified several Windows apps.
Don Bolen, dBolen & Associates
Rather than putting the brakes on skills training, the recession has simply forced
most companies to train smarter. One of the simplest ways to do this is by supporting work-based or social learning. It is very likely that there are already
individuals and groups within your organization who have the skills and knowledge that you would like to distribute on a larger scale. By encouraging these
employees to share, you can make the most of the existing knowledge pool in
your company. Often, when encouraged, people are more than willing to share
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their knowledge and skills with others and need only to be asked or given space
to do so. By creating a discussion forum or a series of blogs linked to your eLearning, learning can go on long after an eLearning title or classroom-based session
has finished. Knowledge sharing, collaboration, and peer mentoring are keys to
organizational growth and need not be confined to a certain geographical area
or profession. By integrating social learning with your organization’s eLearning
solution, the possibilities of low-cost training are endless.
Working with SMEs Sanity-saving Tips
I know this is not original but it has worked for me—many times. When in the
testing phase, grow a thick skin if you are using SME testers who do not know
anything about writing assessments.
Lin Aylward, Foodstuff North Island
When dealing with a group of people who are subject-matter experts in the
eLearning module you are creating for them, it is important to determine who
will be the main point of contact. This main point of contact should be able to
make final decisions on any changes, feedback etc. and should be able to agree
on a firm deadline for final sign-off and approval. Steer away from meetings with
more than one subject matter expert, as their different views and opinions may
waste a lot of your time and delay the project.
Sebastian Soto Flores, RAC Insurance
Identify and confirm who your reviewers are and communicate their responsibilities as reviewers at the beginning of your project to set expectations. Be sure
to engage them from the beginning, sharing with them your audience and task
analysis first. Keep them informed on your progress to keep them invested in
your work.
Laurel Barnes, University of Michigan
When you are in the middle of the actual build it can be difficult to keep a handle
on what changes need to be made as the result of stakeholder feedback. The authoring tool that I use has the feature of allowing notes to be made by reviewers,
which is handy but doesn’t give you a full overview of the size of the task or when
it has been done. It may be old fashioned, but I run a spreadsheet and transfer
31
all comments to it listing against each page build. I can then mark it red, green,
or amber and share it with all stakeholders to update on progress. Without this
little extra bit of controlled organization I would definitely have skipped into the
insanity bin a long time ago.
Jacci Wright, New Chapter Learning
I save my sanity by providing my subject/content experts with a comprehensive,
easy-to-follow design document with key questions to draw out of them all the information I need before I proceed with a developer. My questions cover audience
analysis, learning objectives, sequencing, instructional design, content development, delivery strategy, and follow-up strategy. It also includes the milestones of
the project cycle so my customer understands when content reviews occur and
when changes and/or edits are allowed. A table is included for them to fill out with
all the details including narration, content elements, learner interactivity, transitions, pre- and post-assessments, and resources for the learner. The onus is on
the customer to finish this document before I proceed to invest more time with a
developer. I also save time and money by requiring more effort up front.
Bob Nutting, Cornerstone OnDemand Foundation
Instructional design is under attack: Have you noticed? It is leading to insanity in
the eLearning field. Everything has to be faster and cheaper but they still expect
it to be great. The problem is that, in many cases, its quality has been going downhill fast. We’ve always had to deal with boring and linear eLearning, but in the
name of cost-savings, our industry has been guilty of more poor learning experiences, which are a waste of time, of money, and of sanity. How has this happened?
Simply put, many have started viewing instructional designers as superfluous.
Many more want instructional designers also to use an authoring tool to develop
a finished product. The big push seems to be to have subject-matter experts
(SMEs) do it all, be an instructional designer and a developer too. I cringe every
time I see an ad for an authoring tool that trumpets the “feature” that SMEs
can use it. The problem is that each of these roles is a different talent. SMEs are
experts in a particular subject, whether that’s performing heart surgery or making chocolate bars. They have focused on their job for years. They may or may
not be capable of being good mentors or teaching a class (we’ve all experienced
this). Even if they are, they may find it difficult to wrap their heads around the approach that should be taken when designing self-paced, individualized learning.
Even teachers find it difficult to move from the linear teach-everyone-at-once,
in essence a synchronous learning paradigm, to address each individual’s needs
separately. Hence every learner sees the same lesson, start to finish, whether
32
the learner already knows the material or not. A lowest common denominator
approach is achieved, wherein most are bored, some give up, and few learn what
was intended. Instructional design is too important to assign to those who don’t
know how to do it right. I wouldn’t trust a novice to perform surgery on me and I
want a proper instructional designer to design my eLearning.
Authoring and Tools Sanity-saving Tips
A few years ago my district introduced Moodle and I learned to use the quiz function. It was kind of tedious to enter the questions, but I recognized afterwards
that I saved hours of correcting. That wasn’t the best benefit, however. Students
received instant feedback and didn’t have to wait for me to correct their tests! I
could even set a delay for students to retake the quiz to reach proficiency. Moodle also offered data analysis of the questions and I very quickly was able to see
what needed to be taught again.
Pamela Gustafson, Milwaukee Public Schools
I’ve just finished two appalling webinar sessions, with (supposedly) professional
organizations, fraught with technical problems. One had to be re-scheduled
because the main presenter was trying to connect on a Mac with the latest OS
and was having endless issues. These sessions had fewer than 10 participants. If
you can connect with your cohort prior to the webinar sessions and have them
establish a Google account, try Google+ Hangouts. From my experience, it’s
very stable, has the benefit of getting close to emulating face-to-face delivery,
is friendlier to your audience (in my opinion), and still features screen sharing.
The limitation is ten participants. However, if you have more than that number in
your sessions, it’s going to be pretty much one-way communication anyway.
Tom Marshall, CQ TAFE
Back up your files every day! If something happens and you lose all your files, it
could be a nightmare for everyone.
Software simulation process. This process will save your sanity, time, and money!
• Create a list of the actions (tasks) the user must be able to perform in the application. Get everyone on the same page so there are no surprises and less
rework. It’s easier to write your objectives and storyboard your module.
33
• Sit with your SME to record all tasks as demonstrations (keep a microphone
on and ask questions as you go). Catch the errors. Learn the application.
Publish a raw demo to YouTube to share with your team.
• Document and populate help. Your technical writer will love the YouTube
videos. Tasks are already broken down into user-file categories.
• Create your online module. Be consistent throughout all materials. Have
open communication, manageable tasks, and a time-efficient process!
Sara Dickens, Childrens Hospital LA
When coding courses gets too crazy, put it down for a day and return tomorrow.
Sometimes approaching with fresh eyes you see things you might otherwise not
have noticed.
Michele Largman, Maxine Enterprises
Here’s a quick tip when embedding any SWF output (Presenter, Engage, Storyline,
etc.) in an existing page. I get this question a lot, and I’ve seen it a few times on your
discussion board without a solution. Problem: Website is able to load the story.swf
file but is unable to load story_content/data.swf, as story.swf is loading it from a
relative path. Solution: Use the base parameter to point to the correct path.
Nishan Joomun, knowledge one
Instructional Design Sanity-saving Tips
How do you help your client or your boss understand the difference between
great eLearning and boring eLearning? You and I know that boring, linear learning
is ineffective and is a waste of time and money, even if it costs less at the start. You
can’t blame those without our experience for not knowing any better. They may
think PowerPoint is the epitome of eLearning; they may never have experienced
anything else. One great way I have found that convinces my potential clients is to
show them examples of linear, boring eLearning and challenging, engaging eLearning, preferably covering the same material. You can talk until you’re blue in the face
and wave your arms around more than a football referee, but nothing will convince
someone as much as an interactive demo. It doesn’t have to be long. It just has to
show a true contrast between terrible and wonderful eLearning.
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If you are creating a sequence of trainings or courses, prototype your player and
theme, including interactions and branching. Brand it, and then add the content
before you add the audio.
Keith Rocci, Pima Community College
It’s the rare individual who is an excellent instructional designer and also a
whiz-bang eLearning developer, especially if you’re using a robust, full-featured
tool and not a PowerPoint add-in. Trying to be both often leads to being good at
neither. It’s true that everyone seems to have to wear more than one hat nowadays, but not all is lost. If you find yourself as a developer being asked to create
eLearning without any instructional-design experience, you should at least get
an instructional designer for a few hours to help guide you. Similarly, if you are
an instructional designer without development experience, don’t limit yourself
to an easy-to-use tool that lacks features that you need to give the user the best
learning possible; work with a developer to get some tips and ideas that will help.
You don’t have to be alone! People are out there who are willing to help, some
free, some for low cost. We all tend to be nice people because we are all in the
training-people business, and that means that we like to help others.
Use a soft start before the announced time and have some music so that people
know their audio is working. Then you can really start at the appointed time. If
you don’t do this, then at least 10 percent of the participants start frantically
sending emails because they have no sound and everyone goes crazy because the
people who have done it right have to wait and the ones who have no sound have
no sound.
Bill Hoover, US Department of State
Know how to write objectives! One of the easiest mistakes to make is to write
namby-pamby objectives such as this terminal objective, “The learner will know
how to change the oil in a 2013 Honda Fit.” Sounds pretty good until you start
asking how you’re going to ascertain if the learner really knows it. You need to
use a verb that allows you to measure the learner’s knowledge and/or productivity. This is better, “The learner will demonstrate how to change the oil in a
2013 Honda Fit.” What a difference the verb makes. You can measure whether
or not the learner takes the right steps if the learner is asked to demonstrate
those steps. You can’t simply peer into the mind of the learner to find out if he
or she “knows” the action to take. They have to take an “action” to prove it. The
35
verb must reflect an action. That’s what Bloom’s Taxonomy is all about. A quick
Google search will give you lists of verbs you can use in your objectives. Be wise
and choose the right verbs. However, I’m not a fan of listing the objectives for the
learner to see. Use the objectives yourself to set up proper tasks and challenges
for the learner to accomplish. Successfully completed, the learners will have accomplished the objectives without even knowing it.
When converting an instructor-led course to an eLearning or blended-learning format, don’t attempt to take what you have and dump it into the new format. There
are a few things you can do ensure your course is both engaging and effective.
• Evaluate your objectives again. Make sure they are still measurable in an
online format as they are written. If they are not measurable, rewrite them
or construct an objective that will work for your chosen platform.
• Don’t forget that students are still taking the course, just not in a traditional
classroom. Make sure you provide an intuitive interface, meaningful visuals,
and engaging interactivity to keep their interest and help ensure learning is
taking place.
• Don’t assume that a weeklong instructor-led class will be a weeklong
online course. It is easy to shorten activities and reduce time in an online
format. One of the benefits of converting courses to an online platform is
the ability to reduce the amount of time individuals spend in training away
from their work.
Spend your time planning upfront just as you would for new course development.
This will save you time, money, and rework later.
Tricia Crawford, TLC Media Design
So how good was the eLearning you delivered to your learners? Feeling pretty
good about it? Maybe you think it could have been a lot better? How can you
know? Measure, measure, measure. Measuring how much the learner has
learned should never be an afterthought. It needs to be part and parcel of the
design of the lesson and the tool you use has to be capable of measuring to the
depth you need. Knowing how many learners completed a lesson or passed the
quiz is no indication of what was learned. It is too easy for most to accomplish
completion and pass the quiz without having learned a thing. Measurement
means being able to perform true analytics, both on individuals and in the aggregate. If you don’t measure your eLearning, it will be difficult to know what
improvements you can make in your next project.
36
When creating your eLearning course, besides following the steps dictated by
your instructional design theory, think always of your audience. Actually, when
building it, have someone on hand who might be your audience to test your ideas.
Assessment is important, so have it in small chunks throughout the course to allow students to feel satisfied that they have learned!
Christina Anastasopoulou, NTUA
Work Life and External Resources Sanity-saving Tips
Save your sanity by bookmarking your favorite tips, tools, or articles. For a long
time I used my computer’s bookmark function, but then realized that as I change
jobs or computers the information didn’t go with me. So I’ve started to use Scoop.
It! (Scoop.it) and more recently Learnist (Learni.st) and have begun curating my
finds there. Not only can I later find those gems I came across, others who might
have an interest can view them too.
Save your sanity by joining user groups or other boards where fellow users hang
out. I’m a fan of Articulate Storyline’s user community (community.articulate.
com/), and haven’t found one to be better. People from around the world step
up to the plate with their suggestions, problems, and samples so we can all learn
from each other.
Get out of the office once a day! A change of scenery or a breath of fresh air can
help gain new inspiration for your current project or calm down from frustrations
with co-workers.
Crystal Rose, The eLearning Guild
After a long stress-filled week it is best to save your sanity by making one day
about you. Take one day just for you; this could include; a spa day, fishing, hiking,
date night with the spouse or just laying around the house. Remember, this day is
meant to calm your mind, so do not do chores or even open your computer. Take
a day and do what makes you happiest. Nature has a cure for stress, so I suggest
getting surrounded by nature and taking it in.
Jennifer Rau
37
38
Rather than go it alone all the time and find yourself going insane, often because
you don’t have the budget to bring in contractors to help, don’t forget the wealth
of resources that are available through your Guild membership. Learning Solutions
Magazine is chock-full of guidance, tips, and great advice that will save you time
and money, and there are thousands of resources available, like eBooks, webinars, research reports, and case studies.
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138 Tips on How to Save Time, Money, and

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