What To Contemplate Earlier than eLearning Course Goes Stay
What to consider before starting your eLearning course
Too often, eLearning course developers are so focused on getting their courses live that they fail to carefully review the course before launching it. And even when they do go-live readiness checks, they often focus on a single dimension – technical aspects of grammar and punctuation – although these are also critical.
The result: Either the course is partially withdrawn from circulation during the rollout, or there is an embarrassing stream of updates, changes and revisions. This usually affects learners ‘confidence in the course and undermines sponsors / clients’ confidence in the course developer’s skills.
Live through multiple views
A final health check before starting is the best way to avoid such unfortunate course results. Most online course developers instinctively view a “check” as a list of questions to ask and a few boxes to be ticked. However, in order to effectively conduct such a review, course developers need to view the course through various lenses.
After stepping out of the developer’s place and following in the footsteps of several other stakeholders, the course creator can more objectively assess whether the course is up and running. Here are 4 key go-live-ready views to consider:
1. View of the sponsor
In addition to the typical concerns about accuracy, learning objectives, and course outcomes, etc., course sponsors (clients, senior management, HR departments) typically have additional views on what eLearning courses should deliver:
1. Image and branding concerns
Make sure the course projects corporate images in a positive light. This includes not only images of logos, company colors and slogans, and product / service graphics, but also curricula and content. McDonald’s doesn’t want an eLearning course to tarnish its brand by providing clues about the harmful effects of fried foods, trans fats, or red meat!
2. Competitor Actions
Before starting, make sure that the course and its content are not promoting any ideology, product, or service from any competitor. Oil companies sponsoring eLearning courses would prefer not to use Nextera Energy (or other clean / renewable energy producers) as a case study to highlight the positive effects of “clean fuel” on the planet. You’d prefer your use cases and success stories to center around their own efforts on course content and scope.
2. Learner’s point of view
Ideally, a learner who signs up for a course has certain expectations. Aside from wanting to learn something new about the subject at hand, eLearning developers need to ensure that the course meets these unique learner expectations. To provide a good learning experience, a final pre-go live check must include:
3. navigation
Does everything flow and is connected as the course navigation implies? Do menus lead to the correct section of the course? Are breadcrumbs adequately representative of where the learner is within the course, module, section, and chapter? Is book marking working the way it should? Is the menu laid out logically? Are all the links in the menu working correctly?
4th Help and instructions
The best learning experiences are achieved by learners who are “self-contained” (that is, they have access to all the information and help they need to complete the course without any breaks or breaks). To rule out such malfunctions, developers must ensure that all instructions and help content are clear and unambiguous in preparation for commissioning.
5. support
Clear and explicit help content is unlikely to help with every learning experience. It is therefore imperative that learners have access to a second line of support for additional resources, including frequently asked questions (FAQs), chatbots, and human-manned call centers when necessary. As part of their go-live checklist, eLearning course developers must ensure that such support functions work seamlessly and that support teams have the necessary training and scripting to quickly troubleshoot, diagnose, and resolve issues with learners.
3. Technical view
Regardless of who sponsors the course or who your audience is, developers must ensure that the course and its content are of the highest technical skill before going live:
6th Grammar, Punctuation, and Facts
It cannot be emphasized enough, but typos, misuse, typographical errors, and factual errors and omissions can lead to serious learner withdrawals and customer dissatisfaction. So eLearning developers should proofread (or hire a professional service) and review the entire course end-to-end before going live.
7th Broken or inappropriate links
How annoying it can be for a learner who wants to know more about a topic to click on it “Find out more about our health and safety protocols here …” just a dreaded “404 page not found!” to get. Screen. Worse, it leads to a resource that is irrelevant to the topic being discussed. A pre-launch link and resource check are essential.
8th. Review of the curriculum
Sometimes last minute changes can result in segments of a course being removed, modified, or replaced to meet other technical needs. However, this must not be done at the expense of adherence to the curriculum. Before going live, be sure to go through all of the sections, modules, and exercises / activities of the course to ensure that all aspects of the curriculum have been covered.
4. View of the trainer
The trainers have an interest in the course meeting all of the pre-established requirements before it goes into operation. However, there are two additional trainer-specific elements that need to be tested in the go-live checklist:
9. Evaluation and monitoring
To prepare for start-up, ensure that the course includes all of the tools and resources the trainer will need to successfully complete the course and that they meet specifications. This includes assessments for testing / assessing learner proficiency and other tools such as moderated chat rooms and group / individual communication capabilities.
10. learning goals
Ultimately, the learner’s experience can be measured by the extent to which the course achieves its defined learning objectives. Before it is put into operation, it is therefore up to the eLearning course developer to assess whether the course actually enables the trainer to achieve each of his defined goals.
Use discretion before going live
These are broad areas that eLearning course developers need to consider before they can go live with their courses. However, as with any other project, logic and discretion go hand in hand when planning a go-live health review. Some remedial actions revealed during pre-commissioning checks are best not enforced vigorously.
For example, it is sometimes possible to make point 6 (grammar, punctuation, and facts) extreme enough to postpone commissioning indefinitely. Developers may have to forego the careful use of the tense “first person” or “third person” in order to obtain factually and historically correct content – even if the “voice” used leaves something to be desired. While the former (which voice to use in your content) may not be a go-live bid, the latter (accuracy) is definitely!
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