Proactive vs Reactive: A new level of maturity for compliance and regulatory training

Bryan Chapman is passionate about innovative learning and has benchmarked learning practices at some of the best organisations in the world. His discussion around compliance training centered on the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and examples of ‘reactive’ processes (just ticking the box) as opposed to ‘proactive’ processes (training is ‘experienced’).  The CFR actually favours electronic vs paper-based delivery in the US.

Chapman proposes a 6 level maturity matrix to identify the levels at which most organisations are performing, as well as those they should aspire to.

Regulatory Compliance Maturity Model

Level	Description
Level 1	Limited understanding of compliance requirements, poorly managed record keeping (of any kind)
Level 2	Paper-based documentation with “read and understood” (electronic signature)
Level 3	Electronically delivered documentation with “read and understood” (electronic signature)
Level 4(good)	Electronic delivery with knowledge based assessment of learning
Level 5(better)	Electronic delivery with assessment and on-the-job practicum
Level 6(best)	Electronic delivery with assessment, practice in safe environment (simulation), on-the-job practicum, and part of performance appraisal.

 

He suggests that to reach a highly proactive level an organisation must move beyond just testing online to focus more on demonstration of understanding through performance. It is customary and expected as part of the CFR that education and training incorporates performance and experience.

He recommends a blended learning approach structured around Bloom’s Taxonomy that incorporates:

• 60% knowledge and comprehension (e-Learning)
• 20% is self-assessment/simulations/practice (e-Learning and/or on-the- job)
• 20% must be on-the-job practicum

Some of the following may assist in moving towards a more proactive approach to compliance training:

• 360° assessment using survey monkey to find out from employees and others if they are demonstrating the desired behaviours
• On-the-job assessment
• Better integration between talent management and training
• Link with other on-the-job learning activities
• Utilise performance reviews to discuss whether or not they are using the skills they have learnt – assess whether they need further training

The Future of the LMS: A Software Lifecycle Perspective

This report, prepared by Sage Road Solutions for the E-Learning Guild, describes the current status and future direction of Learning Management System (LMS) use in e-Learning. 

The product lifecycle diagram shown suggests that LMSs, as we have known them until today, will likely start to fade from the learning ecosystem scene by 2012. Evidence suggests that over the next five years LMSs will look more like portals and less like platforms. They will feature Web 2.0 collaborative tools, including connected modular functionality, which organisations will select as being most rele­vant for the management needs of the learning organisation doing the purchasing. 

Top Ten Trends   

1. Home Grown LMSs are on the decline - can’t keep up with the needs for integration and additional features (although home grown often liked more and better designed for the job required) .
2. Moodle moves to the front of the LMS adoption pack – Moodle (24%) moves ahead of Blackboard (17.5%), the global financial crises may have had a lot to do with this.
3. Hosted options for LMSs are achieving popularity – Whether described as SAAS, ASP, a Hosted Service (which combines an application service provider and an Internet service provider), or as Cloud Computing, many LMS providers have listened to their small and medium customers and are now offering hosted LMS solutions.   
4. Open source, open applications and open education resources are on the rise - This is more prevalent for the education sector. Examples of open source LMS systems include Moodle, Sakai™, and soon, the full-identity management, multi-institution, and multi-million dollar project, Kuali Student. The variables that make open source attractive in education are increasingly relevant in the commercial market. These include cost-of-ownership, flexibility for meeting unique enterprise needs, and maintenance on terms favoring the customers.  
5. Blackboard gains corporate LMS market share – It is believed that this is due to the acquisition of Angel which firmly entrenched them in the enterpirse market, prior to this they were mainly academic.  
6. Commercial LMS customers: less formal more holistic - they are moving away from just using their LMS for compliance needs to all other areas of training.   
7. Extensibility matters – Openness, also known as extensibility, is fundamental to enterprise software in that it “talks” to other enterprise systems present in customers’ computing environments. For example, Blackboard connects to Facebook and other social networking applications, has an active developer’s network, building blocks, and a commitment to interactivity and integration, all done in a supported way. 
8. Campuses and businesses alike are slow to adopt “Enterprise 2.0″ - Quick to embrace the LMS, with over 97% adoption in the past 8 years, these institutions are now re-evaluating the systems chosen during the web 1.0 era in order to deal with 2.0 opportunities and requirements. Nearly 25% of them report a high likelihood of migrating to open source LMS systems for some applications or needs, but are unsure of their choices.   
9. The recession continues to constrain – small LMS providers are losing their hold in the market. Lots of acquisitions – Blackboard purchased WebCT and Angel, Oracle acquired PeopleSoft, SumTotal took over PathLore, and Saba acquire both Thinq and Centra. Two companies are also bidding for SumTotal.  
10. Revising standards, specifications and structures – SCORM is the biggest one here. SCORM is still under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Defense, there is talks that LETSI  will take it over. At the same time, the newly energised IMS Consortium announced their development of a SCORM alternative called the Common Cartridge.   A copy of the full report is available. 

How to Successfully Incorporate Avatars into E-Learning

An Avatar serves as an alter ego, usually representing the presenter, and is generally in the form of a 3D model. This character is able to mimic human characteristics, including voice, gesture, and body movement. They help introduce an element of humanity and can be used to guide a learner through a learning module and create an emotional connection with the learning, know as the persona effect.  There is a growing body of research to support the use of avatars in on line learning.

So why incorporate avatars?

• The learner is immediately engaged
• The learner relates to the avatar
• The learner’s retention is increased through instructional interactivity

 Among other things, incorporating avatars into e-Learning courses facilitates learning, as well as improves the quality of learning among users. Avatars in e-Learning courses serve as mentors, and assist users by sharing their experience, knowledge, and skills. They therefore serve a greater purpose than a virtual simulation and make the course more interesting, interactive, and socially relevant. 

Avatars are an extension of a 
virtual simulation but also serve as a mentor throughout the course, not just as a retention strategy.

As we know, creating such animations can be very time consuming, but if done well can be beneficial to the overall learning experience. Sealund and Associates demonstrated their high level avatars during the presentation, most designed for global rollouts for multi-national corporations (and very expensive). They have also created a 3D experience.

Games…Games…..Games

If you have a lot of money to spend, then this section is for you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

To view some free online games, go to Kongregate.

The terms serious games and virtual reality simulations seem to be used interchangeably over here. That is, using animations to simulate real life or fantasy scenarios all designed to:

•  allow the user to practise in a real world environment;
• increase motivation;
• activate emotions;
• create in-depth instructional interactivity that ensure the learner is using conscious effort;
• help the learner relate to the training material.

There are some key differences:

Simulations are a model of a real-world system. They can be operational (procedural skills) or conceptual (domain-specific strategic knowledge or skills).

Games - the common elements of all games include (1) a competitive activity in which you are required to achieve a goal, (2) a set of rules or constraints, and (3) a specific context. 

Games and simulations don’t focus on learning, but focus on reinforcement. Simulations allow people to critically assess and deploy information in a safe environment. They are good for testing processes, contingent relations, and decision-making and can increase the feeling of responsibility in the learner.

Games involve rules and play. The rules must be rigid and scientific – the paradox is that these restrictions allow for greater play within them which can be flexible and fun. To ensure better transfer, they all should be grounded in reality.

Key experts in this space include James Paul Gee, Eric Zimmerman and Alicia Sanchez.

There is no doubt that, when done well, these games and simulations can be very impressive. However most range in the $100,000 mark upwards and take up to 12 months to develop. Mimi games used for retention of single learning objective are a little more palatable at $25,000 upwards.

Companies in this space include Tandem Learning, Raptivity and Core Competence.

Do Simulations and Games Teach?

The jury is still out on this one. Research has shown that participants enjoy the gaming experience more, however it can actually depress the learning experience. Players can get so caught up in improving their scores that they fail to actually reflect on the principles being taught. Simulations have been more successful at achieveing learning outomes. However, when done well, both can improve learning but very few are achieving the level required. Ruth Clark has provided a good summary of research in this area.

What to look for in simulations and games:

• goals, rules, activities, feedback, and consequences are aligned to desired learning outcomes
• structure and guidance helps learners reach instructional goals (feedback, explanation between rounds, visual support, embedded questions to promote reflection)
• complexity and interface managed in ways that minimise distractions or extraneous mental load
• use for learners who will be motivated to by these environments

Avoid open-ended games that and simulations that require unguided exploration.

Learning Reinforcement 2.0: How to Strengthen Learning After Completion

There are three stages to the learning process: before, during and after.

Do you know how much time organisations focus on each part?

• Before 10%
• During 85%
• After 5%

Yet research has shown that most of the value is generated during the ‘after’ phase. This is when transfer of learning occurs.

• Before 26%
• During 24%
• After 50%

Research suggests that up to 50% of the value generated in any learning process comes after the learning event is delivered, yet most companies spend little or no effort on reinforcing the learning that takes place.

This session provided tips and tricks for helping us make sure our content stays “top of mind” with our Learners. Retention techniques post-training should include a mix of push and pull methods:

• Pull methods provide resources for the learner to access including websites and learning resources
• Push methods outline specific instructions and require some sort of activity such as email, refreshers, conference calls, check in calls.

In this session we were introduced to  Cameo®, a Web-based tool that delivers scenario-based learning via e-mail, making learning reinforcement easy and effective.

Key functions of Cameo include:

• It delivers scenario-based assessments via e-mail (completed in email)
• Shortly after they hit “send” they receive coaching and feedback based on their decision via a return email.
• As Learners reply to the scenarios, their responses are aggregated within the system and interactive reports are generated. These reports allow you to measure the effectiveness of your training and target specific topics for follow-up training.

 This tool can be attached to any LMS to enable clients to deliver targeted, contextual refresher questions to participants after the completion of any training. Cameo is designed to minimise the effects of the forgetting curve. 

This presentation drew heavily on the research done by Will Thalheimer in the field of training and performance.  See his paper on “Providing Learners with Feedback”.

Actions Speak Louder than Words: Creating Meaningful e-Learning Interactions

Simple techniques can make a significant difference when creating interactions that truly engage learner’s attention, even when working with interactions such as drag and drop activities.

The key words are Instructional Interactivity, this presentation is based on the fourth white paper in a series titled “how to start a change reaction”.

In a nutshell, practice makes perfect, but unless the activity actively engages the learners mind in performing tasks that will lead to improved readiness to perform the job in the real world, then you are not able to measure the success of the course. Use activities that best replicate what the person will be doing in real life. This doesn’t need to be a major simulation, images that incorporate navigational functions into interactivity or using simple interaction styles to represent real behaviours which require greater learner effort, as long as the task enables practice.

The session looked at simple ways to ensure that the interactions are ensuring the participant is using conscious effort. There are six key rules to remember when creating activities, they should:

• be observable;

• require attention and thought;

• have relevance and meaning in the real world;

• model and elicit desired performance to ensure transfer;

• require effort;

• be reversible.

Strategies included:

• incorporating navigation functions into interactivity;

• using simple interaction styles to represent real behaviours which require greater learner effort;

• using visual contextual elements to create meaning in interactions, and focusing actions on enabling long-term mastery.

I met with Ethan to view a demonstration of their tool, which allows a learner to make communication choices in a simulated conversation. The tool allows for multiple pathways in which the learner gets to see the consequences of each choice. This is one of their many impressive instructional tools.

For further demos, click here.

Social and Mobile Learning

The clear buzzwords for the first day of DevLearn2009 were: social and mobile. Both topics have a dedicated breakout area and a host of sessions covering various aspects of these topics. These are two of the key areas learning professionals should be paying distinct notice to. Until now, we’ve been so focused on other areas that we may not have given mobile and social learning the attention it deserves as two of the hottest educational frontiers to be faced in the near future.

The rise of these modalities has closely followed the popularity of the mobile and social web. We’ve all heard about web2.0 and we know what facebook and twitter offer web users that we haven’t had until now. This combined with the coming of age of mobile devices, such as BlackBerry, PDAs, iPhones, Tablet PCs, netbooks (and regular laptops), and Kindle has radically changed the way and location in which people access content – whether it’s online or not.

While social and mobile both face challenges (some technical and others attitudinal), the benefits appear far greater.

Social

When a sprinkling of social interaction is added and the behaviour fostered, we see people leveraging the benefits of collective intelligence, expertise and wisdom of crowds in a multitude of ways. Whether that helps a punter solve the problem they are having with their widget, helping an organisation decide where to focus their product development effort – blogs, microblogs, social websites are changing how businesses need to think about their products and what impact it has on their service design, acquisition process and overarching strategy. Embracing sociality in an organisation needs to be deliberate, but doesn’t need to burst out of the box – it is okay to start small.

Mobile

As the devices we carry with us become more capable and more connected, we expect more from them. We want access to everything we access from our normal computer to be accessible from the device in our pocket or bag. So why shouldn’t this apply to education also? The main hurdles to supporting mobile devices remind me a great deal of web development in the early days – browser wars. The variance from one device to another is so great, that it is difficult, time consuming or expensive to support them all. They have such different resolutions, web browsers, interface controls, connectivity technology and environments in which they are used that the task of making your application available can seem out of reach.

But what is to be gained by supporting the mobile learning effort? So much of our day can be considered idle time: waiting for appointments, in transit, at home, at the coffee shop. If we could absorb our training during this time, would we learn better? Faster? More often? Research mentioned in a session today suggested that participants enjoyed the experience 10% more on their mobile device than their traditional PC and reinforced the material more, due to re-reading sections on each re-entry into the material (it is typical for a half session to be accessed, for example, in 10×3min or 8×4min chunks).

Aside from this, people have a genuine need to access such content on-the-go, especially material that is considered referential (e.g. at a customer site or operating a particular piece of equipment). There are examples of geo-aware delivery mechanisms that know where a partcipant is and delivers appropriate content to help them finish their task.

But how does one know when to undertake the project?

Answering the following questions should help you clarify your own thoughts so you can back good intentions with a well considered strategy.

• Who will be accessing the mobile content?
• How they will benefit from having mobile access?
• What format and structure should this use in a mobile format?
• Which devices will be targeted for delivery and how does the technology they have impact the approach? (Devices, networks and accessibility should be a few areas to consider).

Integrating with Your Existing LMS

The discussion around Acrobat Connect Pro continued with Andrew Chemey highlighting a few ways in which Adobe products can integrate with an existing LMS to: enhance your offering or increase productivity.

He mentioned that Captivate and Presenter output can be tracked by an LMS using either the AICC or SCORM (which uses a structured ZIP format called SCORM-PIF) eLearning standards. If any of our team don’t yet know what SCORM is, please yell out as I think it’s vitally important you understand the 10,000 foot view. These products are also able to include quizzes and other interactions. Although these products are nice, they seem to be much better suited to those looking to deliver PowerPoint style content, online. They don’t hold a candle to the level of multimedia, animation and quality components that our clients and us are accustomed to seeing in courses.

The part of this session that was of particular interest was the ability to integrate Connect Pro with an LMS using web services. For those partners we have throughout Australia currently delivering face-to-face training, there is a large opportunity to make available virtual classroom and webinar style communication. Potential upsides of using a product like this include:

• Huge saving of time and money (travel time and costs, venue rental, equipment, AV equipment)
• Ability to deliver globally due to online nature of the medium
• It is an environmentally friendly (green) solution – reduced carbon dioxide from travel

I believe we need to be looking at this product for a whole host of areas in our business, not just our core product.

• Client facing staff delivering sales presentations and training
• Pre-recorded quick reference guides that show how to use our software
• Real-time help using screensharing
• Helping interstate staff with internal IT issues – “join my video conference and I’ll show you the Outlook setting I’m talking about”
• Monthly wrap-ups (this allows video conferencing AND screensharing at the same time – Teresa!!)

You start to get the idea… Connect Pro is versatile .

There’s an App for That: If You Can Dream It, You Can Build It

This session was delivered as a showcase of the capabilities of Acrobat Connect Pro. Put simply, the Connect product is a framework for delivery of real time communication applications. There a bunch of pods (the small applications that run inside a session) that are available out of the box for a variety of video conferencing and virtual meeting scenarios. These include text based chat, pre-recorded and real-time video, voice chat, desktop sharing… and the list goes on.

Summed up by Terry Shane, the iPhone has been so successful because of  what the platform (device and App Store)  makes possible. He believes that Connect Pro is the iPhone of web conferencing.

In addition to these, you are able to build Flash pods that can be run inside the session and Mr. Shane and his team at Refined Data Solutions look like they’ve been doing this for sometime. They’ve come up with some pretty creative ideas – some commercial and some for fun, convenience or experimentation.

Pods can behave in a multitude of ways, it is all up to the developer/s. Functionality shown by the pods showcased included:

• Running independantly on the host and participant/s (single player games)

• Interactive pods that communicate or synchronise between host and participant/s (voting/polling, text chat)
• Controlling the underlying characteristics of the pod and Connect Pro session remotely (such as visibility, volume/camera settings, detecting screen size/OS/browser/Flash version)
• Inter-pod communication and manipulation of standard UI elements
• Accessing web services/APIs for dynamic data or supplementing a typical web application with real-time functionality
• Displaying different information based on host/participant
• Live/pre-recorded video (higher resolution than default product), interaction, synchronised playback controls, spooling next videos, video overlays

The demonstration was pretty impressive, so you might want to check out some of the pods I saw. I really like this product and think it would be a great fit for us and our clients. I can’t wait to investigate it further when the opportunity arises!

Adobe eLearning Suite: What Value Can Integration Bring?

Steve Howard was discussing the advantages that the eLearning Suite has over the products individually. There are a host of features that become available when certain combinations of the Adobe products are purchased together.

Some of his favourites included the speech analysis included in SoundBooth and the Adobe colour pallette creator Kuler (which I’ve seen our designers using already).

The Suite provides tighter integration between authoring and asset creation tools. My understanding was that these are focused more towards those authors using Captivate and the Presenter extensions for PowerPoint.

Some of the Suite specific features included:

• Flash learning interactions
• Dreamweaver course builder extensions
• Publishing Captivate to Acrobat/Flash Lite (Flash on mobile devices)
• Captivate integrations with Device Central
• Captivate multi-SCO packager
• Captivate SoundBooth integration