eLearning Weekly

An opportunity has opened up for an eLearning Specialist at Ferrellgas in Kansas City. It’s a great position and Ferrellgas is an excellent company; if you’ve got the skills and you’re in the Midwest, you should take a look.

From the Ferrellgas Career Connection web site:

eLearning Specialist

Key Accountabilities:
This position is responsible for creation of e-learning courses. The incumbent will produce highly complex training initiatives to be delivered online, through CD or in the classroom. This position requires a minimum of a 4-year degree, 5+ years of experience in training and development and 1+ year experience of e-learning development.

Essential Functions:

• Maintain LMS and other online tools.
• Research and recommend appropriate e-learning development software.
• Design engaging, interactive and effective instructional materials that can be used in a web-based, computer-based and/or distance learning format.
• Ensure the instructional integrity of course development projects through defined standards, systematic design and clear, concise writing of scripts, narratives and storyboards to ensure continued quality and speed of delivery.
• Produce highly complex training initiatives to be delivered both online, through CD or in the classroom. These programs will prepare employees to provide exceptional customer service, promote Ferrellgas products and services and operate company systems and software applications.
• Plan projects and establish schedules for projects with aggressive deadlines.
• Create and execute test plans.
• Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum by creating and implementing measures to track outcomes and to ensure alignment with business objectives.
• Communicate frequently and effectively with Manager to ensure that goals and objectives are being achieved.
• Partner with and maintain strong interaction with subject matter experts and other team members.
• Other job related duties and projects as required.

Ideal candidate will have:

• Minimum 4 year degree, preferably in Graphics, Interactive Media Design, Instructional Design, Communications, or Organizational Development.
• 5+ years experience in training and curriculum development.
• Minimum of 1 year of e-learning development experience required.
• Experience in project management, training, and curriculum development preferred.
• Excellent communication and organizational skills required.
• Applicant must be energetic, reliable, creative, deadline-driven and able to multi-task in a fast-paced team environment.

Benefits
We offer an excellent compensation and benefits package, Employee Stock Ownership Plan, and bonus program.

To learn more, go to the Ferrellgas Career Connection site and click Corporate Opportunities.

We recently purchased Assima Training Suite (formerly known as Assima Wizard Training Suite) at work. We’re planning on using it to create training for our upcoming PeopleSoft upgrade. We evaluated several tools, and it came down to Captivate and Assima Training Suite (I’ll call it ATS from here on). We chose Assima’s product mainly because its simulations are much more realistic: ATS “clones” software applications and provides a very realistic working environment (sandbox) for the learner. It’s pretty amazing. I’ve written about ATS before, but now I’ve had a chance to take the software for a more thorough test drive (plus, I attended a 3-day training session). Let’s take a closer look…

Which version?

We’re using version 4.x of ATS, which seems to work fairly well, but I hear that a new version is in the works. From what I understand, the new version significantly improves the user interface, functionality, and reliability. Our training session went well, but we ran into several glitches. Sometimes the glitches were our fault, but other times they weren’t. My overall feeling is that ATS is a killer app that needs just a bit more maturation. It’s so close! I’m very much looking forward to the new version, hoping that it further solidifies the product.

Features

Here are some of the basic features of ATS:

• Extensions
  ATS has two recording modes: object-based recording and screen capturing. Object-based recording is the ideal method by far, but it requires that you have a special extension in ATS for the application you want to simulate. For example, we needed a PeopleSoft extension. (Be aware that you may need to purchase additional extensions for the different applications you want to simulate. I think ATS only comes with one or two extensions by default.) Screen capturing can be used with any application (as long as you have access to its executable file), and it provides you with very basic screenshots of whatever you recorded.
• Simulations and Tutorials
  After preparing a storyboard, you’ll start using ATS by recording a simulation. To do this, you’ll open your target application (ex. PeopleSoft) and step through your task; this part is very easy. Next, you’ll create a tutorial for your simulation. This is where you put in the narrative (instructional text) for the learner. This part is based upon the simulation you recorded, so you do not have to re-record your task (cool!). And again, it’s very easy. If you realize that you need to make changes to your simulation or tutorial, you can use the SimDoctor tool to edit individual objects on each page. SimDoctor lets you add form elements (ex. checkboxes, text fields, radio buttons, etc.), and you can also remove objects on the screen. The SimDoctor tool is definitely one of the highlights of ATS, and I’ve only described about 10% of its capabilities.
• Demonstration / Practice / Evaluation
  After you’ve recorded your simulation and created your tutorial, ATS is able to output your learning materials three different ways: a Demonstration module is the show me, the Practice module is the let me try, and the Evaluation module is the test me. And remember, you only had to record the task once to get all of these outputs. Very impressive.
• Microsoft Agents
  ATS uses Microsoft Agents to display information to the learner while they’re working through a module. You can select which character to use, or add your own. The most common one is Merlin, the wizard. You can use generic agents, too. There’s an option that presents the instruction inside a yellow post-it note, which looks pretty decent, just in case you’re not a fan of the Microsoft Agents.
• Publish Types
  ATS has several publish options: pure HTML/JavaScript, an option using their ActiveX plug-in, a CD/executable option, and a “Java Loader” option which uses….you guessed it: Java. (Note: During our training session, we found out that each of these publish types has their own idiosyncrasies. Sometimes buttons, links, styles, and graphics would look slightly different between the publish types. For most people, it would probably not be an issue.) There is also an option to make your final product AICC- and/or SCORM-compliant. The file sizes for published simulations seemed to be fairly decent (ex. ~1-3MB for a simple task).
• Documentation
  ATS also has a feature called GenDoc that can automagically create help documentation for your users. GenDoc can output to several formats, including PowerPoint, Word, and HTML. It combines your application screenshots and instructional text into a nice package, and it does it very quickly.

Pros and Cons of using Assima Training Suite

Here’s a run-down of the pros and cons from what I’ve seen so far:

Pros:

• ATS has the best approach to simulation development when compared to the rest of the products on the market (Datango appears to be the only company in the same ballpark). Assima seeks to truly simulate software applications - and they do a very good job at it. When the learner interacts with the simulations, you’d swear they were sitting in front of the real application. For example, Assima often uses a demonstration of the Windows application, Notepad. In the Notepad simulation, you can click on each menu and explore many of the menu sub-items, just like you were working in the actual Notepad application. Apply this to complex software and/or web applications and you can begin to see the possibilities…
• Using ATS, you can record once and output to several formats (ex. Demonstration, Practice, Evaluation), and then generate your documentation. This is a major time-saver compared to other tools I’ve used in the past.
• Assima offers great training. Although we ran across several issues, our trainer did a great job of keeping things rolling and reporting issues to their support personnel. After attending the training, I’m confident I can use the tool with ease.
• Assima really appears to have their act together when it comes to support and documentation. They offer an online support center that is very well thought-out and the help section within the application is great.

Cons:

• ATS seems to be a great product, but it is priced WAY too high. I don’t want to give specifics, but I’ll put it this way: We purchased 4 licenses. We could’ve bought a house in the Kansas City area for the price we paid. Yikes.
• ATS has been around for a while in Europe, but the product still seems…young to me. Basic tasks sometimes led to application errors (which we were able to overcome most of the time). For the price, ATS needs to be rock-solid. I hope they’re getting there soon. Assima will be unstoppable if they can make ATS bullet-proof and lower its price.
• I don’t get the impression that there’s a strong ATS development community. I’m not sure if this is because Assima is a relatively young company (they started in 2002) or if it’s because the price is too high for average users. I hope this changes soon.
• ATS can only be used to capture application simulations. So, if you want a tool that can create great application simulations, consider ATS. If you want a tool that can create good application simulations, good soft-skills simulations, and generic screen capturing abilities, consider Captivate.

For more information…

The Assima website is a bit vague. It is text-heavy, and it lacks demos, screenshots, detailed product information, and pricing details. That’s a major turn-off. We found out about the product through another vendor, who arranged a live demo for us. Otherwise, I probably would have ignored Assima after spending a minute or two on their site. If you are at all interested in ATS, I suggest contacting them for a demo (either in-person or via webinar). It is worth your time just to see what ATS can do.

We’ll keep working.

We’ll continue to explore ATS over the coming months. We hope to find out exactly what caused our issues - and solve the problems before we get too deep into development. If we can do that, I’m really anxious to see where this goes. ATS has so much potential.

Start the discussion!

Have you used ATS? Can you provide tips or tricks? Do you have questions about ATS? Drop me a line.

I’m about to face an enormous challenge at work: Our company is getting ready to do a major upgrade to our core business operating system (PeopleSoft). This upgrade has been in the works for quite a while now, and it’s time for our department to start discussing a plan to train hundreds of employees on the new system. I don’t know much about the new system, but I understand that it is quite an overhaul; one estimate said we would need 80+ hours of face-to-face training. However, due to logistics, time, and money, it appears we will be training about 80% of these employees using a combination of self-study eLearning courses and webinars (using Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional). Everything will be tracked in our LMS.

Sure, this is a big task, but here’s why I’m concerned: If you’ve ever used a system like PeopleSoft or SAP, you know that it’s not very engaging. In fact, applications training like this can be excruciatingly boring, especially when taken as a self-study eLearning course. These courses generally consist of step-by-step instructions where the learner watches a task as it is performed, and then they try the task on their own in a simulated environment. This type of training can be effective, but with this upgrade, we will have a HUGE amount of training for the end-user. I’m worried that we’ll bore people to tears and that they’ll mindlessly follow along with the step-by-step directions…and then not retain anything. Luckily, I’ve got a few more weeks to get my thoughts together.

How would you tackle this? What ideas do you have?

I’ve heard so many LMS horror stories over the past year that I thought I’d share the great experience that I have with my LMS vendor at work. We use Inquisiq EX, which is offered by ICS Learning Group. Inquisiq EX is a very affordable LMS which is available as a hosted service or as a behind-the-firewall installation. We installed it almost a year ago, and it has turned out to be one of the best decisions we’ve made. (This is not a paid advertisement, I swear.)

Features

Inquisiq EX has all of the basic features of an LMS. You can upload and track SCORM-compliant lessons, manage information for live training sessions, manage users and groups (or connect to an external user directory), organize courses in a course catalog, and more. If Inquisiq EX doesn’t have a feature you desire, chances are ICS can develop it for you. They’ve done a bunch of custom work for us, and it’s been well worth the money.

Customer Service and Support

I’ve had nothing but excellent customer service from ICS. They’re always quick to respond, via email and phone, and they never get sick of my questions (which surprises me).

I won’t hide the fact that we occasionally encounter small bugs with Inquisiq, but thankfully we haven’t run into any show-stoppers. If we do encounter issues, ICS responds immediately and provides a fix. (I think we’d all be fooling ourselves if we thought there was any type of bug-free information system.)

ICS also has an online ticketing system for tracking support issues and an online knowledgebase.

Convenience

I fully realize that there are some excellent (and free) open-source LMSs out there. However, I run a one-person eLearning department and I don’t have time to tinker with the LMS software or be responsible for its uptime; that’s not my area of expertise. Inquisiq gives me the ability to focus on my courses - and not worry about the LMS.

Do Your Homework, But Remember Inquisiq EX

The eLearning Guild has done some great research on LMS vendors. Check out the research reports if you are seriously in the hunt for an LMS, but make sure you take a look at Inquisiq EX. I don’t believe they are featured in the report because they aren’t one of the BIG players. (Brent Schlenker - if you’re reading this, please get ICS Learning Group some visibility!! They deserve it, big time, for having such a quality product.)

Read more about Inquisiq EX here.

Redbird Software recently launched Redbird DevNet, a one-stop shop for all things SCORM. DevNet has an aggregation of the latest SCORM-related news and blog feeds, job postings, and excellent SCORM documentation. The site will soon feature discussions forums as well.

Redbird DevNet is still under development, but this is certainly a great start. There aren’t many resources out there on the web devoted 100% to SCORM, but this site aims to fill that gap. The ADL site is certainly helpful, but I get the feeling this will be a better place to stay up on news, changes, best practices, etc.

I wrote about Redbird Software in an earlier post. Be sure to check out Trident - The SCORM IDE, if you haven’t already.

Whether you’re a novice or a seasoned veteran, here are a few resources that you can use to further sharpen your SCORM knowledge and skills:

• Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative - ADL is the body that currently governs SCORM. Here you’ll find SCORM documentation, content examples, and more.
• Claude Ostyn’s site, Ostyn Consulting, offers wonderful SCORM resources, including his free eBook, In the Eye of The SCORM.
• JCA Solutions offers SCORM wrappers and sample metadata files.
• CONFORM 2 SCORM offers software products, services, and resources.
• Rustici Software has a helpful Resources page.
• Redbird Software has an easy-to-understand description of SCORM.

Enjoy!!

In Part 1 of this article, I discussed ways to research and plan for the launch of an eLearning initiative within an organization. In Part 2, I’ll discuss the selection and implementation of a learning management system (LMS) and the development tools that can be used to author courses.

LMS and Development Tool Selection

LMS
Based on the information you gathered from the Research and Planning stages, compile a list of requirements for your LMS. I tend to break lists like this into 3 categories: Must-have features, Important features, and Nice-to-have features. After you’ve done this, begin researching LMS vendors using one or more of the following methods:

• Use a search engine.
• Call LMS vendors directly and speak with a sales associate. Ask about features and get a feel for their LMS.
• Read the free eBooks available from The eLearning Guild.
• Join The eLearning Guild and use their eLearning Buyer’s Guide.
• Purchase research reports from Bersin & Associates.
• Purchase research reports from Brandon Hall Research.
• Consult peers on forums and discussion boards available through The eLearning Guild and ASTD.

One main feature of an LMS is compliance with SCORM and/or AICC standards. If an LMS is SCORM- or AICC-compliant, courses that have been built using SCORM or AICC specifications can be easily housed, launched, and tracked in the LMS. If an LMS is not compliant with one of these standards, it could be much more difficult to find and build courses that will work with it.

Narrowing down the list
Next, create a matrix to keep track of your requirements (x-axis) and whether or not an LMS vendor satisfies each requirement (y-axis). Example requirements may be: Allows certificates to be printed after a course is completed, integrates with our Single Sign-On system, and manages curriculums based on job roles. You’ll weed out several vendors using this method.

Take your list of LMS vendors that are still in-the-running and call them directly. Explain your needs and ask for an approximate quote. Emphasize that you are in the early stages of looking for an LMS, and you just need a ballpark quote. Fair warning: Some LMS vendors aren’t happy to provide this information. They would rather work with you through a needs assessment to try and customize a solution for you. Here’s the rub: If I’ve been given $25,000 to implement an LMS, why should I bother working through a needs assessment with a vendor that charges around $200,000 for an LMS? Asking for a quote from the beginning will save your time and theirs.

Estimate that 20% of your total budget will be spent on installation, customization, and integration of your LMS. Based on this knowledge and the pricing information you received, eliminate vendors from your list if they are too expensive. Once you have narrowed your list down to a few vendors, ask for web demos so you can view their products first-hand. Invite your IT contacts, HR contacts, and any interested managers to participate in the web demos. Ask lots of questions and openly discuss how the LMS would work at your organization. If possible, get access to a trial version of the LMS and work with it for a week or two before making your decision. Gather everybody’s feedback after the web demos and make your selection based on your research, their feedback, and management’s approval.

Formalize and document your requirements, and then send them to the vendor. Request a formal quote and then proceed with purchasing the LMS if everything looks right.

Hardware
If you plan on hosting the LMS at your organization, make sure IT signs-off on the hardware requirements and provides you with an estimate for the server(s), operating system license(s), and database license(s). Include these costs in your budget.

Support and Maintenance
Many LMS vendors offer a support and maintenance plan, which you should consider. This plan usually costs around 15-20% of your LMS’s purchase price. It will provide you with phone and email support, and "free" upgrades and bug fixes. Customizations are usually not included with these plans, and plans will vary from vendor to vendor. I’ve had good luck using these plans; vendors seem to respond much better when you have their support and maintenance plan.

Development Tools
If you will be building eLearning courses in-house, you’ll want to research tools that can be used to create eLearning courses. See my previous post on eLearning Tools for more information.

(If you don’t want to build eLearning courses in-house, you can purchase off-the-shelf courses. There are dozens of content vendors in the eLearning world that can provide you with SCORM- and AICC-compliant courses. If you head in this direction, use a similar research and planning process as discussed above.)

Do you need an LCMS?
You may also consider purchasing a learning content management system (LCMS), which is a separate system that interfaces with your LMS. An LCMS allows you to more easily manage large amounts of information (ex. a large number of eLearning courses) and helps you streamline the course publishing process. For example, if your course content changes frequently, you can update it within the LCMS, and then the LCMS updates all courses where that content is used. If you need an LCMS, find out if your LMS vendor offers an LCMS solution. Your other option is to get another vendor to integrate their LCMS with your LMS. Just be aware that there could be major integration fees to do this.

Implementation

When implementing an LMS, you feel like you’re conducting an orchestra. You have to maintain a timeline, stay in touch with the vendor, and make sure IT, HR, and Marketing are still in the loop. And this is just the beginning. Here’s a rough timeline to consider once an LMS vendor has been selected:

1. Get your budget finalized and approved.
2. If hosting the LMS at your organization:
• Work with IT to acquire and set up the necessary hardware, and
• Work with the vendor to acquire the LMS software. Get it to your IT staff.
• Plan a date/time for installing the LMS software - with or without the vendor’s assistance, depending on your comfort level.
3. Set up time for your HR contacts and the LMS vendor to discuss how user accounts will be synchronized in the LMS. This is often done through a custom script that runs nightly. The script pushes user information into the LMS’s database.
4. Discuss user authentication details with the vendor, IT, and HR. Authentication is often done using LDAP or similar directory systems.
5. When the LMS is up-and-running, test all features and functionality.
6. If possible, set up a second instance of the LMS - a development environment on another server - for testing. This allows you to test LMS upgrades and new courses somewhere other than your production environment. Some vendors may require you to get a separate development license to do this.
7. Create a sample course or obtain a course from a vendor. Does it work within the LMS?
8. Design a promotion plan with your Marketing department. Will you give your LMS a cool name? If so, decide upon it at this point.
9. Build courses or bring in off-the-shelf courses. Test them heavily yourself and also use co-workers and focus groups.
10. Verify that your LMS vendor, IT contacts, and HR contacts are still speaking to each other, and make sure all of their pieces are working together correctly.
11. Set a launch date, and cross your fingers!

Launch considerations
If at all possible, I recommend loading the LMS up with as many courses as possible before launching it to your organization. Otherwise, you’ll only be launching a shell of a system to them. What fun is it if they can’t go in and take courses?

I also highly recommend using a contest to promote the launch of the LMS. Here are a few examples of contests:

• The first 10 people to complete an eLearning course get a $10 gift certificate to _______ (ex. Best Buy, Applebee’s, etc.).
• The first manager who has 3 employees complete a course wins a free pizza delivered from Pizza Hut.
• Embed a secret message inside one or more courses. If a learner finds the message and contacts you, they win a prize.

Wrapping up
The point that I would emphasize the most during an LMS implementation is to focus on good communication between yourself, the IT and HR departments at your organization, and the vendor. Everyone should know the status of every aspect of the implementation at all times. This helps prevent surprises and those "gotcha" moments.

Part 3 of this article will focus on evaluating the success of your eLearning program and the ongoing maintenance that is required to keep everything running smoothly. Until next time…

While tons of learning management systems (LMSs) still support SCORM 1.2, you could one day be forced into a scenario where you have to convert your eLearning to use SCORM 2004 instead of 1.2. This may happen if you switch to a different LMS or if your current LMS vendor forces the change (unlikely, I would hope). If you run into this scenario, I have great news: There’s a nifty little adapter available from SCORM guru Claude Ostyn. It’s called the Easy SCO Adapter for SCORM 1.2 to 2004.

According to Claude:

The Easy SCO Adapter for SCORM 1.2 to 2004 allows you to run any unmodified SCORM 1.2 conformant SCOs in a SCORM 2004 conformant LMS.

Thankfully I haven’t had to use it yet, but I’m hanging on to it just in case…

Note: There is another adapter available here from ADL; however, its license is a bit unclear in my opinion. The user guide that comes with it indicates that it can only be used for non-commercial, educational purposes. But the comments within the code lead you to believe that it can be used however you’d like. Either way, if you use it, double-check that you’re in the clear.

I just recently learned about a SCORM development tool called Trident, which is distributed by Redbird Software. Trident is a SCORM Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The acronym IDE is common lingo for programming geeks like me… Wikipedia defines an IDE as software that “normally consist(s) of a source code editor, a compiler and/or interpreter, build-automation tools, and (usually) a debugger.” This means that Trident lets you code, debug, and package your eLearning modules in one place. Think about it this way: Trident lets you tweak and test your eLearning modules without having to upload them to your LMS each time you make a change. And you can monitor real-time API calls and associated data while testing your modules. Very nice.

I’ve been working with the demo version of Trident and I really like what I’m seeing. It has a forms-based interface which lets you enter metadata for an eLearning module (SCO) without having to even think about the gory details of SCORM; it writes all of the XML for you. I’ve seen other SCORM editors out there, but this really seems to be the end-to-end solution, from coding to packaging.

I hope to get a copy of Trident soon, and I’ll use it along with Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, and Captivate.

Fair warning: The Trident environment may seem overwhelming if you’re new to SCORM. If this applies to you, I’d first recommend getting up to speed with a few SCORM basics, and it wouldn’t hurt to have a copy of Claude Ostyn’s In the Eye of the SCORM by your side. After that, you’ll be ready to go. (Another great feature of Trident is the built-in Help section; it’s written in plain English with clear descriptions and instructions.)

Trident costs $349.00 right now, but the price is slated to go up to $499.00 on May 30, 2007.

I saw a demo of Assima today, which is a tool that can be used to create (nearly) fully functional software simulations for eLearning. Assima is considered to be a next-generation simulation tool because it captures application information at the object level rather than just grabbing screenshots*, and it gives the developer the ability to record the application’s functionality once and then output it as several different movie or simulation types.

In terms of eLearning, a simulation tool should allow you to create the following:

1. Demo movies (Watch it.)
2. Training simulations (Let me try.)
3. Assessment simulations (Test me.)

With many of the products I’ve seen, such as Adobe Captivate, you have to record three separate movies to get all of this functionality. With Assima, it appears that you can capture information once for an application and then output it in any of these three formats. If an application changes, you can “doctor” it in Assima. For example, let’s say IT adds two new buttons to a PeopleSoft screen after you built all of your PeopleSoft training. You can simply go in to Assima and add form objects (ex. buttons), and then apply actions to them instead of re-recording everything. Your changes are then automatically made for your demo movies, training simulations, and assessment simulations. That could be a huge time-saver.

So, if you want to create a simulation of an application, such as Microsoft Word, you first need to allow Assima to scan the application and read-in the menus, shortcut keys, etc. This is a fairly quick process, but it does need to be done for each screen and/or dialog box within the application. Of course, the true functionality of the application isn’t automatically captured; you have to “teach” the application’s functionality to Assima. If you want to teach the learner how to create a bulleted list, you need to record yourself creating a bulleted list. After that, you can tell Assima how to display the demo movies, training simulation, and assessment simulation for this task.

I’m excited to learn more about Assima. They definitely have the right idea, but I’m concerned that the file sizes for simulations will be very large. We’ll see. I’m also curious to see how easily the simulations integrate with learning management systems (LMSs). The movies are supposedly SCORM-compliant and AICC certified, but I’ve yet to see them published to an LMS with my own eyes. Assima is also quite expensive compared to other mainstream simulation tools.

* For the record, I know Knowledge Planet’s FireFly product can grab application information at the object level, but I’ve never been a big fan of its output format: big Java applets**. Plus, from what I’ve seen, Assima’s additional functionality beats it, hands-down.

**See this post’s comments for more details.