Wyver Solutions Ltd

Content Conundrum

Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Earlier this week, I put a post on LinkedIn asking for vendors to get in touch if they could meet the following requirement:

We want to be able to make changes to content “on the fly”.

The normal process for externally authored content is:

Create
Export from authoring tool
Import to LMS
Edit
Re-export from authoring tool
Re-import to LMS

What I’m looking for is:

Create
Make available in LMS
Edit
Nothing else - any edits (eg. typos, image changes) would be automatically available to the end-user

There were lots of responses to that original post. And a number of people who were watching the thread just to see what came of it.

So, this post is a summary of what I discovered, and my conclusions.

But first, an overview of all the requirements:

Business requirements

To produce a large number of online scenarios and reference content
For use in low or zero bandwidth areas
In multiple languages

Functional requirements

Able to create interactive materials (eg. questions, branching) as well as more straightforward text and video content
The text content must be searchable from inside the LMS platform (Moodle)
The content must work offline in the Moodle Mobile app
The content must offer a simple workflow for handling translations
We must be able to edit content easily after it has been published
The interactive content must pass a grade to the Moodle Gradebook
An efficient author, review, edit, publish workflow

Most likely solution

Given that we’re using Moodle, we also have access to the Book and H5P plugins.

This meets the functional requirements as follows:

I can create interactive exercises, even complex branching scenarios in H5P, and then embed them in a book, which then becomes like a “traditional” elearning module (except without the automatic bookmarking that SCORM offers - but we can live with that)
The book content is searchable using Moodle’s search engine. I don’t need the H5P content to be searchable, as that’s just providing the practice activities, not the resources.
Both the Book and H5P modules work in the Moodle Mobile app when offline, and synchronise any data back to the server when back online
All content within a Moodle course can be translated using the workflow developed by Quabiria. From experience with the company I know the process works very smoothly (except if the Moodle administrator - me - moves question banks around 😞)
All the content built inside Moodle can be edited using Moodle’s built-in tools.
H5P passes a grade to the Gradebook, and also to an xAPI Learning Record Store if you have one
I could use an external tool like Diigo Premium or PageReview to add collaborative comments to pages. And make careful use of Moodle’s roles and permissions to give certain people ability to view things prior to publishing.

Why not use SCORM?

Again, looking at the functional requirements:

Yep - that’s OK. All SCORM authoring tools allow interactive exercises in some form or other
Nope - SCORM packages are pretty much inaccessible to any external search engine, unless the imsmanifest.xml file is designed to explicitly reference every HTML page
Yep - Moodle can download SCORM packages to the App - but only if the content is hosted on Moodle. Which conflicts with requirement 5.
Sort of - We would require two translation workflows, one for the Moodle course content (eg. quizzes) and one for the externally authored content. Not impossible, but not ideal.
Yep - But only if the content is hosted by the authoring tool. Which then conflicts with requirement 3.
Yep - SCORM does this very simply. For anything more complex we’d need to move up to xAPI, as with the H5P solution.
Yep - Most of the server-based tools are pretty good on the reviewing workflow. That’s their real strong point compared to the client-based tools.

Package Exchange Notification Services (PENS)

PENS is an ancient, standards-based way to publish directly to an LMS. However it seems to be very rarely supported, by either authoring tools or learning management systems. Some people think it’s a bit “meh”.

What about the authoring tools you looked at?

So, back to the original request, for on-the-fly editing… Although I now have a solution, there will be some people that still want a basic SCORM approach, so here are some tools to consider. All of these provide a content hosting solution that allows changes to flow through directly to the user via the LMS:

Gomo
Rhapsode from Area9Lyceum - NB. This is far more than just an authoring tool!
Thirst.io - also comes with a Moodle plugin
Elucidat
Xyleme

But what about all the other authoring tools?

Straightaway you can discount any tools that sit on your PC, unless they have a server component.

So, that leaves tools like Evolve, Rise, Genie, Lectora Online and Courselab. All good tools in their own right, but they all seem to offer the traditional export to SCORM deployment route only.

Other alternatives

If I wasn’t worried about SCORM, then I could just embed content using iframes, from tools such as:

Sway
Grav
H5P.com - Great if you don’t have a platform that directly supports H5P

[Edit] All in one platforms

In the original version of this post, I forgot to mention those platforms which, like Moodle, incorporate both the LMS and the content authoring capabilities.

There are a growing number of these, aimed at contexts where usability is more important than content portability.

Examples include:

[End edit]

What would you do in my shoes?

Free online tools for trainers

Sun, 22 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve created a quick & dirty website with a sortable and searchable list of free tools. It’s designed for trainers who need to get started with working online quickly.

Disclaimer

Please don’t expect the tools to solve all your problems. You will need to learn how to use them safely.

Look for tools that have a paid-for option as you grow. You’ll want to know there’s a solid business model behind anything you come to rely on.

https://freetoolsfortrainers.wyversolutions.co.uk/list/

Technology procurement

Sun, 11 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

You’ve decided your organisation needs a new technology solution. Whether it’s to help you manage events, content, people or whatever… it really doesn’t matter.

What does matter is that you need to make sure the solution you buy is a good fit for your organisation.

Traditionally, that will be done by creating a Request for Proposal (RFP). The solution supplier will then write a response, which answers all your questions, in a way that the supplier hopes will sell their solution to you.

Then you’d gather some people to review the responses, score the answers, and identify a preferred supplier. After that it’s just a matter of agreeing the terms of the contract…

It sounds simple and straightforward. The trouble is, this process really doesn’t work. At least, not as well as you might hope.

Both the supplier and the buyer organisations are working in the dark. The suppliers are making assumptions galore as they answer the questions - often without really knowing much about how your organisation ticks, and what you really need. And you, the buyer, are buying something that you’re hoping, without much evidence, will work in your particular situation.

All those assumptions and guesswork are very likely to come back to bite you during the implementation phase of your procurement project.

Many organisations are starting to adopt a more successful procurement process, known as “competitive dialogue”. It’s a way to iterate towards a solution that will work for both the buyer and the supplier.

When we help organisations to purchase technology solutions, we use our own flavour of the competitive dialogue process:

Requirements analysis

Normally we would begin this phase with a workshop to:

identify the core functional and non-functional requirements
prioritise those requirements, probably using the MoSCoW methodology (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MoSCoW_method). This would help to identify what is essential for the short term, and what can come later.
identify a set of scenarios which the suppliers will need to demonstrate during the selection process to ensure the system can model the real world requirements

RFP design

The Request for Proposal would consist of a document with the following headings:

Current state
Business requirements, aspirations and timescales
Functional requirements
Non-functional requirements (eg. accessibility, security, data protection, maintenance, support)
Company requirements (eg. references, accreditations, financial status, project management methodology)
Scenarios
Cost model
Competitive dialogue process

Long listing

Having understood the requirements, whilst writing the RFP document, now is the time to identify the suppliers to whom you will send the RFP (assuming this is allowed to be a closed tender).

Selection

A typical competitive dialogue process would be as follows:

Stage 1: online presentation/demo (based on the scenarios provided) + Q&A
Stage 2 (probably a week or so later): revised online presentation + Q&A
Stage 3 (another week or so): final submission
Stage 4: face-to-face meeting with implementation team

After each stage, the procurement team may choose to remove one or more suppliers from the list of those invited to the next stage.

Deep dive

We would normally expect any buying organisation to undertake an extensive Deep Dive into each of the invited systems that reach Stage 3. This will ensure that the decision is made based on hands-on experience.

The Deep Dive would involve spending a significant amount of time testing the system against the requirements.

Spending on 70:20:10

Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Picking up on #1 of our hopes for 2018:

“Organisations will spend 70% on systems, resources and people to motivate & support on-the-job learning, 20% on mentoring and coaching, and 10% on training and self-study programmes.”

Many people have written about the 70:20:10 reference model for learning & development. I won’t try to replicate their thinking here.

What I will say is that I see a lot of organisation who state that 70:20:10 is the model they are working to. Yet often they are still to match their stated intentions with financial resources in the same proportion.

To match spending with aspiration would require a level of change within many L&D departments that is more than just tweaking around the edges. It would be truly transformative.

Let’s take a quick look at the implications…

70%

Imagine an organisation where 70% of the L&D budget is spent on working with the rest of the business to improve performance. That would be the entire focus. It would require L&D to act as performance consultants - asking hard questions, where the answer is unlikely to be a course… More often than not, it may be a change to processes and how those processes are supported.

We tend to promote the Lean approach for performance improvement, but there are others. A lean L&D team would be taking the lead in coaching the business to:

understanding the value stream
identifying where “waste” is occurring
reducing waste (including by developing easily accessible job aids if necessary)
improving the flow along the value stream
putting in place continuous improvement systems

20%

In our imaginary organisation, let’s spend 20% of the L&D budget on developing managers (at all levels) by helping them to improve their capabilities in:

one-to-ones
feedback
coaching
delegation

(This is the Manager Tools Trinity - a resource that I’ve not yet seen bettered for management development - and it’s free!)

10%

The rest of the budget, just 10%, goes towards designing, building, delivering or procuring courses - whether self-study or led, face-to-face or online - to help individuals progress beyond their current jobs.

Learning Technology Hopes for 2018

Fri, 08 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

It’s that time when all good learning technology bloggers dust off their crystal balls and take a look at what might be coming up in the next year.

We won’t go as far as making predictions, but this is what we are hoping 2018 will bring:

Organisations will spend 70% on systems, resources and people to motivate & support on-the-job learning, 20% on mentoring and coaching, and 10% on training and self-study programmes.
Learning technology trade shows will have more than just the normal authoring tools, learning management systems and bespoke content services.
We’ll see real examples of learning analytics that correlate on-the-job performance with learning activity.
Trainers and educators will stop justifying practices based on pseudo-science. I’m looking at you NLP and learning styles!
Organisations will realise that out-of-date, unsupported software is a data security risk.
Compliance training will make more use of the Affective Context model to get people to change their behaviours.
We’ll see a more user-focussed approach to designing and building learning services, systems and products.
We’ll see more video-conferencing and virtual classroom products that do not rely on browser plugins.
More organisations will adopt and embed a continuous improvement approach based on understanding the value they offer, reducing waste and iterating towards perfection.
Learning technologists from across the education and corporate learning sectors will collaborate and learn from each other.

Digital transformation’s big questions

Wed, 18 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

At the heart of digital transformation are a series of big questions that all organisations need to answer up front.

Those answers may change over time - but by forcing a response at the beginning of the process, you start to really understand the organisation.

Where are you now?

What’s going well?
Where are the pain points?
Why do you do things the way you do?

Where do you want to be?

What is driving the change? Customers, cost-savings, competition…
What does good look like? Higher sales, lower costs, happier customers…
What constraints are you working under? Time, money, regulation…

How will technology get you there?

Which technology/technologies are right for you?
How will it fit into your organisation’s existing systems and processes?
What else might need to change to make it fit?

LTI - a missed opportunity?

Tue, 20 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

If you work in a medium-to-large organisation, you’ve probably come across tactical, online learning solutions designed to meet a specific need at a specific moment in time.

Examples might include:

driver awareness training
bribery and corruption training
sales training
diversity training

Often this is provided by means of a special website, sometimes from an external supplier.

It looks easy. You get a list of the people who need to do the training, they do it and then you get a list back of who’s done it.

It’s usually slightly more complicated than that!

How will you ensure everyone can log in OK?

How would you ensure that everyone, including new starters, knows they have to do it?

Who’s going to keep track of the results? How often? And where will those results be stored?

Use your LMS

You’re likely to already have a system that manages who does what learning. People will already have a login and it’s already got somewhere to capture and report on who has done what.

It’s called a learning management system.

So how can we make use of that centralised functionality, while still allowing for best of breed tactical Solutions?

That’s where LTI (or Learning Tools Interoperability) comes in.

Learning Tools Interoperability

LTI is a standard that allows a user to login to the LMS, launch an external resource, and get a results sent back to the LMS with no separate setting up of users in the external system and no separate login for those users.

This technique is already used widely in the Education world but not yet in Corporate L&D. Hardly any corporate LMS support LTI and similarly not many of the available tactical solutions. However, there is a way to get started with LTI quickly…

If you are a supplier of a tactical learning solution and you already use Moodle or Totara then LTI has been baked in from Moodle 3.1 onwards. Any course, or any activity within the course, can be published as a learning tool to be used by any LTI-compliant LMS.

You just need to give your customer the secret key for that published tool.

And, if you’re already using Moodle or Totara as your LMS you can already use any LTI compliant tool from within it.

So, next time you procure another tactical learning solution why not ask if they support LTI. It’ll make your life, and that of your employees, so much simpler.

Editor’s note

This post was created in half the time using Speechpad - a free, web-based text to speech tool.

Discovery workshop agenda

Wed, 17 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

You’ve sold your product or service into a client. They’ve trusted you enough to get you in to look at what they need, and are paying you to work through a process to help them understand their next steps.

Normally, what I’d do in this situation is to run a face-to-face discovery workshop - led by your solutions architect or consultant.

This has a three-fold aim:

To build excellent relationships across both teams
To end up with a shared understanding of what is to be achieved
To develop a shared understanding of how that will be achieved

Sometimes a workshop like this will just last a day, but often it’s longer. Much depends on the complexity of the project. But the critical thing is it must be face-to-face. Whilst it’s tempting to do this virtually, you will find that this causes major problems further down the line, as you just won’t have the quality of relationship needed to solve problems together.

So here’s how I run things - remembering that this is a generic agenda, and is likely to need adapting for specific circumstances.

There are all sorts of ways to run through this agenda. My approach is to try to make it as interactive as possible, using group work exercises to get people talking and thinking.

Item	Expected outcomes	Leader
Set the scene	Agreement on the agenda	Supplier team
Introductions	Who is in the room? Why are they here? What are they expecting from the workshop?	Supplier team
What are the problems we're here to solve? NB. Don't skimp on this - it's important!	Background to the project What hasn't worked in the past? What is the client expecting this project to achieve? How will the client know the project has achieved its aims?	Client team
Project vision statement	An agreed 2 sentence statement of the form: For: «target user» Who: «needs» The: «product name» Is a: «product category» That: «product benefit.» This supports our company strategy to «insert name or description of strategy»	Supplier team
Product capabilities	A shared understanding of the existing capabilities of your product or service	Supplier team
User journeys	What will the users do? Where will the data come from? Where does data need to go to?	Supplier team
Integrations	Map out the integration points with other systems What data needs to be transferred? When does the data need to be transferred? How will the data get transferred?	Supplier team
Identify items for work	A list of key functional areas that need to be developed A list of key functional areas that need to be configured	Supplier team
Project approach	A shared understanding of how the project will be managed (eg. Waterfall, Kanban, Scrum A shared understanding of roles and responsibilities	Supplier team
Identify priorities	All the items from the lists of work items in order of importance to the client	Supplier team

All the Discovery outputs should be created, written up and agreed during the Discovery workshop. This saves time in the long run, as everyone is engaged and committed to the outputs.

What you then have is a set of work packages (agile: epics or user stories), which can be estimated (Agile) or costed (Waterfall) in order to move on to the next stage of the project.

If you need help to run your next Discovery workshop - either as a client or a supplier please get in touch.

Systems implementation process

Mon, 17 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

You work for an organisation that has decided they need to add a new IT system, or replace an existing one.

Here’s a quick run-down on the steps that you will need to take, regardless of the size or complexity of the implementation.

Of course, the size of each these steps will vary hugely, but you’ll still need to go through each one - even if it’s just to say that you don’t need it.

Decide on the application or applications to use. This will be affected by multiple factors - eg. famililiarity, existing capabilities, customisations required & functionality.
Identify the supplier(s) who will be able to provide the appropriate levels of support for the server and the application. NB. Suppliers may be internal or external. These days, often it’s best to have the application hosted by the application specialist. It minimises the amount of buck-passing when something goes wrong!
Identify integration points with existing systems. What data will need to be transferred? When will it be transferred? How? And what will trigger it?
Define the acceptable service levels. How much data can you afford to lose if the application is hacked? How long can you wait before bringing the application back online after a breakdown? What speed is acceptable to your users? How long do you expect your service provider to take to deal with issues?
Define configuration management and release processes. How will your service provider manage code versions? How will you ensure that changes are fully tested for impact before being rolled out?
Define the server infrastructure required to meet those service levels. What levels of redundancy will you need? How will the infrastructure expand to meet demand? Will you need the normal development, staging and live systems? Or will you need additional layers?
Install, configure and customise the application
Test each component. Test all the integrations. Test the whole system - end-to-end

Writing for the web checklist

Mon, 27 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

The goal of creating materials on the web is communication. The checklist below provides a test to see if your materials will communicate effectively.

Accessibility

Have all your images got <alt> text - for use by people who rely on screen readers?
Have you used h1, h2, h3 etc in an order that makes sense? So that people who rely on these to interpret the pages structure are not confused.
If you’ve set text and background colours, do they have enough contrast?

Useful resources

Active voice

Have you written your materials using an active voice throughout?
eg. “The board proposed the legislation” not “The regulation was proposed by the board.”

Useful resources

The writer’s handbook

Building scent

Do all your links to other pages contain enough information to let people know where they’re going?
eg. “More information“ not “Click here for more information”.
Have you underlined text that is not a link? That will be highly confusing for your audience.

Useful resources

Why you shouldn’t use click here

Scannability

Can your materials be quickly scanned? (Noting that people actually read very little - about 25% - of most web pages)
Are they broken into small chunks?
Do they have headings that are easily understood?
Do they use bullet points rather than lists in paragraphs?

seful resources

How people read on the web

Front loading

Have you started with the material that’s most important for your audience, with extra detail further down?

Useful resources

Inverted pyramid style of writing

User language

Are you using terms that your audience will understand?
If your audience was searching for this material, what terms would they use?

Useful resources

Consider your audience

Advice for a new starter

Fri, 17 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I was recently asked the question about how I made the transition from school teaching to online learning.

This has been a gradual journey - one on which I’ve been supported by great managers, advisors and colleagues.

Starting points

I did a post-graduate diploma in Elearning. This was with Hull University, but, these days, I’d probably recommend the MSc in Digital Education from Edinburgh, or, for a short course, go for CIPD’s Digital Learning Design, run by Clive Shepherd. He’s a real expert in the subject.

Apart from the thinking that the course provoked, it also helped me start my personal learning network (PLN). You don’t need the qualification, but it might help get interviews, and it will certainly help as you start thinking from the online learning perspective.

My PLN comprises experts in various fields around learning, technology and web design. These are people who publish their ideas and with whom I can interact.

You’d probably have your own set of people to read, but I’d start with Stephen Downes, Cathy Moore, Tom Kuhlmann, Kate Graham and Ryan Tracey.

I have learnt enough HTML, CSS and Javascript to be able to know what’s possible, and to be able to talk to real developers in the same language. W3Schools is a good place to start.

I also used my teaching experience to think in terms of activities and learning outcomes rather than just resources. There are a lot of people who just create nice looking resources with no real thought about how people will use them and what they will realistically learn from them. As a teacher you have an advantage on many people in that you will have much more of an insight into how people learn.

Constant CPD, through my PLN, through Twitter, through meetups and conferences, is essential. Get as much as you can. The world of learning technology is changing very rapidly and its easy to get left behind.

Join the Elearning Network and try to get along to some of their events. You’ll learn masses!

Useful books

The Really Useful Elearning Instruction Manual by Rob Hubbard

Don’t Make me Think by Steve Krug

The New Learning Architect by Clive Shepherd.

Questions for vendors at Learning Technologies

Tue, 24 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Vendors are brilliant at putting on glossy presentations at trade shows, but what are the key questions you should be asking them this year?

Learning Technologies 2017 is set to have another bumper crop of vendors trying to sell you all manner of variations on authoring tools, learning management systems and bespoke development services.

As you wander around the exhibition hall, in between picking up pens and sweets, take the opportunity to get personal demonstrations of what they’re offering. While you’re doing so, you might want to ask them some of these questions…

General

What makes you different from vendors x, y & z?

Sales people will love you for this, as it gives them a chance to talk about their Unique Selling Point (assuming they’ve thought about it of course!)

But it’s important for buyers too, as the sweet spot comes when that USP matches your particular unique need.

What experience do you have in the [charity, automotive, manufacturing, retail, service, public] sector? (pick one that you know)

Again, this gives a chance for people to tell their story. But it’s also useful from your perspective to find out if the vendor is really likely to understand your particular needs.

Authoring tools

This category includes any software tool that is designed to make it easier to build online content.

What does the content look like on a mobile device?

With many people accessing learning on their phones and tablets, it’s important that it works well - and isn’t just shrunk to fit.

How do learners search inside the content?

A key complaint of many learners is that it’s impossible to find what they need at a later date. Making your content searchable is an important step towards that.

How do I collaborate with my team to author and review content?

Many authoring tools are designed for one man bands, whereas most of us work in teams, or with clients who want to review and comment. The more the tools can support those processes the better.

Learning management systems

This category includes any system that you and your learners will use to communicate, access content, and do assessments.

Spending time with a new system, to make it work to fit your organisation, is an important test prior to any purchase. How will the supplier help you do that test?

What does it look like on a mobile device?

As above for authoring tools. The user experience includes the system to access content. It should be as seamless and friction-free as possible.

Can you show me details of your security policies?

Any software vendor who wants to gain your trust will be open and transparent about how they maintain security in their datacentres and software. You shouldn’t need an NDA to know what accreditations they have.

Bespoke content or systems

Tell me about where you’ve made a measurable difference to a client

The key word here is measurable. Ideally comparing what life was like before the intervention to what it was like now.

What’s your opinion on “learning styles”?

If they say anything about testing people for their learning style, about VAK, Honey & Mumford or any other learning styles questionnaire then walk away…

How do you make sure what you design is what we need?

Modern development teams use agile, iterative techniques with short (usually 2 week) cycle times. These ensure the supplier and customer keep their ideas synchronised throughout. But that requires commitment from both customer and supplier - so it will be interesting to get their perspective!

Quality assuring your learning materials

Fri, 02 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

We were asked recently to provide an independent quality assurance service for one of our clients.

The materials in question were a series of elearning packages and associated files and assessments.

So, what should you be looking for when aiming for a high quality product?

The learner journey

Note that a QA check like this is no substitute for a full usability test with real users.

User experience

How the user is taken through the activities and resources, identifying any pain points from the user’s perspective. Consider how the learner will get to the materials - the whole journey from initial contact through to completion.

User interface

Whether the interface itself is a barrier to users.

Learning efficacy

How the activities and resources work together to ensure learning objectives are best supported. Will learners be frustrated because it’s too hard, or bored because it’s too easy?

Engagement

The motivating factors that will retain the user’s attention during the learning module.

Accessibility

Note that a QA check like this should be complemented by a full accessibility audit with an organisation like the Shaw Trust

Browser control

What happens when the user resizes text and switches of images & CSS?

Cognition

Consider headings, link purpose, consistency and readability. Use a tool such as Readability Score

Visual impairments

Consider aspects such as availability to screen readers, [alt] text descriptions, use of colour and colour contrast, and page semantic structure

Hearing impairements

Consider aspects such as Closed Captions and visual alternatives

Motor impairements

Consider aspects such as tabbing through the interface and keyboard control

Technical design

SCORM

Consider any metadata requirements, content packaging conformance and use of optional runtime elements (especially if these packages need to be portable between systems)

Page size

Consider the bandwidth needed for each page

Devices

Consider which devices, screen sizes and resolutions. Should the packages support Retina displays. Should the pages be responsive? If so, to what sizes?

Browser compatibility

Which browser versions should the packages be tested against?

Reusability

Consider how the packages might be localised if necessary. Will they need to be editable by someone else? If so, do they have the software required to do so?

Security

If assessments are built into the packages, how will the answers be kept secure? If using xAPI, how will the communication between the packages and the LRS be secured appropriately?

Ten tips for a successful agile transition

Sun, 30 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

We have worked with many organisations across the whole spectrum of agile-ness… From those who are just taking baby-steps into the agile world to those where agile is at the heart of their culture.

agile (adjective)

relating to or denoting a method of project management, used especially for software development, that is characterized by the division of tasks into short phases of work and frequent reassessment and adaptation of plans.

Source: Google

Agile is more than just a way of managing projects. It’s a way of thinking about work that often requires a wholesale culture change in every part of the organisation.

If your organisation is wanting to move from the traditional “waterfall” approach (where you define all the requirements up front, organise your people to build the product, then test and deliver it), then the following ten tips, gleaned from our work with many such organisations will hopefully help you avoid some of the major pitfalls.

1. Know why

Although you mainly come across the term “agile” in software development, it’s very closely linked to “lean thinking”, and its principles can be applied to most contexts where a product (of any sort) is being delivered.

Knowing why you want to move towards an agile approach is critical to the success of that transition.

Good reasons	Bad reasons
We want to improve the quality of what we produce. We want to recognise change as an integral part of how we work and not deal with it separately. We want to improve our ability to meet our customers’ needs	We want to put “agile” into our marketing collateral. We want to use the XYZ agile project tool to manage our work. We want to move with the times

2. Understand the consequences

Making the change to an agile way of doing things will probably result in changes right across your organisation - from end-to-end:

Sales	Your sales team will need to be able to explain up-front how working in an agile way will impact on the customer.
Contracting	Your contracts will need to be created to take into account the fact that the end-product cannot be defined at the beginning.
Delivery	Everyone involved in delivering the product (on both client and supplier-side) will need to be signed up to working in an agile manner.
Invoicing	Invoices will be generated based on work done, not on products delivered.

3. Start with the right client

A client that is asking for fixed deliverables in a fixed timeframe at a fixed cost is not one that is ready for an agile approach.

But a client that recognises their need to iterate towards a solution - that they don’t yet have all the answers - is one that is ripe to work with you on your agile journey.

4. Start with the right project

The right project is one that is just the right size to fully occupy a small project team from the outset, and one that can easily be broken into smaller phases, which can gradually increase in size and complexity.

We tend to base our projects on the service design phases developed by the UK Government Digital Service:

Discovery	A short phase, in which you start researching the needs of your service’s users, find out what you should be measuring, and explore technological or policy/culture-related constraints.
Alpha	A short phase in which you prototype solutions for your users’ needs. You’ll be testing with a small group of users or stakeholders, and getting early feedback about the design of the service.
Beta	You’re developing against the demands of a live environment, understanding how to build and scale while meeting user needs. You’ll also be releasing a version to test with a wider audience.
Live	The work doesn’t stop once your service is live. You’ll be iteratively improving your service, reacting to new needs and demands, and meeting targets set during its development.

Source: GDS service manual - service design phases

5. Incubate your team

The difference between waterfall and agile can be so great that it’s often better to completely separate them out.

Create a small, dedicated, multi-disciplinary team, which can manage the whole end-to-end process in an agile way, from sales through to delivery and invoicing. They can learn the hard lessons without the distraction of business-as-usual, and be used as a test-bed for the new methodologies.

The lessons learned can be demonstrated back into the parent organisation which may then choose to adopt agile, or maybe the new team will grow to replace the old one.

6. Who owns the product?

Agile projects fail or succeed on the strength of their product ownership.

An effective product owner has three key characteristics:

Availability	Product owners need to provide input throughout the project. Initially this will be intensive and time-consuming. As time goes on, they need to be available at the end of each iteration period to test the deliverables and provide direction for the next period.
Capability	Product owners need to be fully aware of why the product is being developed, and have vision for what the product will look like, based on a clear understanding of its users and purchasers.
Devolved decision making	Product owners need to be able to make decisions independently and quickly, but with accountability to senior management for those decisions.

7. Focus on quality

It’s quite easy to operate in what seems to be an agile way, with sprints, backlogs etc, without it making much difference. And, in many cases, just focussing on the outward appearance can actually make things worse.

The primary difference between the short term iterative agile approach and the longer term, waterfall approach is that detailed quality standards are built into to every single small component. These quality standards are what help to achieve the goal of building what is required, bug free, first time around.

Successful agile projects maintain very clear quality definitions which are accepted by the whole team (and themselves iterated based on lessons learned)

Definition of Ready	The Definition of Ready makes explicit the criteria that each user story (that describes something to be built) must meet before it is accepted for development in the next iteration period. More information from the Agile Alliance
Definition of Done	The Definition of Done makes explicit the criteria by which the team will accept a user story as having been completed. More information from the Agile Alliance

8. Build trust gradually

With an agile project there are many unknowns at the beginning: What is the end result going to look like? How quickly will the team be able to define and create each iteration?

It’s important to build trust across the supplier/client divide - not least so that the client knows they are not being ripped off, and the supplier knows that the client is able to work effectively with them.

Build trust by starting small, and contracting (or releasing funding) for each phase separately. The GDS phases described above are a useful basis to work from - with governance decision points to release further funding between each phase.

9. Tools alone are not the solution

There are heaps of software tools (eg. Trello, Jira, Leankit) and management techniques (eg. Kanban boards, daily standups, retrospectives) that can be a great addition to your agile culture change.

But, introducing a tool on its own will not effect that culture change. That comes by continuously exploring, with your team, what agile means in your context. (See number 10 - below)

10. Iterate towards perfection

The concept of iterating towards perfection is taken from “lean thinking”. It’s a method of continuous improvement that focusses on what perfection looks like and striving to reach that state. It means that constant change is inevitable, but, by including everyone in the process, change is something that people do to themselves rather than having it done to them.

In the agile world, perfection is described by the “12 agile principles”.

These should be your focus right from the start of your transition to agile.

It’s OK to...

Thu, 25 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The Government Digital Service is a mine of useful information and advice on how to get the best out of teams.

One of my favourites is the poster they have displayed in their offices which describes really clearly their work culture.

We’ve prettified the poster and made it available here for anyone to use.

Download the poster (pdf)

Lean learning at the Learning & Skills Group summer forum

Fri, 10 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

At next week’s gathering of the Learning & Skills Group, we will be leading a highly conversational workshop looking at how “lean” might apply within the Learning & Development context.

Picking up on ideas coming from the manufacturing and service delivery sectors, our discussion will consider the five lean principles:

Identify the value provided to customers
Map the value stream & remove waste steps
Maximise flow
Establish pull
Iterate towards perfection

We’ll do some exercises, share ideas and experiences and leave with some immediate things we can try out.

To support the workshop, we’ve developed a Lean Learning resource page containing links and further information.

We’re looking forward to meeting many of you next week!

Ten tips for our tenth birthday

Mon, 23 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Ten years ago, a wise man suggested to me that it would be a good idea to have a fallback plan - separate to the company we both worked for. At the time, our team was going through a lean period - “lean” in the sense of not having much work coming down the pipeline…

So, in May 2006, I registered Wyver Solutions Ltd at Companies House, and began offering consultancy and web development services.

Initially, as this was alongside the day job (with the blessing of my manager), the work was quite small scale - like building websites and providing Moodle advice and training for local theological education institutions.

This ran nicely for a few years, during which time I learnt a lot about all the necessary bits and pieces that you need to do to keep a company going - book-keeping, PAYE, making sure you save enough to pay the corporation tax bill etc.

Then, in 2012, I got the offer I’d been looking for… a contract that would allow us to kick-start Wyver Solutions properly, and leave the comfort blanket of corporate life!

From then on, it’s been busy but lots of fun. We’ve worked with some great people from around the world, and some really interesting organisations.

So, on our tenth birthday, what are the ten things we have learnt about running our sort of consultancy business?

Before you go full-time, spend a lot of time building and maintaining your network. It’s that which will sustain you in the first few years.
Working multiple projects simultaneously across multiple time zones is really hard, and to be avoided if you value your health!
Get an accountant who will give you proactice advice (thanks Richard), and an accountancy software package that speaks English (thanks Kashflow).
You are going to be spending a lot of time doing paperwork, so build processes that you can replicate, document and then give to someone else to do.
Join the Federation of Small Businesses. Their legal advice and documents library is excellent.
Expect to need help with contracts. Keeping on the right side of the IR35 legislation (see advice at Contractor Weekly) as a sole contractor takes effort. It becomes much easier when things develop so you can bring in people to work alongside you.
Make sure that your past and potential clients know you’re still around. Don’t forget them in the busyness of your current projects. Work that network!
Life is not all about work. Don’t feel guilty when you take time off to get in some exercise, or just enjoy seeing daylight again! Build down-time into your week, and into your pricing model. You’ll need it.
Make sure your pricing allows you to create a financial buffer for those times when paid work seems thin on the ground…
Maintain your network - you never know when all your contracts are going to end at once and you’ll need to rely on it!

Value chain analysis 1

Mon, 25 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The diagram below shows the first stage of a value-chain analysis for the Learning & Development function in a typical organisation - from the point of view of the customer: a worker.

As you look at it (click to enlarge), consider:

Which route allows the smoothest flow of value to the customer?
Which activities provide value to the customer?
Which activities provide no value to the customer?
Which activities provide no value to the customer but are essential?
What activities have we missed out? Where is it over-simplified?
Where are the bottlenecks likely to be?
What would you change?

This map works on the basis that the “customer” in this case is the “worker” - who’s definition of value is based on being able to do their job better - which could mean quicker, more easily, more efficiently, more accurately etc. (See Dan Pink’s video on what motivates us below)

Someone in the organisation (perhaps the worker, or their manager, or someone else) has identified a performance problem (perhaps in being compliant with policy, or entering data, or selling enough products etc).

So the first step is to work out the root cause of the problem. Is it a problem with the work itself? Is it a problem with the way the work is supported as it’s being done? Or is it a problem with the underlying knowledge, skills & behaviours that are needed from the workers?

The value map then shows the various activities needed to provide the worker with the ability to do the job better.

This post is part of a series in preparation for client-facing workshops on lean learning.

Seven lessons for successful projects

Thu, 21 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Over the many years in which we have been involved in or running projects, we have learnt many lessons - from observing where things have or haven’t worked. We would argue that these seven are the most important:

Lesson 1: Appropriate communication

Whether you’re using Kanban, Prince 2™, Scrum or any other project management metholodology, you will need to tell some people what they’re doing, and other what is being done.

These are two very different audiences. You can’t expect senior execs to keep an eye on the Kanban board, nor can you expect team members to work from a high-level weekly report.

Ideally, the project management software you’re using will allow different views on the same data, so you can provide the high-level status update alongside the detailed task tracking.

Giving detailed reports is usually actually quite easy. But generating a high-level report that is meaningful at the same time as being concise will require work. Don’t expect the software to do everything… Sometimes you will need to create a simple dashboard for your project board, like these templates available from TechnoPM.

Lesson 2: A product owner who can make decisions

There are two aspects to this lesson. One is that you need a product owner - someone who owns the vision for the end result of the project, who understands the target “user”, the competition and where things are going in this particular domain.

The product owner is ideally intimately involved with the project - communicating the vision, providing regular and frequent feedback, and giving guidance on where to go next.

This means that they must be empowered to make decisions. There is no point having a product owner if all decisions have to be referred higher up.

The project board’s relationship with the product owner then becomes one of accountability (see lesson 4).

The second is that this person must be empowered to make decisions and provide feedback to suppliers. Once those decisions are made they then feed them back to their project board - who simply ratify them. It should be a very rare occassion when the board overrides decisions. (See lesson 7)

Lesson 3: A project manager who talks the right language(s)

It’s important that the project manager is able to communicate with, and translate for, all the project stakeholders.

They don’t necessarily need to be an expert, but they need to understand the language used.

So, when talking with developers or sys admins, they’ll need to be know about the concepts of version control and load balancing.

When talking with product and marketing, they’ll be talking about stakeholder maps and communications plans.

When talking with accounting, they’ll need to understand the importance of budget profiles and financial year ends.

And when talking with learning designers and solutions architects, they’ll be having conversations about user experience and integration.

Part of the PM’s role is to ensure that anything that’s going to have an impact on the wider project is communicated across the workstreams, in a language that all can understand.

Lesson 4: Clear accountabilities

In lesson 2, we discussed the role of the product owner, who is accountable to the project board, but is able to make decisions independently.

Knowing who people report to, and are accountable to, is a major factor in successful projects. Confusion over accountabilities can lead to delays, misunderstandings and significant stress!

The main danger to watch for is with the Project Manager. The Prince2™ guidance is very clear in this regard. The PM works for the project board, and not for the supplier. We would argue that this should apply for any project methodology.

If the supplier wants to have their own project manager, that’s fine, and often a very useful point of contact between supplier and client. But don’t blur the lines of accountability by thinking the supplier’s PM is working for the benefit of the customer.

That’s a nice idea, but when there are difficult conversations to be had, about delays or quality, then you need to know that the PM is batting on your behalf.

Lesson 5: Mix and adapt your methodologies

While there are purists who will only use concepts, tools and techniques from Prince2™, Scrum, Kanban, PMI et al, we would recommend that you adapt your methodologies to the context.

Often a mixture of waterfall and agile methods can work well - using waterfall approaches (project boards, Gantt charts, phase boundaries, project initiation documents, RAID logs) for the big picture, whilst, adopting agile concepts (sprints, scrum stand-ups, show & tells) to manage the smaller elements. Some element of iteration within a larger plan often works very well.

For a single, exclusive methodology to work well requires everyone on the team - customer and supplier - to be signed up to and fully understanding that methodology. This is why many agile development companies request that their customers get some sort of agile certification before they start their projects.

Precisely how you adapt your methodologies will depend on a number of factors:

Project size (or how much it can be broken down)
Customer experience
Supplier experience
How well the project scope is understood
Whether this is a one-off, or whether there’s scope for continuous, iterative improvement

Lesson 6: Ring fence your project team

Project teams need time away from their Business As Usual work to focus on the project.

Anything that comes in from their BAU life that’s likely to have an impact on the project needs to be treated and managed as a risk (if it’s not yet happened) or an issue (if it’s happened).

Just don’t ignore the potential for BAU to scupper a project!

Lesson 7: Avoid management by committee

This links to lessons 2 and 4. If you have clear accountabilities and decision-making vested in individuals, then projects can be made to run very smoothly.

If, however, decisions come back to large groups of people, expect to significantly increase the time required for those decisions to be made.

This is most often seen in content development projects where sign-off is required from various stakeholders: communications, subject matter experts, legal, operations etc - and often the stakeholders’ line managers too.

The worst we’ve seen (for a nationally rolled out high stakes project) is a review panel of more than 20 people, most of whom had very little contact with the project on a daily basis. The best (for a similar sized project) was a review panel of one person - closely attached to the project, who then “sold” his decision to his project board.

Guess which project went most smoothly?

Securing Wordpress

Mon, 18 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Wordpress is at the heart of many thousands of websites around the world. Just by virtue of its popularity it’s become vulnerable to attack. That doesn’t mean that Wordpress is insecure. It’s just that sometimes organisations run it in an insecure way.

We would like to propose three sets of actions, which, when put together, will make a strong defence for any Wordpress site:

Policies and practices

Keep the number of people with admin rights to a bare minimum. Ideally have just two administrator logins (so that one can be used if you lose the password for the first).
Don’t use an administrator login for general use, eg. writing posts and editing pages.
Never share usernames or passwords between people. You’ll want to be able to audit who did what.
Only select plugins and themes that have been tested with your version of Wordpress, have been updated within the last few weeks, and have a solid number of happy users.
Ensure your files and data are backed up regularly (the frequency will depend on how often things change, but weekly would be a minimum) - and know how to restore them if the worst should happen. There are plugins, like Akeeba Backup, that can help with this.
Ensure your plugins and themes, and the Wordpress core code is updated immediately new versions are released. The Wordfence plugin will email you whenever there’s something to update.
Use strong passwords, and store them securely - eg. with a password vault such as LastPass.

Hardening

Change any default usernames or passwords to something new. This applies to Wordpress, to the Database, and to your FTP user.
Make sure your database user cannot access other databases - and especially isn’t the root user.
Consider restricting access to the Admin dashboard from known IP addresses (although this may not be practical if people are moving around a lot).
Use a plugin such as Rename WP login to change the URL of the login page
Only get plugins and themes from known sources, such as the Wordpress repository.
Remove any plugins or themes that you are not using.

Monitoring

Use a plugin like Wordfence to keep an eye on your site. It provides a number of tools to check for strange activity and changes in the code. You will need to get a little bit technical to interpret whether the warnings it gives can be ignored safely.
Set up a regular monitor to see whether your site is behaving properly. There are many services that do this, some free. The paid for ones will offer more frequent monitoring, and usually a better user interface. Most will give you a free trial period.
Consider using a plugin like Enhanced Plugin Admin which will show at a glance which of your plugins may be out-of-date.

Independence Day

Mon, 11 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

We talk quite a bit about being independent consultants, but how does that work in practice, and what’s the benefit to our customers?

We work with a growing number of specialist suppliers who we trust to work to the same standards as we do. In a few cases we have agreements with those suppliers which allow us to provide solution design, implementation, training or consultancy services on their behalf. Where these agreements exist, we always disclose them to our clients.

We are always on the lookout for other suppliers who we can recommend to our customers.

Precisely who we bring in or recommend is dependent only on our customers’ particular requirements. We do not receive any commission or kick-backs for any introductions made.

In order to maintain integrity, our preference is to provide implementation, training etc services directly to the customer - especially in cases where we have had a relationship with the customer previously.

Sometimes, suppliers call us in to provide these sorts of services, which is fine when the relationship is clear - where we are working on behalf of the supplier.

However, from experience, we would recommend strongly that the key role in any implementation, the client’s project manager, has a direct relationship with the customer, and is not placed by the supplier. This keeps things clear and uncomplicated - especially in times where the PM needs to be firm with the supplier!

Talk to us if you want an independent view on learning technologies.

Installing the .gov.uk prototype kit

Sat, 19 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

As part of a new contract, we need to use the GOV.UK prototype kit - which is designed to enable people to quickly build out model applications and websites. I say “quickly”, but you still still need to do a fair bit of hand-crafting…

It’s a departure from our normal way of prototyping, based on wireframes, built in Balsamiq or OmniGraffle. But, this way, the prototype is much more closely aligned to the finished product.

The prototype kit is built using Express - a node.js framework for creating web sites. Which means you have to have node installed to be able to use it.

Node is a brilliant concept - in that it uses Javascript on the server-side - meaning that you only need to learn one language. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy… When you start using node, you very quickly get into pretty complex territory!

However, the kit only works with node version 4.2.2 or 4.2.3, whilst node’s most recent version is 5.2.0. If you come across issues during the prototype kit installation, then check your node version (node -v) first - as we found the installation fails completely without the right version.

The best way to deal with this, without downgrading your node installation, is to use Node Version Manager - aka nvm

This allows you to have multiple versions of node on your machine at once, and switch between them when working with different applications.

Step-by-step to use nvm (Unix & Mac)

In your Terminal, type:

curl https://raw.github.com/creationix/nvm/master/install.sh | sh

This downloads the nvm package, and runs a set of commands to get nvm set up.

Now restart your Terminal.

Then type:

source ~/.nvm/nvm.sh

This runs a few more commands. Without it, your system won’t know where to find nvm.

Note that you can get this to run automatically when your Terminal starts up by adding it into your bash profile. (.bash_profile on MacOSX)

To install node v 4.2.3 just type:

nvm install 4.2.3

Then, after it’s installed:

nvm use 4.2.3

To see which versions of node you have installed, type:

nvm ls

At this point, you can now follow the instructions to download and install the GOV.UK prototype kit

Once you’re done, then use the documentation at GOV.UK elements to understand how to use the CSS.

Tools of the trade

Thu, 17 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

There’s a story about a furniture maker who was asked for a hammer. She pulled out her toolbox and carefully laid out a selection of more than 30 different types of hammer. “Which one?”, she said.

When going into a new client, we don’t take hammers, but we do go in with a range of different tools, some of which are more specialised than others.

Project planning

Merlin is by far the best project management application that I’ve used on the Mac (and I’ve tried most of them). It’s not cheap, but has the great advantage of producing files that are compatible with Microsoft Project. When you’re working in a mixed economy, that is essential.

If you have the fortune to work in a Merlin-only environment, then there are all sorts of additional features that allow you to use Merlin as the hub of your whole project. For example, you can attach, to each task, elements such as additional information, events, files, issues, risks and checklists. And then you can generate reports which pull out this information in easily readable formats.

Document creation

For group collaboration on documents, I’ve still not found anything to beat Google’s Drive. Its real-time editing and commenting features are wonderful to see in action. I’m afraid Microsoft’s Office 365 just doesn’t come close in terms of usability, but be aware that Google provides just the functions that the majority of us use. If you’re an Office power user, then you might be dissatisfied.

The main problem with Google Drive comes when you need to take a document and turn it into a finished product, with branding applied. Quite often, this process then requires a wholesale reformatting in a standalone word processing or desktop publishing application like Microsoft Word or Pages.

Diagram creation

When I need something that’s more capable of creating complex flow charts or wireframes, then I tend to use Omnigraffle. Like Merlin, it’s quite expensive, but I’ll happily pay for software when it’s of this sort of quality. Transferring files to and from Visio (the Microsoft standard for this type of tool) is effortless. I’ve not found any problems yet, but I do tend to keep my demands quite simple in this area!

Sometimes, a specialist diagramming tool is required. One that’s designed for a specific context. For example, I use Balsamiq Mockups for creating working mockups of software interfaces – particularly web applications. By creating diagrams that look hand-drawn, but are still “functional” (in that you can navigate between pages using links), it makes communicating ideas to the client much easier, without the distraction of “I don’t like that colour”.

Presentations

I don’t like presentations in general. It’s partly down to our philosophy that face-to-face time is better spent in conversation. However, in my line of work, you have to do them, and you have to do them well. So I’ve learnt to find ways to make presentations far more of a conversation than a monologue.

Apart from the obvious things – like displaying pictures and diagrams rather than bullet points (see Presentation Zen for great advice) – I’ve found that being at the opposite end of the room from the screen helps a lot. It means that I can distribute the audience’s attention between me and the screen. That’s then made even better if you can highlight or annotate things whilst you’re talking.

Rather than being stuck behind a laptop screen during the presentation, I often use Doceri, which is an app that sits on my iPad and on my laptop. It allows me to control the Mac from the iPad wirelessly, and, when I need to, simply annotate what’s happening on screen.

I’ve tried a number of such tools, and Doceri has proven to be the easiest, and safest, to use “in the wild”.

Dense-making

Having a tool that can help you make sense of a bundle of information and ideas is essential in our line of work.

Currently, my preferred tool is iThoughtsX. It’s for Mac and iOS only, and enables me to very quickly:

Generate ideas on a mind map
Add notes, links and images
Rearrange ideas
Generate rough reports and presentations

Its most useful feature though is its ability to import and export from a very large range of other, similar tools.

A service oriented architecture for corporate learning

Sat, 05 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The modern corporate learning environment is diverse and complex. As well as the ‘traditional’ face-to-face courses, there is a whole range of different learning methodologies to be supported.

When designing a technology architecture to underpin this environment, I would recommend building on a few, key learning design principles (see references below):

Learning is a process of making connections with existing knowledge, ideas and concepts - tagged with an emotional context, or significance, which is used to help access those connections at a later date
People who are novices in any field are best served by a carefully structured sequence of practice activities to help get them to a stage at which they can be self-sufficient learners in that field
Knowledge, skills and behaviours can be helped to stay in long term memory through a process of spaced repetition
Self-sufficient learners need ready access to up-to-date resources - whether physical, digital or human, in order to solve problems and make decisions during the course of their work
Decisions about course or resource requirements should be underpinned by evidence

As a thought-experiment, I would like to propose an architecture as shown in the diagram below:

Each component within the architecture is a designed as a service which can be called upon by any of the other components. That service could be realised through people, through a website, through a mobile app, or any combination of these.

Identity Management

A single identity management service, which contains all the personal profile and authentication information for any particular user makes it much simpler to plug in additional services which need that information.

Just as a student ID card gives access to any number of services within a university, so corporate identity management can allow people to use multiple services without having to continually provide credentials and personal data.

Search

An enterprise Search service should be able to:

index all the information sources available to people within the corporate network
display results to the user that are appropriate to their access levels

The latter is probably one of the hardest problems to solve within enterprise information networks. And so many organisations end up with a plethora of search engines - each for a different information resource.

The two simple answers are to either:

aggregate all the information sources into one system, or
rationalise access levels across multiple information sources, so that the data provided by the Identity Management service can be used to identify what information should be displayed to the user

Neither are actually that simple!

However, with search being the primary route to learning materials for people outside of work, it makes sense to try to replicate this as much as possible within work.

Personalisation

The personalisation service provides the means by which people get, as quickly as possible, to the learning resources and activities that they need.

What the user is directed to should be based on:

what the organisation is trying to “market” at any point in time
what the organisation considers mandatory for that particular user
information supplied by the user, including:
- preferences
- interests
- job title
- diagnostic results
- summative assessment results
- what they’ve looked for in the past
- content accessed
- actions of people who are similar (eg. similar job titles) to the user

The latter set of data will come from other services within the learning architecture.

The Search service will provide data to the Learning Records service, such as:

[UserID] searched for [search term] on [date]

Community

The Community service provides the ability to add human interaction capabilities at any point within the user’s journey.

Sometimes you may need to have two, separate Community services. One to use within a closed, time-bound group - such as a course. And one for more general discussion and feedback.

However, the more the two can work in the same way, the better. Communities are notoriously difficult to start and maintain - particularly online ones. By keeping the way they work consistent (and simple), we reduce the inherent barriers to participation.

Note that the Community provides data for the Search service - thus providing a way to capture and reuse the tacit information held within the organisation.

The Community will also provide data to the Learning Records service, such as:

[UserID] responded to [forum post] on [date]

Content

The Content service could actually be many services. Each one will provide data for the Search service, so that the content it contains can be found.

Content could be any form of digital materials:

video
text articles
books
audio
animations
tutorials

Or any combination of the above.

As with all content management, there is a balance to be kept between making materials as granular as possible and as integrated as possible.

Granular items can be reused in multiple contexts, and users can be taken to specific places to meet a specific need. An example would be an encylopaedia entry.

Integrated items provide a coherent package of information, which takes a user on a self-contained journey. An example would be a documentary film.

The ideal is to have both extremes at the same time - where content is built in integrated packages, but with the ability to use the Search service to look inside those packages, and jump to specific sections within them.

The Content service will also provide data to the Learning Records service, such as:

[UserID] watched [x%] of [video] on [date]

Courses

The course service is important in any learning architecture - particularly for those people who are novices in a field. They require structured introductions to the field, and to the language used within it.

A course has boundaries - usually in terms of time and people. It will have a known time commitment from the user, and there will be expectations on the user and perhaps on tutors or peers to support the learning process. There is also a start and an end.

A course usually comprises a mix of resources and activities. The resources, in this architecture, will be provided by the Content service. The activities would be provided by:

The Community service - for discussions, comments and conversation.
The Assessment service - for diagnostic and summative assessments
The Course service itself - for elements which cannot be delivered in any other means (eg. administration of events and groups of people)

The Course service will also provide data for the Learning Records service, such as:

[UserID] completed [Course] on [date]

Assessment

The Assessment service provides the ability to supply:

diagnostic assessments (to help the learner know what to do next)
summative assessment (to provide evidence of capability)

Assessments can be in many forms; multiple choice, essays, observation etc.

The more there is at stake after the assessment, the more the Assessment service will need to be able to supply in terms of:

validity - the extent to which an assessment measures what it’s supposed to measure
reliability - the extent to which the assessment gives the same result no matter when or where it is taken
integrity - the extent to which users are unable to cheat the system

As each of those requirements increases, so will the necessary complexity of the Assessment service - particularly with regard to security and analysis of learner response data.

The Assessment service will also provide data to the Learning Records service, such as:

[UserID] passed [Assessment] with a score of [x%] on [date]

[UserID] answered [Question] in [Assessment] with [Answer], scoring [n]

Learning records

The Learning Records service collects and stores all the data sent to it from the other services.

This data can also be used by the other services - particularly the Personalisation service. For example, if a user has started to look at a resource, then that information will be in the Learning Records, and can be retrieved by the Personalisation service when the user next needs to be notified of what they could do next.

The Learning Records service will make its data available to the Analytics service.

Analytics

The Analytics service is designed to:

help service managers to make decisions about the future direction of their particular service
help the Personalisation service provide better guidance to individual users

It will help answer questions such as:

What Content resources do we need to provide to answer user’s questions to the Search service?
Which Content resources are being underused?
Where can I find an expert on topic “x”?
How good are our assessments at differentiating accurately between people?

The Analytics service can be used in support of A-B testing, where a slight tweak is made to a service to see the impact of the change.

Note that, if the Analytics service also has access to performance data, then even more useful analysis can be made to answer questions such as:

Does our “x” course have an impact on performance?
How do high-achieving people use the learning services?

References

Caple, C. (1996) “The Effects of Spaced Practice and Spaced Review on Recall and Retention Using Computer Assisted Instruction”, available from: http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED427772

Siemens, G. (2005) “Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age”, available from: http://www.itdl.org/journal/jan_05/article01.htm

Shackleton-Jones, N. (2010) “Towards a working theory of learning: the affective context model”, available from: http://www.aconventional.com/2010/05/towards-working-theory-of-learning.html

Medina, J. (2014) “Brain rules”, available from: http://www.brainrules.net/about-brain-rules

Installing Testlink on Amazon Web Services

Tue, 17 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

We have been using Testlink on and off for a number of years as a tool to help define and execute tests against all sorts of software. It’s far better than trying to track everything on spreadsheets (see our recent post on Making Content Better for a bit more rationale).

We needed to move our Testlink installation from our shared web-server to something a bit more robust and scalable, and have chosen Amazon Web Services (AWS) given its reputation and our previous experiences with some rather large clients of their’s.

Setting up Testlink on the server was mostly quite straightforward, but there were a few places where we ended up scratching our heads. Hopefully this brief set of instructions will help others in the same position!

Create an account on Amazon Web Services (AWS). You will need to put in payment details, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be charged anything just yet. We’d suggest just signing up for the free, basic level at this stage.
Go to the AWS console
Change your required server location (next to your name at the top right) to meet your needs. We chose “Ireland”.
Begin the process of launching an EC2 instance… That sounds complicated but it’ simply a matter of hitting the “Launch Instance” button from the AWS console. The process is almost identical to that of launching a Wordpress site on AWS
In the tabs on the left-hand-side, choose AWS Marketplace
Within the Marketplace, search for “Testlink”. It will bring up a list of 2 or 3 different Bitnami packages to use.
We chose the package that uses Bitnami (HVM) as it gave us the right selection of server sizes for our needs. You might need to experiment to see which version gives the server you need.
You will be asked to choose an Instance Type. This is where you’ll need to do some thinking, and may need to go back to the previous step to choose a different Bitnami package. Amazon do give you the option of choosing a free instance (free for one year), but this is very small and probably not suited to any more than a “getting started” setup. Testlink recommend going for the m3.medium instance - but that may be overkill for some. If you’re not sure, that’s where we’d probably recommend bringing in someone who knows AWS to provide some support.
AWS gives you options to configure the instance, but you can just use the defaults provided by Bitnami and hit “Review and Launch”
Don’t forget to create and download the .pem private key file (and save it somewhere you can get to). The launch process will guide you through how to do this. You will need this when connecting to the server to configure Testlink.

If you then go to the IP address supplied by AWS, you should see the Testlink login page. However, the normal Bitnami password doesn’t seem to work, so you’ll need to change it, but you’ll only be able to do that when you’ve got a way for Testlink to send emails…

Setting up an AWS SMTP server

There are three stages to getting Testlink setup so it can send emails:

Verify email addresses

Setup verified email addresses (ie. those which you’ll be using within Testlink) within Amazon’s Simple Email Service (note this route is only suitable for small teams, for larger teams you’ll need to ask Amazon for production access)

Obtain your Simple Email Service SMTP credentials

Obtain SES credentials so that Testlink can use SES

Configure Testlink to use SES

This is where you’ll need to connect to the AWS server via SSH, using the .pem file created earlier. Note that AWS helpfully provides a connect button on the EC2 > Instances page, with commands for your particular instance.

Once you’ve connected using SSH, you can edit the /apps/testlink/htdocs/custom_config.inc.php file (I tend to use the nano editor, but you can also use vi if you like esoteric editing commands).

Find the section headed SMTP server configuration, and then add in the following details (NB. These are taken from the Mantis Bug Tracker configuration - which is copied by Testlink - see this forum post)

define ("SMTP_SEND", 2);
$g_phpMailer_method = SMTP_SEND;  #For SMTP Method
$g_smtp_host = ‘email-smtp.us-east-1.amazonaws.com'; #Your SES SMTP Host
$g_smtp_connection_mode = ‘tls'; #It is mandatory for SES and Gmail SMTP
$g_smtp_port = 587; #For some Reason only this port was working in SES
$g_smtp_username = ‘SMTP Username'; # Your SES SMTP Username (a 20 character string)
$g_smtp_password = ‘SMTP Password'; # Your SES SMTP Password
$g_tl_admin_email = ‘email@sample.com'; #Email displayed at footer (Must be an approved sender list in SES)
$g_from_email = ‘email@sample.com'; # From Address (Verified SES Sender Email)
$g_return_path_email = ‘email@sample.com'; # the return address for bounced mail
$g_from_name = ‘From Name';
$g_enable_email_notification = ON;

Once all that is done, you should have a working Testlink installation. It may need further tweaks, but check out the documentation stored inside the docs directory.

Note: If you want to access PHPmyadmin to administer the database, create an SSH tunnel to the port 80 instead. This can be done as follows in Unix systems:

ssh -i <path_to_private_key> -N -L 8888:127.0.0.1:80 <public_dns>

or with Putty on Windows using source port 8888 and destination 127.0.0.1:80.

Once done it will be accessible at http://localhost:8888/phpmyadmin while the tunnel is opened. Credit to Carlos on the Bitnami forums for this advice.

Making content better

Tue, 10 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Creating content to support learning & development can be an enjoyable task, with great scope for creativity.

In the ideal scenario, the learning designer will work with a Subject Matter Expert (SME) to understand the learning needs, the context and the content. They will then translate that into a set of activities designed to motivate, stimulate, support and embed learning. These activities will then be delivered as a finished product, to the delight of its users.

That’s the ideal.

In practice, it’s a little more complicated…

The SME is usually not the only person with an interest in the product. Often there’ll be a team or a committee of people who need to review it - from varying perspectives: legal, branding, commercial, usability and subject content.

All of these will need to feed ideas back into the design and development process. These ideas will need to be triaged to ensure they don’t conflict with each other. Then any resulting changes will need to be tracked, checked and re-reviewed. All this takes time, and careful management, and is often the place where new content development teams get unstuck.

But it’s not just the review process that gets complex. The design and development process itself, especially when working with multi-disciplinary teams, contains a number of gotchas which can come back to bite the unwary.

The simple process of passing materials around for people to review and make changes can cause havoc. Just take a simple design document written in Word or Powerpoint. As soon as that leaves the designer’s computer attached to an email it becomes uncontrolled. That document may go to a number of people who all make comments and changes. Agreeing those changes, amalgamating them into a new version, and ensuring everyone has the most up-to-date version, can become the stuff of nightmares…

Add into the mix the common requirements…

to ensure that all the images used are have the requisite copyright approvals
to produce both online and print versions
to have consistent boilerplate text and branding across multiple packages of content (which may change at any minute)

We have used a number of approaches to handling these process management problems, ranging from:

Spreadsheet or Kanban-based tracking tools, combined with complex file-naming conventions
Issue-tracking systems (eg. Jira, ActiveCollab)
Online shared document creation - particularly for design documents, eg. Zoho Docs, Google Docs or Office 365
Distributed and server-based version control systems (eg. git, Sharepoint)
Online authoring tools (eg. Lectora Online, Nimble, Adapt, Xerte, Appitierre Evolve)
Full-blown learning content and asset management systems (eg. Xyleme, Exact Learning, Wordpress, Liferay)

We would recommend adopting a continuous, lean approach to process improvement. Sometimes just simple, inexpensive changes, identified by the team itself, can be the most effective.

However, in some cases, you may need to do a larger change, and implement one or more new systems (eg. when moving from single-user authoring tools to team-based processes). What you do will depend very much on the technical abilities of your team, your business model and where the most value can be gained. For example, if you have a technically confident team, then adopting approaches that use generic code development tools & techniques can be very worthwhile. But, if your team comprises the typical learning & development professionals, then you may need to use tools that are geared towards that audience.

We will be exploring some of these ideas during a short workshop session at the Elearning Network Conference on 11th November. If you would like to discuss them further and consider how to improve your own content development processes, please get in touch.

Jay Cross

Mon, 09 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

It was probably about 2004-5 when I first came in touch with Jay Cross and his work. I was moving from education into workplace learning, and his ideas about informal learning struck a chord with me.

The thing about his writing was not so much that it was new and ground-breaking, but more that it set out clearly and succintly things that just made sense.

There have been many times when I’ve pointed people towards his simple diagram comparing investment in learning interventions with the amount of learning that actually takes place. And even more times when I described the difference between informal and formal learning using his graph (shown below).

Jay was always gracious and generous when asked for permission to use his work. Although I never had the opportunity to discuss ideas with him, his character shone through in his writing and his videos.

As a community of learning professionals we have lost one of our leaders - who wasn’t afraid to set a direction and go all out for it.

RIP Jay. We’ll miss you.

Getting started with Moodle

Wed, 28 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

[This post is a copy of a response made to a query on the Learning & Skills group forum]

If you’re looking for help on setting up a Moodle site, you’re going to be spoilt for choice…

Much depends on the level of ownership you’re going to take for the site. At each level you will have the option of outsourcing it if you need to:

Level 1: Infrastructure
Level 2: Installation
Level 3: Configuration
Level 4: Administration
Level 5: Course design

So, here are few resources that may help guide you at each level.

Level 1: Infrastructure

We’ve split this into small and large setups.

Small setup

(Low user numbers, low bandwidth requirements)

This will work on a single server, running a Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP software stack. These will need to be configured appropriately for security and performance.

There are guidelines on Moodle docs:

https://docs.moodle.org/29/en/Installing_Moodle#Requirements

https://docs.moodle.org/29/en/Installing_AMP

A lot has also been written about optimizing Moodle servers:

http://www.iteachwithmoodle.com/2014/01/20/optimizing-a-moodle-serv…

http://www.iteachwithmoodle.com/2014/01/21/how-to-optimize-a-moodle…

http://www.iteachwithmoodle.com/2014/01/22/how-to-optimize-a-moodle…

http://www.iteachwithmoodle.com/2014/01/23/how-to-optimize-a-moodle…

Large setup

(High user numbers accessing a lot of resources and activities)

This can get very complicated very quickly, as you’ll need multiple servers, network infrastructure, and security systems.

At this point, you will need to bring in professional system architects… Some will recommend Linux as the base operating system, others Windows. Either will work, but don’t try to mix and match software (ie. with Windows use IIS as the web server software, and with Linux use Apache or nginx.

You will find this document useful at this stage:

https://docs.moodle.org/29/en/Performance_recommendations

Level 2: Installation

Moodle is actually very simple to install, once you have the server hardware and software setup correctly.

Follow the instructions at: https://docs.moodle.org/29/en/Installing_Moodle

You will usually find help in the Moodle Installation forum

Some hosting providers offer an automated Moodle installation service, but be aware that many shared hosting setups will not cope with anything more than a very small number of users.

Don’t forget that you will need to perform regular maintenance upgrades on your Moodle site in order to remain secure.

Level 3: Configuration

This is where it starts to get complicated, as Moodle can be configured to operate in so many different ways.

The best source of advice on this is Alex Buchner’s book: Moodle 2 Administration (Amazon). The book is probably a little out-of-date, and will need to be supplemented by frequent visits to https://docs.moodle.org/

The main things to consider are:

How will I get users into the system?
How will I organise the courses?
What functions do I need to make available to course designers?
How will users navigate into and within the courses?
How do you wish your Moodle site to look?
What data do I need to collect about the learning activity that has taken place?
What roles will people have within Moodle, and what does each role need to be able to do?

Level 4: Administration

Actually, once a Moodle site is setup, there’s little ongoing administration to do, apart from adding new users and assigning the right users to the right courses and groups, with the right permissions. It is possible to automate much of that, which will be considered during Configuration.

Again, Moodle docs is a good source of info: https://docs.moodle.org/29/en/Guide_for_new_administrators

Level 5: Course design

At this point, there is a huge amount of guidance and support dotted around the web. The Teaching with Moodle forum is a particularly good source of help.

It is worth reading Moodle’s paper on pedagogy: https://docs.moodle.org/29/en/Pedagogy as it will give a very good idea of why Moodle works the way it does.

Other useful resources:

https://docs.moodle.org/29/en/Moodle_key_terms

https://docs.moodle.org/29/en/Managing_a_Moodle_course

If you need independent support or advice to get you up and running with Moodle, please get in touch.

xAPI booklet now in Chinese

Mon, 19 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Last year, we published a short, introductory booklet “Exploring the potential of xAPI”, designed for a non-technical audience.

We placed it on Slideshare, and gave it out at our xAPI workshops, where we received some very good reviews.

Recently, we were asked to do a webinar on the topic for a group of Chinese learning technologists. As a follow-up, Jessie Chuang, from Classroom Aid (who helped organise the webinar) arranged for a Chinese translation of the booklet.

You will find it on the xAPI Chinese Community of Practice

World of Learning 2015 Highlights

Thu, 01 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Apart from providing a useful point in the calendar to catch up with friends and colleagues from around the L&D industry, World of Learning’s unique and eclectic mix of exhibitors usually throws up some interesting new technologies.

Unlike the Learning Technologies show, all exhibitors at World of Learning are constrained to the same sized stand. This level playing field gives suppliers an opportunity to explore the market without having to compete head-to-head against the larger, established players.

When I attend shows like this, I tend to go with a plan &emdash; based on the show brochure. Rather than traipse up and down the rows of stands, I pick out key ones that look like they’re going to be interesting.

As an aside, this is often made somewhat difficult by the utterly bland nature of the blurb that some suppliers put into the brochure…

There were four suppliers that stood out to me, so I made a beeline to them:

kPoint

Now this was impressive. I watched a live demo in which they:

made a video from a webcam from inside the browser
added additional media to display alongside the video
added highlights (bookmarks) and quizzes to display during the video
demonstrated that all the spoken words and media had been indexed and made available to an in-video search engine

Of course, the video was able to be embedded, shared or kept private - just as you’d expect.

Even more impressive is that they’ve thought about xAPI and built it in from the start…

Their showcase provides some useful examples.

Training Orchestra

Many learning management systems try to help organisations do all the administration required around training, but sometimes you need a specialist administration system.

Whether you’re operating a training department for an organisation, or for multiple clients, you will need some sort of administrative capability, including things like

Forecasting the training plan
Managing logistics
Managing communications with delegates, suppliers and staff
Managing the sales and marketing process
Managing the training catalogue
Managing certification

There are very few players in this particular market. Training Orchestra, already quite large in the French-speaking world, has started to market itself in the UK.

Worth checking out if you manage a traditional training business or department.

ViaTech

ViaTech have quite a difficult proposition to understand. You’ll only know you need their solution if you have a ViaTech-shaped hole in your organisation…

In a nutshell, they provide a software platform through which you can more efficiently organise, aggregate, deliver and track your digital publications.

Their promo video gives an outline of what they do, but it’s one of those products that will need a lot of conversation with them to see how it might fit your particular organisation.

AMA

I thought the Google Glass project had finished, but discovered that a number of companies are still working with it on specific, niche applications.

One of these is AMA &emdash; another one of a handful of French companies exhibiting at World of Learning this year.

Their product aims to help people who need high quality video solutions for remote working &emdash; such as medical teams who need a second opinion, or demonstrations of hands-on activity.

Not everyone will need this, but I can see it working really well in field-based maintenance and repair operations.

The video below provides an example application:

Why you shouldn’t use click here

Mon, 10 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The endemic use of “click here” links within emails, web pages and elearning materials are an indication that many designers and authors need to learn to think more from the user’s perspective.

Put simply, “click here” is bad practice. It is lazy and inconsiderate to your users.

Don’t do it.

We have known for years that people tend to scan web-pages rather than read them (Jakob Nielsen). They are seeking signposts to further information: headings, short bullet points and links.

A link that just says “click here” tells you nothing about where it will take you. It’s like a signpost in a street that says “Walk down here”. Meaningless.

Some people will try to mitigate this by providing some extra information after saying “click here”

Eg. “click here” to find out more about building widgets.

But that doesn’t help the people who are:

scanning for links
using assistive software and tabbing through links (Introduction to Web Accessibility)

In both cases, that extra information is redundant as it won’t be seen or heard.

What should we do?

The words you use for a text link are critical to help the user know whether they should click on it or not.

Like a trail of treats set out for a dog, your links should provide a “scent” of the next page. (Krug: Don’t make me think)

In the example above, instead of saying:

“click here” to find out more about building widgets.

Just use the link: Find out more about building widgets

It really is that simple. But it does need a tiny bit of extra thought about which words are going to convey most scent.

You may even find that more people then click on your links…

Preparing for butterfly hunting

Tue, 14 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This week’s Elearning Network event focusses on New Directions in Learning. Our session within the day is going to be looking at a number of areas which have the potential to make a massive difference to how we do L&D within our organisations.

On the day, attendees will have the opportunity to choose which areas they want to focus on. So it will be worth having a think beforehand about their potential impact in your organisation. The videos below should give an introduction to each topic:

Augmented reality

Consider how you would teach someone to do this task without the augmented reality system:

Ubiquitous video

Consider how you would teach someone to do this task without video. What would it cost?

Open badges

The video describes “Open badges” as an enabling technology. What does it enable?

Enterprise search

Take a look at the top 500 sites on the internet. Of the top 20, how many have search at the centre?

How do you use the internet? Where do you start when you need to find out something?

Where do people start when they’re at work?

Experience API

If we can collect learner tracking data from any system, why do we need an LMS?

H5P

Try out some of the H5P examples.

Consider how you might use them if you could add things like this to your intranet, and track their usage in a Learning Record Store?

Content management

Content management systems (CMS) enable:

Separation of content from presentation (meaning that content can be reused in multiple outputs, such as web, mobile, ebook, print)
Chunking of content (meaning that content chunks can be reused in multiple places)
Version control (meaning that you should always be able to see who made what change and when)
Publishing workflow (meaning that the process of authoring, review, editing and publishing can be automated and distributed efficiently)
Searchability (most CMS’s allow content to be tagged and indexed automatically, ready for searching)

For more see: 10 reasons why your business needs a CMS

Why do we in L&D continue to make standalone pieces of content without making use of CMS’s?

The state of Learning & Development

Wed, 08 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

During a recent consultancy project, we needed to dig into a number of recent industry reports, looking at the current state of technology within Learning & Development.

One of the key ones was the excellent Deloitte Human Capital Trends report (2015) report. This is a mine of useful insights.

We’ve categorised some of their main learning technology findings under the headings: People, Processes and Technology. We find that this way of organising thinking fits how many people think, and so is a useful way to communicate ideas.

People

The Deloitte team highlighted the need for systemic change within the learning & training industry to respond to societal expectations:

HR organizations face a massive digital transformation in the learning and training industry, plus new expectations by employees for on demand learning opportunities.

Companies need to redefine learning as an agile and routine experience. This often requires the assignment of a development team to build a new “learning architecture” as well as assigning people to be “product managers,” not just instructional designers.

Elevate the job of chief learning officer: In times like these the CLO plays a critical role. Elevate this position to attract experienced learning, technology, and HR leaders. The CLO must create a vision for the future, put in place a business and operating plan that scales, centralize strategy and architecture, and engage top leadership in building a learning culture.

Implementing new tools without redesigning processes and retraining HR does not solve talent problems. The lesson is not to stop spending on technology, but to make sure complementary investments are made in programs that redesign processes, develop new learning content and programs, and train both leaders and the HR team.

Process

If we keep our focus on measuring attendees or SCORM completions we will not be able to respond effectively:

Reimagine measurement: The old measurement models no longer provide enough information. Look at measuring all types of activity, and capture data about learning like you do from outside customers. Monitor metrics such as activity and usage, feedback, and net promoter scores, as well as satisfaction and instructor ratings.

The heavy increased spending on technology has not been accompanied by similar investments in process and people.

Technology

The current corporate learning technology offering does not yet meet the expectations of how people learn outside of work:

The last three years have witnessed an explosion of new learning offerings, including MOOCs (more than 400 universities now offer free or low-cost courses), digital learning tools, video offerings, and new cloud-based training systems. These new learning platforms are easy to use, provide access to internal and external content, and use analytics to recommend content in a manner similar to Netflix and Amazon.

Innovative and engaging learning solutions today are on-demand, fast to absorb, and available on mobile devices. Yet, while employees now demand a personalized, digital learning experience that feels like YouTube, many companies are stuck with decades-old learning management systems that amount to little more than a registration system or course catalog. Research shows that less than 25 percent of companies feel comfortable with today’s digital learning environment.

Investing in Learning Technology

Sun, 05 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Why invest in learning technology?

Organisations invest in Learning Technologies because they can, when used well:

Reduce the total costs of learning to the business – particularly by reducing travel and print costs, and increasing administrative efficiency
Increase flexibility – in terms of when and where learning materials and expertise can be accessed
Provide useful data upon which decisions can be made
Help to engage and motivate

However, when used inappropriately or poorly, learning technologies can have the opposite effect:

Increasing costs through expensive equipment that is under-used
Reducing flexibility by relying on proprietary technologies
Collecting large quantities of meaningless data
Demotivating employees who are used, in their lives outside work, to on-demand support at the point of need

Where should we spend our money?

Organisations that are using learning technology well will tend to invest in more than just the technology itself. They will spend money on:

Infrastructure – primarily wireless network connectivity
Platforms – the software through which employees will access learning materials, administrative processes and people
Content – a mix of lots of rapidly-developed, focussed content (not necessarily “elearning”) with a short lifespan and low production values, along with small numbers of bespoke content items with a long lifespan and high production values
Equipment – a mix of lots of low cost devices to produce, consume and communicate in the field, along with small numbers of higher cost devices for specialist, location-centred use
People – training and support for those who will be producing, leading and administrating, plus investment in online and face-to-face coaching, mentoring and curating

It’s important to get the balance right, as failure to invest in one of these elements appropriately will often lead to a failed initiative.

If you would like help to select, procure and implement learning technologies, please get in touch

Mobile learning strategy

Thu, 02 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

At this week’s meeting of East Midlands Learning Technologists the focus for discussion was mobile learning.

Mobile – What is it good for?

With the introduction of ubiquitous, connected mobile devices into the workplace or the classroom, what can we do now that we couldn’t do before?

Expect people to be able to access information at their point of need
Expect people to be able to communicate with peers and experts outside of fixed times or locations
Capture data (eg. audio and video) at any time

What needs to be in my mobile strategy?

As in most strategies, there are three components:

People — Processes — Technology

People

You will need to consider:

Current capabilities – of learning professionals and learners
Required capabilities – around study skills, digital literacy, learning design and content development
Organisational structures – such as online mentoring and content design and development
Training & support
Change management & communication

Processes

You will need to consider:

Your content development workflows – mobile adds a whole new dimension to this!
Your learner support processes
How you will retrieve data from mobile devices – to share in a classroom, or online

Technology

You will need to consider:

Are you going to focus on online mobile delivery, using responsive web design?
Will you use mobile apps? They are great for offline use, but can mean an extra layer of complexity
Will you need to handle many types of device, or do you have control over the devices?
Which tools will you use to develop and deliver content?
Security – how will you handle sensitive data on devices you don’t control?

Addendum

The recently released mLearning Design Reference Model from ADL’s MOTIF project provides a useful interactive Powerpoint (why Powerpoint rather than HTML, I’m not quite sure). It helps learning designers and architects to focus on the unique characteristics of mobile devices and usage patterns.

If you would like help to develop your mobile learning strategy, please get in touch

Mid-year reflections

Tue, 30 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

It’s always good to look back every now and again, to assess what’s been achieved and what could have been done differently. This is important for organisations as well as individuals.

Six months ago, we were in the middle of managing a project to implement a Moodle and Learning Locker backend with a bespoke Javascript front end application - working with a global social media organisations.

Alongside that we were working with a global professional body to design the technology underpinning their Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programme.

Experience API (aka Tin Can)

Both of these projects had xAPI at their heart. With the social media organisation, as well as function-specific APIs to allow the front-end to communicate with Moodle, we also used xAPI as the main means to store the learner’s progress and activity.

With the CPD programme, Learning Locker became the primary database for all the user interactions with the system. This meant designing a bespoke implementation of xAPI with a set of function scenarios, each one requiring its own statement design.

Wherever possible, we have tried to make use of standard statement components (such as verbs, activity types and recipes) as described in the xAPI Registry. We also have tried to avoid functions that are specific to a certain Learning Record Store (LRS), such as the custom APIs provided by LearningLocker.

Whilst custom APIs are often really useful ways to solve problems, as soon as you start to use them you are then tied to that particular application. To minimise issues later on if you need to migrate to another application, then you need to stick to the standards as much as possible.

It’s a similar case with the verbs and other statement components. It’s usually far better to use language that is commonly understood, rather than inventing your own language and structures. In our case that wasn’t always possible, but we did make sure that anything that we created specifically was fully documented in a structured specification document - written using git and Markdown.

Git and Markdown

It’s been a really interesting year, so far, exploring how the technologies used by developers can play a part in learning solution design.

Initially this was inspired by the the UK Government Digital Service’s thinking on how they use Github (a distributed version control system) to collaboratively create their strategy documents as well as their code.

Git

Git, at its simplest, is a way of keeping progressive backups (known as repositories) of text files, with the ability to roll-back to any previous version.

More than, this, it’s possible for other members of the team to have their own copies of the Git repository, make changes, and merge those changes into everyone’s versions. It’s quite magical seeing it in operation!

We’ve used Git for managing the version control on documents. It’s so much more robust than sending Word documents by email with version numbers in the file names…

Markdown

Git does work best on text files - which is where Markdown comes in. It’s a very simple way of specifying formatting (such as headings, bullets and tables) within a plain text file.

Using Markdown allows you to focus on the content, rather than the design - which you can always tweak later.

The Wyver Solutions website is now built using Markdown. Following a major service failure at our hosting provider, we decided to take what was left of our website and migrate to a static site, which has no need for databases and should be far quicker to use than the old Wordpress site.

We’ve built the site using Jekyll and hosted it for free on Github. The basic framework took a weekend to sort out, and now it’s just a matter of taking the old content from Wordpress and converting it to a set of Markdown files. This is made simpler using the Wordpress -> Jekyll exporter plugin, but there’s still a bit of tweaking to do on each page, particularly around images.

In the process, unavoidably we’ve had to lose the links to the old pages, and we’ve now got a new RSS feed URL. We hope this doesn’t cause too much confusion!

It’s been a good process to work through. There’s a lot you can do if you write with Markdown files. From a single, collaborative, version-controlled source you can create a responsive website, a PDF, HTML5 presentation slides or an ebook! We’re looking forward to exploring more…

Lean learning

Back in February, along with Sean Buckland, one of the UK’s leading experts on “lean” service delivery, we led a workshop on using lean ideas within the context of learning & development.

As well as looking at generic lean principles - like defining the problem statement (harder, and more important, than you think) and the Plan, Do, Study, Act cycle, we also looked at more specific learning-related ideas.

For example, did you know that Lean actually started out in Learning & Development? It began as a programme in the US in the 1940s, called Training Within Industry. Its methods enabled companies to get people productive within weeks rather than years.

TWI focussed on three core areas:

Job Instruction - how to break down jobs into tightly defined steps which can be taught, observed and coached
Job Methods - how to evaluate your own job for efficiency, how to suggest improvements by eliminating, combining, rearranging, or simplifying, and then how to “sell” those ideas back into the organisation
Job Relations - how to deal with workers effectively and fairly

In our consulting work recently we have included a focus on Job Methods and process mapping as well as just the technologies that can help to provide instruction and learning.

Lean is all about working “just in time” and “reducing waste” - ideas which many learning organisations could usefully employ.

What’s next?

We’re looking forward to digging further into xAPI. There are a lot of people now developing real case studies which illustrates its benefits.

We’ll also be exploring more single-source technologies for content development. There are already a handful of high-end applications which do this for commercial publishing organisations. We’d like to identify a toolkit that can be used by smaller organisations with just a small amount of technical knowledge.

And we’ll be picking up more on Lean ideas. Just adding technology to an already convoluted process will not solve all the problems. Improvements in both go hand-in-hand.

If you would like to know more about what we’ve been doing and how we can help your organisation, please get in touch

Butterfly Hunting #elnevent

Tue, 09 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The Elearning Network is running one of its excellent, regular meetings on 16th July in Bristol – free to members, and £29 for non-members, so amazing value.

This time the title is “New direction in elearning “.

This workshop looks at some of the latest developments in eLearning from agile project development approaches to the use of responsive design in developing content for multiple devices. We also take a look at what blended learning means in 2015 and give you an opportunity to do some crystal ball gazing with an Open Space session exploring a range of possible directions that eLearning might take in 2016.

Lisa Minogue-White on “What does blended learning look like in 2015?”
Lindsey Coode on “Designing effective responsive elearning”
Mark Berthelemy (hem…) on “Butterfly hunting”
Owen Ferguson on “Agile – more than just a buzz word”

In my session we’ll look at some of the new (and some not so new) technologies that are
poised to have significant impact across teaching, learning and performance improvement.

We’ll discuss the rationale for investing in them, and how to get the most out of that investment.

Ideas under discussion are likely to include:

H5P
Ubiquitous video
Enterprise search
Content management
xAPI and analytics
Digital badges
Augmented & virtual reality

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be adding a few posts to those linked above which will provide an introduction to each of these topics.

Use the contact form if you want to sign up to receive these posts by email, or add us to your personal learning network using feed readers like Feedly or Flipboard.

Choosing your xAPI vocabulary

Mon, 18 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

At first glance, the xAPI specification is deceptively simple. It allows your systems (the Activity Providers) to send data (the Statement) to a central repository (the Learning Record Store) as a simple sentence:

Someone Did Something of a certain Type

Or, in xAPI terms:

{Actor} {Verb} {Object, Type}

Sounds easy?

It is, until you start to think how and where this data is going to be used.

The main reason for collecting data in this way is to be able to analyse it for trends, and to transfer learner records between systems.

Both purposes require data that means the same all the time and often in a variety of contexts.

Therein lies the problem.

xAPI comes with no predefined data. It’s just a structure that you can put your own data into. It’s like having a new kitchen with cupboards, drawers and compartments. What you put in them is up to you. That’s fine as long as you’re only working in your own kitchen. Move to someone else’s kitchen and you’ll often struggle at first to find things, even if it’s the same layout. And woe betide anyone who tries to analyse kitchen usage based on multiple kitchens. It’ll be hard to get any meaningful information from the data.

Even if you are not going to be sharing data, you’ll still need to retain some level of internal consistency, so that multiple activity providers use the same vocabulary to mean the same thing.

As an example of where things might go wrong, let’s consider two content management systems (CMS) which send xAPI statements when someone accesses a content item.

CMS 1 sends the statement:

{Actor} {experienced} {content item, Type = article}

CMS 2 sends the statement:

{Actor} {read} {content item, Type = webpage}

Any analysis of the data will need to remember that the verbs {experienced} and {read} from these two systems mean the same thing, as do the activity types {article} and {webpage}.

Or another example:

A CPD management system has a function where CPD awards are made following an audit process. So it might send the statement:

{Actor} {audited} {CPD record}

But let’s put that system in an accountancy context, where they might well use the same process for collecting CPD awards. But, in accountancy, the verb {audited} means something subtly different. Again, any analysis of the data will need to take into account the context where the verb was used – possibly an unnecessary complication?

It’s not unusual for specifications like xAPI to be designed so that they are totally independent of any context. In these cases, it is up to the user communities to create domain-specific ways of using the specification; keeping the domains (the areas of use) as broad as possible so to retain as much interoperability as possible.

The xAPI community recognised these issues very early on and started to collect together sets of reusable vocabulary – particularly verbs, activity types and extensions (data structures that don’t have any existing location in the xAPI spec)

These live in a repository called the Registry, currently hosted and maintained by Rustici.

However, you’ll still need to be careful. We’re in the early stages of xAPI, so the Registry is a little like an early edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Many of the terms entered there in the early days need some refinement so we can be certain what they mean and how they are to be used. Some definitions even refer to data structures that don’t exist in xAPI because they’ve been ported over wholesale from other projects (particularly those from the ActivityStream project).

Even so, whenever you’re starting out on a new xAPI implementation, especially one where you control the vocabulary, I would advise that you use the Registry as your initial source for terms, subject to the warning above. This will help to ensure reusability of your data. Only start to define your own verbs, activity types and extensions when you really have to move beyond those already defined. As soon you define something new and different, then your data, by definition will not be reusable outside of your own systems.

If you do define new vocabulary, and it may apply to others outside your organisation, then submit it to the Registry. To get maximum reuse you’ll need to be really clear and unambiguous on the definition, and ideally have a unique URL for each term that you can point people to for more information.

One other consideration to make when deciding on your vocabulary is your required level of “granularity”. This is the amount by which your data can be split up into segments.

For example, do your analytics focus on just the actors and the objects? If so, you might be happy to just use the verb {experienced} for the majority of your statements about what a person did. But you might want more detail about their activity, in which case perhaps you’d use the verbs {watched}, {read}, {listened}, {attended} etc.

Or, perhaps you’re doing an analysis of activity on Twitter. In this case, you’d probably want more than just the standard verb {tweeted}. You might want to use {retweeted}, {replied}, {mentioned} etc. This would give you much more detailed information about the activities.

As always, when designing your xAPI statements, we would advise to:

Understand what types of decisions you will want to make based on the data (eg. To further develop or promote particular types of activity, or to target particular geographical regions).
Understand what information you will need in order to make those decisions (eg. Which activities appear to result in increased performance, or which regions are performing less well).
Understand what data will be needed to generate that information. Note that you may require some knowledge of statistics to know whether the data is actually saying what you think it is!
Decide on the vocabulary you will use to generate that data from across your activity providers.

Using H5P packages within your own website

Mon, 27 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This short explainer video describes how H5P content packages can be used within your own website, either by embedding, or by importing into your own H5P-enabled content management system.

Creating rich, portable learning experiences without SCORM

Fri, 24 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

SCORM has, for a long time, been the de facto method of packaging online content for use within learning management systems (LMS). It allows content to be produced separately from the LMS and then used in multiple LMS’s. It also allows the content to send and receive data to and from the LMS, enabling tracking of learner progress and attainment.

One of the problems with SCORM is its requirement for a learning management system, in particular the fact that these content packages are often very hard to find once they’re inside the LMS. Some people even consider the learning management system to be the greatest barrier to learning we have – especially given the generally accepted idea that informal, user-driven learning is where we should be focussing our energies.

Our position has long been that content is best managed and delivered from within a Content Management System (CMS). Learning Management Systems should be the place where formal programmes and assessment are managed, using content from the CMS as required.

To this mix, we also have the potential opened up by xAPI (Tin Can) which allows any application, to which a learner has logged in, to send and receive data in a standard way to a Learning Record Store.

The problem has been creating, editing and displaying interactive learning materials within the CMS. But now, from Norway, we have the HTML5 Package (known as H5P). This provides a means of using any CMS, that understands H5P, to create, edit and display a whole range of interactive content types, including:

Drag & drop
Image hotspots
Interactive video (as the video plays, interactions can be overlaid on top of it)
Multiple choice questions
Presentations (which can also include many of the other interactive elements)
Interactive timelines
Social media feeds

Responsiveness, the ability to resize based on the size of the screen, has been built in from the start.

Once the content has been created it can be embedded in other websites (just like a Youtube video) or even downloaded and copied into another H5P-ready CMS, where it can be edited further.

To get really good rich content, the cost of producing such content must be reduced. And in order to do so, the content needs to become reusable. This is one of the main ideas behind H5P. H5P makes it easy for others to share their rich content with the rest of the world. It should be just as easy to translate and customize content that others have created.

H5P.org/getting-involved

H5P content is xAPI-enabled, in that all the interactions that a learner might undertake transmit xAPI-statements. Given a suitably-equipped CMS these xAPI statements can be picked up and transmitted to a connected Learning Record Store along with details of the user who is logged in to the system.

All of the H5P modules can be placed anywhere on a page within the CMS, so you could have a page containing a timeline and some text on the page, and then a multiple-choice quiz – all built separately. Or you could combine things into a single H5P presentation.

Creating and editing H5P content is all done within the CMS, using simple forms.

So, if you have a Wordpress, Drupal or Joomla site to play with, have a go at installing H5P and create some content.

Realising commercial benefits from open content

Wed, 01 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Over the years, we have worked with a number of organisations who’s primary business model is focussed on creating and selling ideas. In the past they would have sold the ideas as content – usually books and videos. It was a highly scaleable model which has its roots in the invention of the printing press. The process of production was so complex and specialised that people were prepared to pay for the outputs, as they couldn’t get them any other way.

Now, however, it is so easy for anyone to create, distribute and copy digital content that it brings into question a business model which is based on selling such content.

In this post, we discuss an approach to business which is based on giving away your generic ideas and selling the specific and the hard to get. It’s designed to be a discussion starter, as we know that this approach will not work in every situation…

The benefits

“So the strategy comes down to this: Give away the content that benefits many; sell the stuff that appeals to the niche.”[v]

Making your generic, digital content freely available brings the following benefits:

It builds your reputation and trust in your services[i]
It enables you to reach a far wider potential market
It is the best way to increase your ranking in search engine results[ii]
It enables you to charge higher prices for the paid-for services that you offer[iii]
It reduces the effort of dealing with enquiries for information/resources
It reduces the amount of legal input required through adoption of existing licences (particularly if you use Creative Commons licensing)
It reduces the cost and effort involved in Digital Rights Management – which, in most cases, doesn’t work anyway[iv]
It reduces the barriers to entry for your potential clients
It reduces the number of people who are leaving your website and going to other places that provide the information they need

Realising the benefits

There are a number of things you can do that will help you to still receive an income from your ideas:

Provide specific, bespoke services, eg. Consultancy, workshops, training
Provide additional services as a wrapper to the generic, digital content, eg. Print versions, bespoke branding, bespoke content, aggregated content in mobile apps or ebooks
By commercially licensing your content when it is to be used by commercial organisations
By accrediting qualifications based around your particular area of knowledge
By providing high-quality events focussed on putting your content into practice

Case studies

Case study: TED Talks

“Sharing online was a very controversial decision. People feared it would capsize our business, discourage people from paying for our conference, and be rejected by speakers.

“The first year after releasing videos of talks for free, we raised the cost of the conference by 50 percent and sold out in one week with a 1,000 person waiting list,” Cohen says. “Not only do speakers lobby for the talks to be posted as soon as possible, but paying conference participants are anxious to share talks they just heard with family, friends and colleagues.” [vi]

Case study: Manager Tools

Go to the Manager Tools website[vii] and you will find a growing library of high-quality management development resources available in the English-speaking world. Most of that is given for free, without even requiring any sort of registration. With about 150,000 downloads per week, you get an indication of how useful their materials are.

The content is generic, in that it can be applied to the widest audience possible.

But people are prepared to pay for the stuff that is bespoke to them. And, if they know it’s going to be high-quality, they’ll pay a lot of money.

By giving away their content, Manager Tools have demonstrated their capability. You know what you’re going to get from them.

More than that, the team have built up a community of over 67,000 people who have chosen to register and actively engage in their open forums.

Having built up a reputation for good, useful advice, the Manager Tools team have been able to realise its value in three ways:

By hosting expensive, high quality, medium-scale, conferences where participants are able to practice the guidance in the materials whilst being observed by experienced coaches.
By providing bespoke consultancy services for organisations wishing to improve their management practices.
By creating bundles of materials that can be purchased to support the free materials.

Endnotes

[i] Why reputation and trust are essential for marketing: http://contentmasterclass.co.uk/_2014_05_30_reputation-trust-authority-history-future-marketing

[ii] How free content will improve your search engine ranking: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/content-marketing-guide/content-strategies-to-improve-your-seo/

[iii] The impact of free content on the music industry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Music_Economy

[iv] How DRM hasn’t worked for the games industry: http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnyegriffiths/2012/05/18/the-truth-is-it-doesnt-work-cd-projekt-on-drm/

[v] A sales strategy based on free content: http://associationsnow.com/2014/12/creative-commons-age-sell/

[vi] Case study of TED talks: https://wiki.creativecommons.org/The_Power_of_Open/Text#TED_Talks

[vii] Manager Tools: https://www.manager-tools.com/

xAPI concept map

Wed, 11 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

We often use concept maps as part of our workshops. They’re a brilliant way to stimulate conversation at the same time as getting the big picture across.

We’ve created the concept map below to support an introductory workshop on xAPI and Learning Locker. Use the links within the map to find out more – or get in touch if you want us to run your own xAPI workshop.

Open live map in a new window

Review of CourseCRM : integrating Moodle and SugarCRM

Fri, 14 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Generally, I would advise not to use Moodle for either content management or student administration.

Leaving the content management piece aside for now (as I’m sure that will produce some howls of protest…), let’s consider what a typical training or learning & development organisation needs to do.

Building blocks

Customer Relationship Management

Any organisation needs to know who their customers are and what they are buying or using. Clever analytics will help the organisation to match new &existing customers to new & existing products in order to grow further.

Student Administration

Administration is the process of ensuring the right people get the right information at the right time, with the minimal amount of wasted activity for all involved.

Learning Delivery

At the heart of any L&Dorganisation is the “delivery” of learning, whether that’s events, materials or activities.

Support Tickets

People will often need support, especially when there are complex administration processes, assessments or technology involved. It’s important to ensure that those support requests are met efficiently and effectively, and then to learn from them to improve communication and processes in the future.

Reports

By pulling together data from across the different parts of the organisation it’s possible to provide up-to-date information to both the learner and the organisation’s teams – to help them make decisions and improvements.

Processes

When you look in more detail at how these building blocks work together, it shows some fairly complex process flows:

Moodle is great at the Learning Delivery part of the puzzle. But ask anyone who’s tried to use Moodle on its own to run an L&Dorganisation and they’ll tell you horror stories of multiple spreadsheets, CSV files and complex mail merges.

In schools and colleges there are a few, high-powered Student Information Systems, like Capita’s Unit-E, and Tribal’s SITS, but these will be overkill for many of the adult learning contexts where Moodle is found.

CourseCRM connects Moodle with its equivalent in the Customer Relationship Management world: SugarCRM (you might want to use SuiteCRM instead – which is SugarCRM with a lot of additional functionality, especially around reporting, in a neat, easily upgradeable package).

It pulls as much data as it can out of Moodle (using a clever web-service, with a built in queuing system – which is important to ensure no data is missed) and aggregates it into SugarCRM.

This allows the admin team to easily find out what is happening with their learners.

This data can then be used alongside SugarCRM’s ticketing and sales process systems in order to provide an all-round picture of your communications with your students.

From within the CRM, an administrator could:

query, search or browse for specific learners
query, search or browse for learners who meet specific criteria
drill down into a course and view attendance summary data
drill down into an assessment activity and view performance summary data
Send an email to all students who meet a particular set of criteria

Using data available in the CRM, the administrator can now build reports, such as:

all learners who have never accessed a course
all learners who have not accessed a course within the past month
all learners who have scored below a particular grade on a specific assessment activity
all learners who have passed a course and who you could be marketing the next course to

The bit that’s missing, at the moment, is the administration piece, where you organise student into courses, manage joining instructions, sort out tutors etc, and then push all that data into Moodle. With small student numbers that’s not a problem. But once you start getting into complex scenarios or large student numbers, that can become quite a major headache.

In a recent project, where we had to organise dozens of students into groups within multiple courses, we ended up writing a Python script to merge the list of students with the list of groups to create a massive CSV file for importing into Moodle. This wasn’t ideal, especially as it needed to be done for every intake. And just moving a student from one group to another involved many operations – in multiple courses.

What CourseCRM does, it does extremely well. So, if you’re looking for a way to efficiently support and track students and their courses, then you should consider CourseCRM.

My hope is that they’ll extend the functionality so that SugarCRM can also be the place where the administration can happen.

Moodle and eFront side-by-side

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

With eFront’s recent string of awards, I thought it was about time I took a look at this relative newcomer to the open source Learning Management System market.

For many years, Moodle has been most people’s port of call when looking for an open source LMS (or Virtual Learning Environment in the education sector). Yes, there are many others, such as Atutor, Dokeos and Sakai, but they just haven’t had the same impact as Moodle.

Personally, I’ve developed a love-hate relationship with Moodle. I’ve used it for many projects, from an elearning delivery platform for a local authority, through to a combined elearning and assessment platform used by nearly 45,000 people over the space of 6 months. It is tremendously capable, extremely robust (mostly!), and has been well tested by millions of users worldwide.

On the downside, though, it has grown to become a little bit of a monster. Each iteration has added further complexity, to meet the needs of different groups, yet without the polish on the user interface that would help to hide that complexity from people that don’t need it.

By comparison, eFront’s user interface is a delight. It uses a clear, icon driven design, which, somehow doesn’t fall into the trap of many such designs where the icons need interpretation. A lot of thought seems to have gone into keeping the interface consistent across the application.

Don’t make me think

That doesn’t mean it’s all good. I like to see how far I can get with an application before having to resort to the manual – to see whether it follows the “Don’t make me think” principle. This means that the application designers have to second guess what users are going to want to do next, and provide a route to that place. One of my first actions, after logging in as an administrator, was to try to build a lesson – which, eventually, I discovered, is only possible once you’ve switched roles to “professor”. But, once I got there, the process of designing a lesson was very straightforward, and the division began to make sense.

Here, though, is one significant difference between Moodle and eFront.

Moodle’s courses are built from a series of “activities” (ie. where the student leaves a record of doing something – usually through some sort of contribution) interspersed with “resources” (items that the student uses to complete the activities).

eFront’s lessons, however, are built along more traditional lines (cf. Blackboard), whereby a the lesson is built from content-based units, perhaps interspersed with tests. Any other tools, like projects (cd. Moodle assignments) or forums sit outside of the lesson structure. I know this would work for many usage scenarios, but I do prefer Moodle’s flexibility in how to structure the learning experience.

Flexibility vs Complexity

In fact, that’s the key area where Moodle wins out – its flexibility. But this comes with maturity, and also with a price – complexity. For example, the roles and permissions structures within Moodle are perhaps the most complete of any application I know. With them you can allow a user to do something in one context, but not in another. But this richness also means that it can become a nightmare trying to work out what has caused a particular behaviour for a particular user. It’s a little like having an overcomplicated set of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), when building a website.

By comparison, eFront has a simple set of permissions, which are based on the three apparently unchangeable base user types of administrator, professor and student. I can see that working for most situations – but would get very limiting in others.

It seems that the eFront designers have taken the 80:20 rule to heart. By focussing on the small amount of functionality that the majority of people will use, they’ve built an application that is suitable for most situations, without the massive effort required to make it fit the other 20%. eFront’s focus is on formal, content-centric teacher-directed learning experiences – and it’s very good at it.

The provided developer documentation shows that a lot of thought has gone into the architecture and security. (Although it’s always worth considering whether an independent security assessment should be performed if you’re going to be storing personal data on any system). The company behind eFront has a clear business model, which is always a plus as it helps to ensure sustainability of the product. And, alongside this, there also appears to be an active user and developer community – not as large as Moodle’s yet though!

I’ve been looking at the open source edition of eFront only, which does not have all the functionality of the commercial editions, and I’ve also not used eFront yet in a real live situation – which is where you really start to notice any limitations. But what I’ve seen so far looks extremely impressive.

There will still be situations where Moodle is the best tool for the job, but I do expect to be seeing a lot more eFront implementations in the near future.

It’s OK to...

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The Government Digital Service is a mine of useful information and advice on how to get the best out of teams.

One of my favourites is the poster they have displayed in their offices which describes really clearly their work culture.

We’ve prettified the poster and made it available here for anyone to use.

Download the poster

Wyver Solutions Ltd

Content Conundrum

Business requirements

Functional requirements

Most likely solution

Why not use SCORM?

Package Exchange Notification Services (PENS)

What about the authoring tools you looked at?

But what about all the other authoring tools?

Other alternatives

[Edit] All in one platforms

Free online tools for trainers

Disclaimer

Technology procurement

Requirements analysis

RFP design

Long listing

Selection

Deep dive

Spending on 70:20:10

70%

20%

10%

Learning Technology Hopes for 2018

Digital transformation’s big questions

Where are you now?

Where do you want to be?

How will technology get you there?

LTI - a missed opportunity?

Use your LMS

Learning Tools Interoperability

Editor’s note

Discovery workshop agenda

Systems implementation process

Writing for the web checklist

Accessibility

Useful resources

Active voice

Useful resources

Building scent

Useful resources

Scannability

seful resources

Front loading

Useful resources

User language

Useful resources

Advice for a new starter

Starting points

Useful books

Questions for vendors at Learning Technologies

General

What makes you different from vendors x, y & z?

What experience do you have in the [charity, automotive, manufacturing, retail, service, public] sector? (pick one that you know)

Authoring tools

What does the content look like on a mobile device?

How do learners search inside the content?

How do I collaborate with my team to author and review content?

Learning management systems

How do I get a trial login?

What does it look like on a mobile device?

Can you show me details of your security policies?

Bespoke content or systems

Tell me about where you’ve made a measurable difference to a client

What’s your opinion on “learning styles”?

How do you make sure what you design is what we need?

Quality assuring your learning materials

The learner journey

User experience

User interface

Learning efficacy

Engagement

Accessibility

Browser control

Cognition

Visual impairments

Hearing impairements

Motor impairements

Technical design

SCORM