Outsourcing is not a new phenomenon, although it has recently become a common practice worldwide. In fact, outsourcing made its first appearance about 25 years ago when an organization farmed out part of its IT department to a third party, hoping that this would help to improve its bottom line by cutting costs.
One would have thought that with these many years of outsourcing experience under our belts, outsourcing would now be a well-oiled process with standard established steps and procedures. Unfortunately, while many companies have realized substantial cost benefits and other gains from outsourcing, many others have had disastrous results, and some have even had to go through the pains of backsourcing.
The purpose of outsourcing is more than just to achieve savings in time and cost. It is also an opportunity for the client organization to acquire outsourcing knowledge, skills, and experience. However, the client’s very lack of even a modicum of such knowledge, skills, and experience may result in mediocrity, and possibly a failed outsourcing relationship. In this article, we identify critical success factors for successful outsourcing of e-Learning content development, based on our organization’s experience. We wish to share this knowledge with anyone involved in outsourcing activities, particularly those who engage external parties to develop their content. We will show how engaging the right vendor is not a matter of chance, but the result of deliberate effort and sound decision-making processes.
The highest priority among these critical factors is the need for the outsourcing organization’s professional team to be quality enforcers and quality evaluators throughout the vendor selection and development process. This will ensure that the outsourced work goes to vendors who are also keen on quality, who agree with the quality requirements, and who will work closely with the client organization to produce optimal results through a successful partnership.
Our organization, U21Global, is an online graduate school.
It is a joint venture between Universitas 21 (an international network of research-intensive
universities, incorporated in Guernsey, the
U21Global has been developing high quality online content for post-graduate students for the past four years, with a total contact time of more than 1200 hours. It creates its course content by engaging qualified content writers, sourced from universities around the world. The course content is then “treated” by qualified learning designers and developers for online delivery. We outsource both content writing and online content development to external parties. It is therefore critical that we adopt the right outsourcing approach and strategy.
Through it all, U21Global has known both the frustrations and celebrations of outsourcing. What we have learned from these experiences is the basis for this article. In this article “client” means the organization that is outsourcing development — probably your organization. “Vendor” means the organization that contracted to do the development work.
The client’s professional team
To begin with, the person managing the client’s outsourcing initiative must be clear about the outsourcing objectives and the project requirements, and know what is good for the organization’s business goals as well as for the learners. This requirement seems logical, but often clients are not clear about what they want. These clients rely on the vendor in the belief that the vendor will do everything necessary. This usually results because of inability to define good design and practices in e-Learning, which often leads to mismatched expectations, excessive costs in re-work, and eventual breakdown of the outsourcing relationship.
To outsource to the right vendor, you need clear requirements and you must communicate them clearly to the vendor, even down to the microscopic item detail. As we say, an unclear target will result in an unclear achievement.
To do this, it is essential that a competent and qualified professional team represents the client. Members of this team must know what is good and acceptable, must be able to specify and articulate the requirements, and must execute sound judgment about the vendor and their work.
The client’s professional team should be made up of people who have knowledge, skills and experience in the various aspects of e-Learning. The team should comprise learning designers, developers, and project managers who are able to articulate in detail the requirements at both the macro and micro level in their specific areas. In an effective team, the members’ knowledge is not confined to the instructional design of the courseware. It must extend to a good appreciation of the overall learning environment, and to effective integration of the various sub-environments that together provide a holistic learning experience for the learner. These sub-environments include: constructive and situating (in other words, the elements that help learners construct their own meaning from experience), support, communication, and evaluation. For instance, the opportunity for peer learning by sharing one’s knowledge and experience features prominently in U21Global subjects. This is possible by leveraging the discussion tool that is part of the communication sub-environment. The learning designer should therefore appropriately include engaging discussion topics in the courseware to allow learners to share their views and relevant experiences with others.
Therefore, the focus of the professional team is not restricted to the development of individual learning objects. It must also include the creation of learning materials and activities that are durable, re-usable, and integrated with other materials and resources in the total learning environment. In the process, the design and development team considers not only the end users’ current needs but also their future needs. At the center of all learning activities is the overarching principle of providing the learner with a meaningful learning experience.
We would like to make the point that sending a trainer or training manager to an instructional design course does not make that person an expert in this area. While this person may be able to provide basic guidelines, such an individual is usually not able to see both the big picture and the details. In other words, they are not able to make well thought-through decisions. These decisions require one to consider sound design principles and implications for the overall design of the entire program. That design comprises multiple courses, the development process, the content maintenance process, and the overall development schedule.
Online learning design is comparatively new and it is not easy to find highly qualified and experienced people. Allow the trainer or training manager who is to lead the client’s professional team time to develop the necessary expertise before taking charge of the outsourcing project. This is a heavy responsibility. Working hands-on with a good online content development consultant is one way to start the process of knowledge and skills acquisition.
Requirements, guidelines and specifications
With well-qualified people on the professional team, the organization can specify appropriate requirements. For items that are not easily specified, put a set of good guidelines in place. The specifications and guidelines for each area should come from people who are experts in their fields of design, development, and management. These individuals possess understanding of sound design principles and good development practices.
For each area, guidelines should include items that cover both the macro and micro dimensions. Clearly specify quantitative as well as qualitative requirements, and clearly state the requirements for the deliverables in each phase of the whole process.
Communicate these guideline requirements in writing to the vendor who is to deliver them. It is difficult to specify quantitatively everything in learning design so that there is no ambiguity. After all, learning design is both an art and science. It takes all the expertise of the client’s professional team to make decisions that result in a final product that applies good practice and sound learning design principles. Their efforts must result in a product that meets the organization’s needs for the present and for the foreseeable future, provides a balance of standardized and free design, and reflects both a micro and a macro perspective. This is where unqualified and inexperienced client representatives come up short and leave decisions to the vendor who may not provide the best recommendation for the organization.
In addition to the written specifications and guidelines, face-to-face or online meetings at the beginning, and in various phases of the development, will give the vendor a chance to clarify any doubts and unclear requirements. An open communication channel throughout the process is a necessity for frank and reasonable comments and for item clarification.
Role of the client’s professional team
In outsourcing the online content development, the client’s professional team does not do the actual handson work of content development. Instead, it takes on the role of quality enforcer and quality evaluator. It must make a concerted effort at strategic checkpoints for each phase — selection, design, development, and implementation — to ensure that the deliverables are acceptable before moving on. These risk-management efforts help to avoid wasted effort by the vendor and re-work that might delay schedules.
The professional team must make a deliberate effort to communicate its requirements for the online courseware to potential vendors. This includes the profile of the target learners, the learning philosophy, the overall learning strategy adopted by the client, and the technical standards of development.
Spell out the details of quality checks on the elements at the various stages. Both parties should come to agreement on the number of reviews and reworks allowed for each stage. Experienced representatives on both the client and vendor sides should understand which designs are suitable for adult learning and do not impose time-wasting activity on the learner. In addition to instructional design quality, specify required quality in editorial issues such as language and grammar. Require technical checks to ensure that every click triggers the intended action by the system. Technologies should be as transparent as possible at every learning opportunity, to avoid hampering learning in any way. These steps ensure that the learners have an uninterrupted flow of learning activities. A good goal for each person on the job is to “find the error before the learners do.”
We cannot emphasize enough the need for proper quality assurance. Quality assurance is not a concern just once or twice, done only at the beginning or the end of the project. It must be a concern throughout the development process. The right people who have expertise in evaluation, who clearly know the requirements, and who have sharp eyes for detail will need to exercise continuous vigilance over quality assurance. In cases where there is ambiguity in the design, the evaluator must be able to make sound decisions. Correction requires consideration of design principles, the overall strategy, and the need for future maintenance of the content. Where necessary, form a team to make group decisions on issues that will have an impact on the product and process at a larger scale.
