Rapid e-Learning as a term is redundant. By definition, e-Learning is already rapid. Its principles are all about speed — and quality as well. It provides immediate, personalized learning at its best, and its tools and software are fast, inexpensive and have more capabilities than we can even imagine using.
- Rapid e-Learning Design and Development: Part 1
- Introduction to e-Learning Architecture: Part 2
- Alternative Architectures: Part 3
So why are we going “gaga” over rapid e-Learning design and development? I suspect that the training industry — trainers, managers, designers, developers, suppliers and everyone else — has come to realize that many e-Learning programs are not hitting the mark. They are failing to deliver and to live up to the dream and promise of e-Learning.
This is both good news and bad. The good news is that there is a strong desire to make e-Learning work. The bad news is that we jump into rapid development as if we have already mastered the fundamentals of e-Learning’s critical thinking and development. Many of us want to run, although we have not even started to walk.
Instead of saying, “We can do this better, cheaper, and faster,” we use the term “rapid” to call attention to it and add a sense of urgency. In this regard, I totally subscribe to the use of “rapid.” However, to make rapid e-Learning work, we need to focus on “significant” innovations — concepts, ideas, and models, not just technology — that will actually make a huge difference in the quality, speed, and costs. But for heavens sake, let’s focus on the donut and not the hole. Enough with the hype ... let’s go to work!
If we understand and practice the fundamentals of e-Learning, we can develop it rapidly. We develop many of our current e-Learning programs with one foot pressing hard on the brakes and the other on the accelerator. When we let go of the brakes, we will accelerate ... rapidly!
Scope and objectives
This is the first in a series of four articles that will explore how e-Learning inherently provides rapid learning. I’ll show processes and tools that can accelerate, or rapidly push, e-Learning development. Specifically, in this series you’ll find ideas and tools to help you:
- Develop an e-Learning architecture (e-LA) as a framework for rapid design
- Design the e-LA to meet business gains
- Use the e-LA to manage the content and design process
- Manage SMEs, producers and software developers, IT staff, and management
- Find ways to speed up course development with software and developers
- Cut the costs in each stage of the process
- Quantify your rapid e-Learning design and development process
In this first article, I present an overview of the content design and development of the e-Learning development process. (See Figure 1 below.)
Figure 1 e-Learning Project Development Flow
Within this overview, I critique the way that a lot of e-Learning today is built on inappropriate models of learning and outdated methods of instructional system design. I’ll offer a tool that will help you make basic decisions about strategies and tactics, and I’ll introduce the concept of an e-Learning architecture.
Okay, let’s go “gaga” over this!
Key issues and revolutionary or incremental solutions
Through my work and experience, I have come to an understanding of a number of issues that hold us back from using e-Learning effectively. I’d like to share this perspective with you now.
First, e-Learning development is often slow because we have yet to apply a fundamentally different way of designing learning programs for e-Learning (an e-Learning architecture). Our learning designs for e-Learners’ needs are based on “student-like conditions” and not on new realities of fast-paced and rapidly changing business conditions. We are designing programs based on old assumptions about the way people learn, and about the way to design learning.
Second, many e-Learning programs are bloated with content, lectures, simulations, exercises — methods of forcing content and controlling the learner — all of which have minimal impact on the e-Learners’ needs (e-Learning Behaviors®) for quick access, solutions, and applications. We are sick with content-itis and control-itis.
I maintain that our e-Learning programs are often at least 50% heavier (too much content) and at least 75% more cumbersome (too much control) than what is required by e-Learners. If you want serious savings in costs and time, this is one area of focus for innovation (cutting your costs and time in half).
This brings me to my final observation, that most e-Learning suffers from a poorly conceived architecture. A poorly conceived e-Learning architecture means we have no way to manage the e-Learning design and development process. We fault subject matter experts (SMEs), developers, programmers, and software providers for a slow response. It should be the other way around: We need to present an architectural plan or infrastructure so that all the contributors to our e-Learning program can follow a streamlined process.
What can be done about these issues? There are a number of steps to take in addition to the ones mentioned above.
The first step is to recognize that there are two important and parallel areas of focus to produce better, cheaper, and faster e-Learning programs (rapid development): the learning side and the business side. The learning side is about design, development, implementation, and assessment. The business side is about quality, speed, cost, ease of use, and value. Each side has a measurement standard if you want to manage results, which you can do by using the rapid e-Learning Calculator that I will explain later in this article.
SMEs are content experts, not e-Learning designers. Yet, we need SMEs to buy into our e-Learning architecture so we can speed up the process and control the quality.
We are tempted to buy and use software that doesn’t have an e-LA. So, we spin our wheels asking what the software can do to speed up the process and improve quality. Unfortunately, the software does not do this. It is the “creative process” of the e-Learning architecture that should dictate this, not the software. Remember “Garbage in, garbage out”? We can take it a step further: “The more garbage, the slower the speed and the higher the costs — and the more the quality stinks!”
Software selection (authoring tools, platforms, learning management systems) should support the learning and business standards. Much software is capable of providing 10,000% more than our actual needs, or even more than what we can use. Selecting the right software or a combination of software for our e-LA is both a learning design and a business decision. Without a clear e-LA with learning and business standards, we either pick overly-simplistic software or software on steroids. Software is either overly-simplistic or steroidal depending on how it matches up to what you need, rather than being inherently deficient or over-designed. The quality is sacrificed, the speed of development is slow, and the total costs are high when there is a mismatch between the software and the learning and business standards.
It’s important to keep in mind that software developers and suppliers have their own “religions” based on their backgrounds, origins, interests, and skill sets. Understanding these biases enables designers and developers to leverage the part of the software that works, to speed up development, and cut costs. Knowing these biases also helps us ask whether there is a fit between the software and our actual needs, skill sets, budget, and culture.
The decision to implement reusable tools, templates and applications is driven by business purpose. Designers need to drive this purpose to maximize the input of software developers. Most producers are not software developers and know little about the capability for developing reusable utilities.
You need to challenge software developers to provide a plan for reusability.
Adding interactivity, first and foremost, must be an e-Learning architecture decision, not a software decision. If you follow the software route first, you can slow down your process. Selecting what and how to implement interactivity is important to the quality of the program, but it is a delicate balance between the creative and software processes. If thought out well, interactivity can be developed successfully even with the least capable software.
To increase the speed of development, use a collaboration process and tool. Introduce a culture change and process change to your SMEs, trainers, designers, developers, IT systems administrators, participants, managers and champions. Manage version controls, the change-order process, and project timelines and tools. Use collaborative Internet realtime supported tools and software. There are programs and organizations that are not prepared for rapid development. We must know how to select the programs that create the most impact and which can be rapidly deployed. There are cultural and structural barriers that must be challenged before you can accomplish rapid development.
Whether improving value, cost, and speed of the e-Learning design and development are worth all the effort is determined by how much the business gains from this activity. The closer you can link and connect business outcomes, either anecdotal or quantitative, the better you can justify the investment in rapid e-Learning development.
A big factor in its favor is that rapid e-Learning is in high demand. So find out what the gains are, and the cost of rapid development can be justified. Simply comparing rapid e-Learning development with other approaches is not a strong justification.
”Rapid e-Learning” must include rapid learning, rapid development, and lower cost
Rapid e-Learning design and development means constructing e-Learning programs that provide learners the opportunity to quickly apply knowledge to perform tasks. It also means constructing such programs faster and cheaper to meet changing and demanding business conditions.
Rapid e-Learning design and development must also mean, “to lead to rapid application” (whether this is learning, traditionally defined, or not). This is a requisite expectation; otherwise, we quickly find ourselves developing e-Learning programs for the wrong reasons.
We must understand rapid e-Learning Development as much for its potential to create quality outcomes, as for its promises of speed and lower cost.
Learning outcomes — Quality
Quality concerns refer to the learning outcomes. They show us how e-Learning helps the learners or workers perform the required tasks rapidly.
The focus is “applying knowledge rapidly,” not learning as traditionally defined.
We are not defining learning outcomes as retention, completion, coverage, certification, or performance of some tasks while in the e-Learning process. Here, we define learning outcomes on the basis of how fast, and how easily a learner is able to apply knowledge and skill to given tasks.
Cheaper and faster development — Gains and costs
The business drivers for rapid e-Learning design and development must include the speed and cost of completion. Speed is a function of cost. The faster the development, the lower the cost must be; otherwise, faster development may not warrant the incurred costs to produce the programs.
The overriding business reason is the gain. How will rapid e-Learning design and development impact the business outcomes? Will it drive business costs down? Will it increase sales and cash flow, increase early adoption, or avoid penalties from government agencies? Will it help strengthen a strategic position?
I have this suspicion that many of us are pushed to do faster and cheaper (rapid) e-Learning programs because we cannot justify spending the time and resources needed to do a good job; from the start we have not connected the gains to the business.
Anomaly in expectations — rapid e-Learning development
There is a pressure to focus on how to speed up development and cut the costs, but we pay less attention to whether programs will actually work. We hyped the promise of e-Learning as faster and cheaper to deliver, but we are less able to justify the need for more time and resources to do a good job.
There is a risk that rapid development will create false expectations — a backlash that will haunt us as professionals and as an industry. We must always keep a sharp focus on the learning outcomes and the business gains for rapid e-Learning development to succeed.
