e-Learning Process Improvement: How's Your Content Production Working?

Tools to support the production process

Within this section, I’ll introduce hardware and software that you may not have thought of in connection with e-Learning development and production. At the end of this section, I have included some specific suggestions for hardware and software. I’ve summarized the tools by category in Figure 4.

Figure 4 A detailed list of tools categories for content development

Content collection tools

These are the tools that subject matter experts, employees, users, and customers, as well as the design and development team, will use to create or document their knowledge, expertise, wisdom, memory, and unstructured information, as these relate to the problem solution outlined by the designers. I have identified five categories of hardware, and four related categories of software, plus the ubiquitous Microsoft Office applications, for discussion in this article. As time goes on, I am quite certain that new tool categories will appear.

Personal digital assistants

Most of us think of our PDAs (personal digital assistants) mainly as keepers of our agenda. However, new developments in the PDA category (especially for those PDAs running under the Palm OS) have added significant functionality that should be of interest to e-Learning developers and producers.

The latest PDAs (and not necessarily only the most expensive ones) can frequently function as a laptop substitute. This makes them ideal for field use during content collection. These PDAs run a variety of software, including much that is 100% Microsoft Office compatible. It is even possible now to create, edit and project a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation directly from a PDA; this can tremendously simplify, for example, brainstorming, collaborating on and “pitching” a storyboard for an e-Learning module. Other software applications available for PDAs include outliners and mind mapping.

The extended range of PDA features and applications of interest to me as an e-Learning producer include:

1. The ability to shoot still photos and lengthy videos of sufficient quality to support task analysis in the field, location scouting for video shoots, and graphic creation by artists;
2. The ability to record hours of digital audio during interviews and meetings, and to record dictation compatible with speech-to-text software.

Digital voice recorder and speech-to-text software

Digital voice recorders and speech-to-text software have a long and steadily improving history. My experience with these goes back six years, and I am now at the point where a great deal of my personal productivity depends on them. (In fact, this article was wholly dictated, both through a digital voice recorder and directly to Microsoft Word on my PC.) In general, I find that speech-to-text software now captures my dictation as well as a human transcriptionist did 20 years ago — about 95 to 100% correct on the first pass.

I use digital audio in two ways. First, I find it very useful for recording interviews. The improvement over analog tape recorders is that a digital voice recorder, even without a memory card, can often record up to 22 hours of interviews. This means that I no longer have to lug around and keep track of a bag full of audiotapes. When the recorder’s memory is full, I can either upload the audio files to my desktop, or I can put in a new memory card (depending on the specific voice recorder). Second, digital voice recorders permit writing and dictation in “stolen moments” — times when I’m away from my desktop.

Digital paper, digital pens, and handwriting recognition

This is a category that may be unfamiliar to you. Rather than try to explain the technology, I’ve included some links in the references in Table 1. Essentially, you can now hand-write notes and sketches on real paper with a ballpoint pen while capturing them in digital form, upload and edit those notes on a desktop or laptop PC, make handwritten corrections on the original and track those changes on your PC, and convert the written notes into editable text.

Why would you want to do this? One obvious reason is that like the digital voice recorder and the PDA, digital pen and paper allows you to work away from your desk. In addition, many of us find that our ideas flow more easily when we can work them out on paper and in diagrams. This is a big improvement over notes made on cocktail napkins, restaurant tablecloths, and the backs of envelopes.

Another reason to consider making the small investment required is the matter of distraction. The digital pen and paper is good for taking notes at meetings, since there’s no keyboard clatter to annoy other participants. A notebook and pen is less distracting to interview subjects than a laptop, and less threatening than a recording device.

Finally, if you are working over a long period with a subject matter expert or a group of subject matter experts, it may be worth considering providing them with their own digital pen and paper. This allows the experts to work with pen and paper — a medium in which they may be much more comfortable — and yet facilitate conversion of their input to structured digital form.

Digital still and video cameras

It may be simpler to use the camera function on your PDA if you have one. However, still and video cameras are sometimes needed for special situations (low light, magnification required, won’t get a second chance to shoot video, etc.). Again, the intent is to provide content in digital form directly to the production team, and so to eliminate conversion

Scanners and content management tools

This combination facilitates capturing unstructured analog content (text and graphics), and converting it to structured, indexed, searchable digital content. Most content management tools for use with scanners will also do basic optical character recognition (OCR). In many cases, production teams have this technology available, but never seem to think of ways to use it.

Application production and packaging tools

Since this is the area most commonly addressed by e-Learning writers, I have simply listed the categories in Figure 4. I include designer tools and project management tools in this category, recognizing the iterative nature of design and production in the real world. In addition, it is useful to select tools across these categories that “play well together.” Looking at all of them on one diagram may help with this.

Collaboration support tools

Many design and development teams are already using conferencing tools. However, I find that most are not using digital whiteboards to support brainstorming and planning unless participants are scattered around the globe. For some reason, most of us think of digital whiteboards as a tool for the synchronous trainer, rather than for the designers and production team in collaboration with each other and with subject matter experts, employees, users, customers, and organizational leadership.

In addition, document management applications have made big strides in their capabilities. These systems are no longer restricted to the wealthiest organizations. New hosted document management software is lower in cost, and can easily accommodate participation by individuals outside of the organization.

These hosted systems may not require payment of additional “seat fees” for outside users.

Knowledge sharing and management tools

This category includes old groupware standbys, such as Groove and IBM Lotus Notes. Many organizations are already using these applications if they have them. For smaller organizations, wikis are coming into increasing use. A wiki is a Web site where any user may add, edit, or delete any page. Obviously, there are support issues for IT in the adoption of wikis. However, many IT organizations are also finding wikis useful for software development. This may be a situation where both e-Learning and IT can gain valuable benefit from the same application. In some cases, where wikis are not an acceptable solution, individual Weblogs can provide similar functionality. Finally, a basic knowledge management tool can be invaluable to the production team, as well as to the larger organization. Generally, midsize organizations and larger should already be adopting this technology.

Conclusion

The design process and the production process are subordinate parts of the overall business process known as e-Learning. What we do as e-Learning producers has a great deal in common with traditional software projects, and I believe there is much that we can learn from best practices in that arena.

The traditional approaches to structure software projects always begin with the same three phases: define, design, and build. This linear description is much more concise, of course, than the actual iterative path involved in creating an interactive product. For summary purposes, though, I’m going to stick with it.

In the define phase, we assess needs, validate assumptions, and identify and articulate the strategic objectives and project requirements. The design phase results in a tactical plan to meet the strategic objectives, high-level design, and the learning architecture. In the build phase, the production team executes to the plan, developed in the design phase. The build phase must allow flexibility for iteration and evolution.

Many of the reasons that e-Learning projects fail are tied to issues in the define design-build sequence. Key among these are:

1. Problems with internal communication between stakeholders
2. Key elements not integrated into process
3. Scope creep
4. Different expectations among stakeholders

I believe that all of these problems, and more, can be effectively eliminated by reengineering our business processes so that they have adequate infrastructure support for collaboration and knowledge sharing as well as for content collection and for application production and packaging. I also believe that it is vital to systematically select software in these categories so that designers and producers need only deal with structured digital input, rather than the mixture of structured and unstructured, analog and digital content as they must presently.

Comments

Login or subscribe to comment

Related Articles

The Human Factor: Making Your Process Transparent to Your Customers

4/19/11

All projects have constraints, and it is important that the project team and the client are on the same page about which one is most important. It can be painful to discover, too late, that the client’s expectations were different from the team’s. This week’s column offers a simple process that will protect you from that pain.

Using an Open Source Wiki for E-Learning Development Process Documentation

7/27/09

Wikis are an ideal vehicle for collaborative process documentation, but they require forethought and planning in order to be successful. This short article gives you everything you need to know to get started!

The E-Learning Department of One

4/16/07

Many e-Learning professionals find themselves working single-handed. Though the challenges to being a Department of One can be daunting, there are solutions that many solo practitioners use successfully. Whether your issue is budget, lack of help or cooperation, not enough time, or just nobody to talk to, this article is full of ideas you can use right away!