Many of you will be familiar with the ADDIE (Analyse, Design, Develop, Implement & Evaluate) learning development model.  It is used to determine the current state and needs of the learner, define the end goal, and then create learning activities to assist in the transition.  The activities may take place in a learner-only, trainer-led or a community-based setting. ADDIE also lends itself nicely to the world of rapid e-learning, focused on the development of learning objects aka Shareable Content Objects (SCO’s), that are used to deliver learning objectives in the world of online-learning.

In our article ‘SCORM based online-learning‘ we introduced our EnABLEd content development methodology that builds on ADDIE by integrating the Prince2 project management methodology.

The diagram below shows how ADDIE and project management merge to form a linear view of the EnABLEd online content development methodology:

The key missing element from ADDIE, is the engagement stage found in a project management process, termed project initiation and the output document from that stage in Prince2 being the Project Initiation Document (PID), and that is sometimes preceded by a Project Brief and business case.

The Engage stage involves engaging all stakeholders and contributors to the project and fully defining the project plan and requirements within the PID. These are typically:

• Project definition and the business case.
• Project organisation and the communication plan.
• Project plan with quality and controls.
• Risk log, exceptions and contingencies.
• Project library* and filing structure.

A note on libraries: An additional and worthwhile option alongside a Learning Management System (LMS) or Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), is a Learning Content Management System (LCMS) that can provide an online content development workflow and act as the Librarian for resources for your online-learning projects.  Typical features and libraries that can be provisioned in systems such as in Microsoft SharePoint are:

• Source content library – original media files used in learning objects.
• Learning object library – single shareable content objects (SCO’s).
• Learning object reference library – multiple SCO’s.
• Video library – video files and conversions, and links to video on other servers.
• Graphics library – PowerPoint, Flash and HTML/HTML5 animations.
• Reference document library – projects documents including the PID.
• Test/assessment object library – test/assessment content objects.

Within the libraries, permissions can be granted to subject matter experts (SMEs), content authors, learning architects, and system administrators etc, and there would be version tracking, workflow for approval and feedback, provisioning for media and SCO re-use (Please see Part 1 for more information on SCO reuse).

Some LCMS libraries can also act as a VLE and there is an open source (free) SharePoint Learning toolKit (SLK) that can play SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004 online-learning content. There is no limit to the workflow possibilities in systems such as Microsoft SharePoint, they can be easily developed and provide premium features such as appraisal process workflow and competency standards tagging for the developed content.

Using a short example we will look at each of the stages of the EnABLEd methodology, explain the main activities and pose some key questions.

Engage with the business about the aims of, and proposed benefits from, the online content. Decision-makers are increasingly focused on cost-benefits, but we strongly recommend that you also focus on the effectiveness and flexibility that online learning can provide. This is because the cost case for e-learning usually relies on “spend now to save later” which is often unsustainable in the current climate.

So yes, costs are important, and the case here goes something like: it normally took a trainer 3 hours to deliver the learning this in a classroom environment for a maximum of 10 staff. The organisation had an average 20% DNA (did not attend) rate so one trainer day normally covered 2x 3-hour sessions with 8 staff attending per session = 16 staff. There are 3200 staff within the organisation, so that equates to 200 training days and other associated costs. Just taking the trainer’s direct costs into account, this is in excess of £30,000 per year. Including cost of learner time increases this cost by at least a factor of 10, to £300,000 per year.

But also, what other benefits does the business see in e-learning? We recommend that you talk to stakeholders about:

• Accessibility – would more learners be engaged in the learning when they can access at their own pace, at a time/place to suit them? How would you measure this benefit?
• Flexibility – does modularising the learning into small packages give you more flexibility to deliver just what learners need, rather than asking them to sit through a half day or full day in a training room?
• Rapid feedback – is there a benefit in learners being able to assess their learning, at a stage to suit them, and then continue their learning based on instant feedback?
• Social e-learning and knowledge management – what other benefits does technology give you for the proposed learning intervention, beyond “broadcasted e-learning modules”? Can social e-learning techniques like blogs and online discussion move the activity from “learning” to “doing”?

Once you have information from the business about the benefits of e-learning, you can start to engage stakeholders in defining the learning requirement, linking this to business strategy, and working out who is going to play each of the roles of subject matter expert, content author, and learning architect. Good e-learning is usually a team effort!

Analyse the content requirement – this is partly covered in the “Engagement” stage including the organisational training need to provide the activity to staff, but there are a number of design considerations and questions to be asked such as staff learning styles; is there a need to have anything blended to any trainer-led activity? Media format (i.e. can all the target PC’s for example play Flash-based animations?)Is there a need to send documentation alongside the content animation? Is there a need to facilitate a community-based activity such as an online-meeting or a virtual action learning group? Are there any additional skill or knowledge gaps for an individual to address prior to starting the online-learning modules? A key feature of this stage is to ‘storyboard’ and ‘wireframe’ the content requirement and use this as an overall template to inform the architecture for the design project.

Build and develop the content – once the storyboard is agreed the subject matter experts can start to build the content objects in association with the learning Architect who will piece together the final design. Prior to loading onto the LMS, the content should be tested for quality from the user perspective. In the PID project quality plan, this would be termed the Alpha Test.

Launch the content into the LMS environment – the output file for each content project module is a SCORM zip file and not all content development toolkits are compatible with all LMS’s, even though they are specified to the same SCORM standard, so it’s important to conduct a final Beta Test on the LMS before the content is launched. Iit is then live to staff to complete within the organisation.

Evaluate the content – this can be done at a number of levels and can also inform future changes to the content. At an individual level, the content can be evaluated for personal impact (e.g. the reaction level) and rated generally (the ratings feature can be included in the content design) and this can be used by the learning architect to assess any future changes. SCORM also tracks staff accessing the content, how long they spent and whether they completed. If a test/assessment type of evaluation is required, then this can be designed into the project as a test content object with the test results automatically scored by the LMS. Within SCORM a mastery score can be set to determine pass or fail. These two types of evaluation equate to Kirkpatrick evaluation levels 1 and 2. If a level 3, competency-based evaluation is additionally required, that can be designed into the project but will require some manual intervention in the form of an observation. Finally a level 4 evaluation can be completed through SCORM-based reports against criteria and costs set at the “Engage” stage and within the business case.

Shaun Wilde
Director of Workforce Services

About Shaun Wilde

Shaun is our Director of Workforce Technology and has worked with Think Associates from its earliest days back in 2004. He has a specialist interest in learning technologies and in particular e-learning development, Microsoft SharePoint, and cloud-based e-learning. As a dual qualified Chartered HR & Microsoft Certified IT Professional he focuses on developing technology solutions that enable workforce productivity in the context of HR, Learning & Development. Shaun has a MBA from Manchester Business School and is a NLP Master Practitioner.

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