I am working in a large petrochemical company that is looking at creating more formal control of the creation of new courses.
Many courses are created/sourced by departments to fulfill technical needs.
What structures have you put in place which controls both the technical content of the course and the learning structure of the course?
Frank McGoldrick
2 Responses
course content
Two public sector organisations I deal with have dedicated Course Directors or Portfolio Managers, who are responsible for specific courses based on their own experience/knowledge/competence. They design the courses and are soley responsible for content, ammendments and the quality of delivery.
Though many of the courses are delivered by external “partners”, Course Directors/Portfolio Managers retain control.
Hope this helps.
Steven Rowe
Collaboration
The company I work for (multinational software & services provider) has evolved a collaborative process.
The course authors work for the documentation department within the product development teams. They have access to the SMEs and a process for gathering and presenting product information.
The course trainers work for the local regional sales and services organisations. They understand the customers’ needs and the most effective way to transfer knowledge to their audience.
The development process is collaborative in that the trainers write formal ‘change requests’ to continuously seek to improve existing courses and introduce new ones. Throughout the authoring process, trainers are used to review and refine the materials as they are developed.
Everyone plays to their strengths to produce the best result for the end customer.
There are conflicts – especially since an example used to illustrate a concept in one region (say the USA) may be less meaningful to another audience (say in Europe or Asia-Pacific). In this case the materials are edited locally to resolve the problem.