Integrating online learning

A few thoughts
Hi Graeme

Without meaning to blow my own trumpet, I probably fit into the category of “good people to speak to”.

There’s a lot that can be said about this – far too much to put it into a single response. If you would like to email me on learninganorak at yahoo dot co dot uk, or skype me on karyn_romeis I’d be happy to discuss it with you.

However, to set the ball rolling…

I’d rather have a learning professional than a techie in charge any day. The learning professional will (hopefully) focus on the learners’ needs; the techie will focus on the system. That said, you’d be well advised to get someone influential and knowledgeable in the IT team on your side.

You haven’t indicated what LMS you’re using – has this decision been taken, yet? Usually, you can upload pretty much anything into the LMS, since the LMS serves simply as a holding/management space.

With regard to SCORM: depending on what authoring tool you’re using, you can often simply opt to publish a SCORM package at the end. However, I’d like to ask you a few questions about this (I ask these same questions of all my clients). Why do you want SCORM? What level of SCORM do you want? What do you want to do with the metrics it generates? Who is going to carry out this function?

Many companies think, “Well, we’d best track what the learners are up to.” What they don’t think about it is how much it tells you about what a person has learnt simply to know which pages they have visited. They also don’t think about who is going to read and follow up on the reports that get ~~spat out~~ generated.

2 Responses

User deleted says:

October 22, 2008 at 11:47 am

A few thoughts
Hi Graeme

Without meaning to blow my own trumpet, I probably fit into the category of “good people to speak to”.

There’s a lot that can be said about this – far too much to put it into a single response. If you would like to email me on learninganorak at yahoo dot co dot uk, or skype me on karyn_romeis I’d be happy to discuss it with you.

However, to set the ball rolling…

I’d rather have a learning professional than a techie in charge any day. The learning professional will (hopefully) focus on the learners’ needs; the techie will focus on the system. That said, you’d be well advised to get someone influential and knowledgeable in the IT team on your side.

You haven’t indicated what LMS you’re using – has this decision been taken, yet? Usually, you can upload pretty much anything into the LMS, since the LMS serves simply as a holding/management space.

With regard to SCORM: depending on what authoring tool you’re using, you can often simply opt to publish a SCORM package at the end. However, I’d like to ask you a few questions about this (I ask these same questions of all my clients). Why do you want SCORM? What level of SCORM do you want? What do you want to do with the metrics it generates? Who is going to carry out this function?

Many companies think, “Well, we’d best track what the learners are up to.” What they don’t think about it is how much it tells you about what a person has learnt simply to know which pages they have visited. They also don’t think about who is going to read and follow up on the reports that get ~~spat out~~ generated.
User deleted says:

October 22, 2008 at 12:04 pm

More questions than answers
Hi Graeme

This is a big issue and before any meaningful answer can be given I think your posting requires some clarification.

What is this ‘system’ you are developing? What is it designed to do?

What do you mean by ‘integration with an LMS’ – this usually refers to sharing of data – but what sort of data? and what LMS? SCORM only really covers a small proportion of the data that two ‘systems’ might share with each other.

Without wanting to scare you off – software integration can take years and cost millions. However if you can be more specific it might turn out to be really simple.

I’d be happy to try and help, if only to point you in the right direction. Please email me via: richard at e-learninglist dot co dot uk