I'm tasked with setting up the training function for a new retail chain in Saudi Arabia and I'd like to introduce an e-learning program for retail trainees but I don't have an enormous amount of time for development as launch is not far away and I also don't have a massive budget (yet - as we aren't making money until we launch). So I'm looking for some help and advice regarding potential partners who have this stuff on the shelf that can be delivered quickly "out of the box" as it were and ideally can be readily translated into Arabic without to much effort too.
I've tried retail academy in York and got nowhere at the moment - so any other ideas, etc. would be much appreciated.
Nik Kellingley
4 Responses
eLearning for Retail
We provide various elearning packages which may be relevant – may be easier just to call or email me?
Martin Baker
[email protected]
+44 (0)7785 776416
Recommendations only please
Recommendations please.
But no blatant advertising/self-promotion on this forum, thankyou!
Is open source / rapid authoring an option for you?
Nik
Are you looking for general induction materials such as Health and Safety, customer facing skills development, or another area? There are suppliers who offer large catalogues of general training materials and some of your requirements may be met by these.
If budgets are tight at this point and you either need something a little more specific to the company or have difficulty finding a supplier who can translate their generic materials into Arabic, have you considered looking at open source or lower cost applications?
To deliver content, we’ve successfully used Moodle for a number of customers – the setup is very quick if you choose to have Moodle hosted for you. We’ve experienced a reliable, helpful service from one of the approved Moodle providers and for the functionality we’re looking for (course delivery to specific learners, quiz and survey functionality), it suits the purpose. You may need more functionality than Moodle can provide in time, but its certainly a good starting point to deliver both online learning and information/pre-work for classroom courses.
For the content itself (and hosting), if you can’t find off-the-shelf content, take a look at an application such as Adobe Connect/Breeze. You won’t need to learn too much to use it successfully – or you can ask someone to do the bulk of the work for you, if you don’t have time to do it yourself, while retaining the flexibility to change content yourself, later. Although I would describe it as a basic rapid authoring tool it may well suit your immediate purposes.
If either of these suggestions sounds right for you, I’m happy to have a chat to you about it and/or can send you some contact details for Moodle/rapid authoring, so you can look into this further.
Rachel.
Low cost authoring solutions
Hi Nik
For delivery, hosting and tracking definitely have a look at Moodle, the open source LMS.
If you are going to author there are a number of authoring tool options. The only real open source authoring tool we have come across is eXe. We have done a review at http://www.kineo.com/open-source-tools/exe-open-source-authoring-tool-2.html
Low cost commercial tool options include Articulate, Adobe Presenter and Lectora. Captivate is also an option as low cost (below £300) and can be used successfully for mainstream e-learning. We have done free reviews of each on our site http://www.kineo.com.
You could also talk to Copia who have done a lot in this sector.
Hope this helps.
Steve