3 Responses

1. Updating materials

   Elly

   The need to update varies enormously from topic to topic. As changes occur you can adjust materials accordingly, but I’d set up a periodic review process as well. You will know better than me in your context whether quarterly or some other period is best. Typical changes to keep on top of as they arise include changes in company proceedures, both technical and in things like HR practices. Often but not always linked to this are technology changes. If your training includes prices, costs, products or supplies then you need to find contacts in the relevant areas to notify you as changes occur. Legal changes are of two sorts: statutory changes usually are well publicised and have a long lead time; case law changes are trickier and you need to decide what areas are covered in your training and how to track such changes.

   As well as the obvious changes such as the ones above, it is also useful to keep your examples fresh and relevant. This may not be linked to a particular time frame. It may be enough to identify your summer review as a bigger one where you go through and replenish your case studies, your benchmark examples, your tests, exercises and activities. I know it can be costly and time-consumming to keep changing things so you have to make sensible choices about what can stand the test of time and what really needs new life breathing into it. After a while, even something that could be kept the same may benefit from an overhaul, both in terms of content and style.

   As to the process, I’d keep it simple. Maybe create a checklist of key issues to check and how you will get the most up-to-date information as soon as it is required.

   Best of luck

   Graham

2. Some more ideas

   Hi Elly

   As well as the excellent advice above here are some more ideas that work…

   Each course should have a changes log where all changes are noted throughout it’s life

   Each course should have a course owner who is ultimately responsible for the content

   If all course owners belonged to a community they could share ideas and good practice

   All course deliveries should have a Tutor feedback sheet where the Tutor could report any errors or things that need attention…to be recorded in changes log

   Lastly, as Graham mentioned a periodical MOT is essential even if the only outcome is "course ok no changes needed"

   The community is the key to making sure everyone is informed and engaged in the process.

   Good luck

    

   Steve

    

3. Use a Matrix

   Excellent comments here, so I just add.

   Use a systematic analysis to evaluate what courses need to be changed and how much. As always time is always restricted. So you also need to decide how much each course needs to be changed starting from what matters most. There is no point in spending time on improving and modernising the slides aesthetically if the general content is poor and outdated. 

   The best way is to first identify a list of criteria that need to be checked. For example, slide designs, workbook typos, new research, alternative techniques to what is illustrated in the course, new exercises and so on. These really depend on the nature of your courses and how quickly content can change. For example, if you are teaching on computer languages, you need to have a series of parameter making sure  that the latest development, releases, etc., are covered in the course.

   Next, once you have identified these parameters, you can rate them based on importance. This rate can then be used as a weight. Then rate each course for each criteria so you can then have a total for each course. Use this total to see which courses need most attention. Simply start with the high ranking courses so you can start addressing those that need most changes and of course fixing areas that matter most.

   Hope this helps.

   Training the Trainer Training Materials

   Ehsan Honary