eBook Release: Leveraging Learning Analytics To Maximize Training Effectiveness - Practical Insights And Ideas

Free eBook: Leveraging Learning Analytics To Maximize Training Effectiveness - Practical Insights And Ideas
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Summary: If you want to learn about how to have practical ideas to get started with learning analytics as an L&D practitioner this a great eBook to get started.

How To Realize Absolute Training Effectiveness Using Learning Analytics

Learning analytics, the seemingly hidden field in the eLearning space that’s often talked about but hardly sees the light of day. Does it entail more than collecting course completion rates and scores? Or is it just a praised name for the reports generated by your LMS? Is there a way through the morass of data? Find all the answers to all your questions in this eBook.

eBook Release: Leveraging Learning Analytics To Maximize Training Effectiveness - Practical Insights And Ideas
eBook Release
Leveraging Learning Analytics To Maximize Training Effectiveness - Practical Insights And Ideas
Practical ideas for L&D practitioners to get started with learning analytics.

About The eBook

CommLab starts of the eBook by presenting us readers with the results of a survey. A survey conducted by LEO Learning, in collaboration with Watershed. The survey states:

  • 96% of respondents agreed (and strongly agreed) that they want to measure the impact of learning
  • 59% increase in the respondents who feel the impact of learning can be demonstrated

The reason they display these statistics is to emphasize that learning analytics makes its mark. From this moment on they can really stress the importance of learning analytics in Learning and Development. Today’s world is driven by data, and corporate training is no exception. It empowers organizations to make informed and relevant L&D decisions. But what happens in the absence of data? L&D decisions are based on educated guesses, hunches, opinions, and past patterns. Learning analytics works as a lens through which organizations can view and plan for better changes at the course or strategy level. While you can find different definitions of learning analytics across the web, here’s one you can rely on.

"Learning analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which it occurs."

As described by CommLab there are 3 major elements in this definition:

  1. Data: The basic asset that provides analytical insights.
  2. Analysis: Involves research methodologies and adding intelligence to data using algorithms.
  3. Action: Taking steps toward informing decisions, applying the insights gained and attaining the purpose. For instance, improving learners’ performance.

CommLab seems to have a good understanding of the difficulty of implementing your first learning analytics project. For instance, as they elaborate, it can be overwhelming to figure out where to start, coordinating with different functions such as IT, ensuring expertise in eLearning, Instructional Design, LMS, analytics, and so forth. Descriptive analytics will give you answers to questions about what happened. For instance, a retailer will learn about the average monthly sales, and for a healthcare provider, the number of patients admitted in a week. Similarly, with eLearning, you can find the number of course enrollments, pass percentages, assessment scores, and so on.

  • Descriptive analytics collate data from multiple sources to give insights about past performance.
  • This data can be used to make relevant decisions that will impact future training programs.

They pose that the top challenges to enable learning analytics faced by L&D managers are the following:

  • Maintaining alignment between the learning objective(s), practice activities, assessment, and analytics
  • Enabling data capture

Proceeding to explain that if a company spends a lot every year on training employees the only questions that truly matter are:

  • Has the training resulted in the required impact you were looking for in the first place?
  • Has it been successful in generating the ROI to justify the budget spent?

Especially, considering that 50% of respondents are evaluating learning based on ROI, job performance, and organizational impact.

Training evaluation is used to determine if training solutions are effective and answers the following question: “Was the training worth the effort, time, and investment?” As L&D professionals this is one question stakeholders often ask. Learning analytics and training evaluations are inter-related because both serve the purpose of improving organizational performance. You need to enable learning analytics in order for the whole of the training evaluation to be effective.

A Most Effective Organization For Ultimate ROI

Most organizations believe in the power of effective learning and training. And, they would like to give their employees ample opportunities for Learning and Development. According to the 2019 Workplace Learning Report from LinkedIn, 94% of employees would stay at an organization longer if it invested in their Learning and Development. That leaves us with an important question! How much training is actually enough? Can learning analytics help us answer this question and achieve maximum Return On Investment (ROI) with our training budget? To reiterate, today’s world is driven by data. Evaluation and learning analytics offer decision-makers deeper insights into how corporate training programs are aligned with organizational goals and individual learning needs. For comprehensive insights on getting started with learning analytics, download the eBook Leveraging Learning Analytics To Maximize Training Effectiveness - Practical Insights And Ideas.