eLearning Weekly

Introducing eLearning into an Organization (Part 3 of 3) May 10, 2007

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this article, I discussed how to research, plan, and implement an eLearning program within an organization. In Part 3, I’ll discuss the ongoing evaluation and maintenance that should occur to make sure your eLearning stays as effective as possible.

Evaluation

In Part 1 I discussed the success of an eLearning program and how your definition of success may differ from management’s definition.

Remember: Course completion does not always equal a successful eLearning program. You’ll need to constantly poll your learners and management to get feedback. Are the learners bored? Are they engaged? Do they love or hate the training? Are they able to demonstrate their new knowledge and skills on the job? Does the training positively affect their performance?

Consider these resources for evaluating the results of your eLearning program:

• Evaluating the effectiveness of e-learning
• Evaluating e-Learning: Introduction to the Kirkpatrick Model

Maintenance

Try to identify how and when your learners are accessing the LMS. Monitor reports in the LMS and look for trends:

• Are only certain departments using the LMS? If so, why?
• Is usage mainly at the beginning or end of the month? If so, why?
• Are some courses not getting used at all? If so, why not? Is the content stale? Are there technical problems?

Stay on top of this information and use it to your advantage. Refine, refine, refine.

Send out reports to management as you see fit (ex. monthly, quarterly, etc.). Always communicate with managers and departments across your organization to identify their training needs. Take advantage of the eLearning program that you now have in place! Use it to better your organization and improve the performance of its employees.

Conclusion

I hope you can benefit from the information presented in this article. An eLearning program at one organization may be completely different at another organization. Hopefully you can use some of the main points presented here and adapt them based on your needs. I welcome feedback and appreciate constructive criticism. Good luck introducing eLearning to your organization!