infopro modernize ebook

MODERNIZE

INFOPRO LEARNINGLearning for Performance

MODERNIZEA CONTENT STRATEGY GUIDE FOR MAXIMIZING CORPORATE TRAINING ROI

Learners are demanding more content and better content, and we are hearing this directly by learners abandoning

courses, or indirectly through poor retention and test scores. To match supply with demand, we created MODERNIZE to make it possible for L&D teams to re-engage their learners with the “latest and greatest” graphics and delivery

channels, without having to invest their budget, and more impoimportantly, their time, in creating brand new content.

ARUN PRAKASH Chief Learning Architect at InfoPro Learning


TABLE OF CONTENT

INFOPRO LEARNING

UNIVERSITY CASE STUDY

TELECOM CASE STUDY 08

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Training is an investment

Depreciation of Training Value over Time

Reduce Reuse Recycle Overview

Reducing the amount of Extraneous Training

Reusing Instructionally Sound Training Content

Recycling content

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Recycling content

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Recycling content

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TELECOM CASE STUDY 08

UNIVERSITY CASE STUDY 12

INFOPRO LEARNING 17

REDUCE REUSE RECYCLE


TRAINING IS AN INVESTMENT

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The value of outdated training programs can be maximized by reducing the amount of unnecessary or redundant content,

reusing instructionally sound content, and recycling content with an eye towards improving and modernizing its design.

This white paper explores best practices in maximizing corporate training ROI through the modernization of outdated con-

A portfolio of training programs represents a significant investment in company resources, including the annual training budgets of years past and the time and effort of training personnel, subject matter experts, and training vendors.

Companies have an average training expenditure of about

$1,200 per employee per year,1 and over the years, the

time and budget spent on curricular design and the cre-

ation of learning assets represents a significant invest-

ment in company resources.

The average Global 1000 company has over 1,000 hours

of learning content within its training portfolio.

The development of this portfolio requires an average

investment of $18 million, including $8.1 million and

100,000 hours of labor from instructional designers,

$4.5 million and 34,000 hours of labor from managers,

$2.7 million and 67,000 hours of labor from instructors,

and $2.7 million and 18,000 hours of labor from

subject matter experts.


DEPRECIATION OF TRAINING VALUE OVER TIME


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Despite significant investment in training programs, annual training program reuse hovers at a rate of about 50% annually, meaning that approximately half of a given company’s training portfolio is not being utilized annually.

Annual expendituAnnual expenditure and time investment on new training program development exceeds the attention placed on maintaining legacy content by a wide margin.2

As years pass by, legacy training content depreciates in

value and effectiveness for a number of reasons:

This is especially problematic because old training programs still contain valuable information developed in cooperation with a company’s subject matter experts.

YEAR1

Outdated designThe graphic design for PowerPoint slides and e-learning courses tends to look dated after a few years.

YEAR2

Training not aligned with business needsOlder training programs might not be aligned with the company’s business needs and desired employee performance out-comes.

YEAR3

Changing learner demographicsTraining solutions that might work well for Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers might not be suitable for Millennials; changes in learner demographics require L&D professionals to revisit their methodologies.

YEAR4

Outmoded digital formatsE-Learning content dE-Learning content developed in Flash, legacy versions of rapid development tools, and in older versions of SCORM can result in non-delivery of the content over learning management systems and on newer Inter-net browsers.

YEAR5

Content inaccuraciesCompany statistics change, products get updated with new specs, and errors in the original content are uncovered over time.

REDUCE REUSE RECYCLE OVERVIEW

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Companies have an average training expenditure of about $1,200 per employee per year,1 and over the years, the time and budget spent on curricular design and the creation of learning assets rep-resents a significant investment in company resources. The average Global 1000 company has over 1,000 hours of learning content within its training portfolio.

The development of this portfolio requires an average investment of $18 million, including $8.1 million and 100,000 hours of labor from instructional designers, $4.5 million and 34,000 hours of labor from managers, $2.7 million and 67,000 hours of labor from instructors, and $2.7 million and 18,000 hours of labor from subject matter experts.

REDUCEReducing the amount of extraneous training content

improves the impact of training and increases

learner engagement.

REUSEReusing instructionally sound training content where

possible saves time and money, and is preferable to

developing new content from scratch.

RECYCLERecycling content with an eye towards improving its

effectiveness and design requires the application of

modern instructional design techniques to select

reusable pieces of content.


REDUCE

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Reducing the amount of extraneous training content improves the impact of training and increases learner engagement. A common issue with older training programs is that they are overly long, contain too much information for employees to remember on the job,4 and rehash some of the same concepts multiple times throughout the program.

After auditing older training programs, learning professionals can strategically prune away extraneous training content to ensure that whatever content remains is more succinct and impactful.5 As long as the content is instructionally sound and contains useful information, it can be leveraged for the development of new training programs in the future as well.

For e-learning content in particular, older content published in legacy formats can become inaccessible on modern Internet browsers, learning management systems, and mobile devices.

Are the programs too time consuming?Training workshops that pull employees away from their jobs days at a time and hour long e-learning

courses are good candidates for consolidation.

Will learners suffer from information overload?Learners can only retain so much information at a time from formal training programs. Content that is too

information-rich and relies on workers to memorize lots of information becomes unwieldy and should be

condensed.

Are there learning assets that have gotten negative feedback from workers?Unpopular training content should be removed from your company’s training portfolio. However, if some of

the base content is still useful, it should be partitioned away from the program as a whole instead of delet-

ing it.

Are there learning objects that are no longer accessible due to technological limitations?For e-learning content in particular, older content published in legacy formats can become inaccessible on

modern Internet browsers, learning management systems, and mobile devices.


REUSE

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Reusing instructionally sound training content where possible saves time and money, and is preferable to developing new content from scratch. As a result of a training portfolio audit, you will identify content that should be reduced or removed as well as content that should be reused for future programs. In particular, instructionally sound, informative training con-tent developed with the help of a company’s subject matter experts is valuable enough to be considered for reuse in the future rather than neglecting it or throwing it away.

Once reusable learning assets have been identified, they should be sequestered away from content that will be reduced or thrown out. As a general best practice, the best way to manage learning assets is through the use of a robust learning con-tent management system (LCMS).6 Proper usage of an LCMS will ensure that useful learning content is stored in a safe place and can be reused and recycled in the future as necessary.

Reusable learning assets come in many forms. Here are some of the most common types of reusable learning assets:

Training Slide DecksSlide decks from older instructor-led training programs can be a treasure trove of powerful content, includ-

ing statistics, infographics, and illustrations.

Instructional VideosInstructional videos can serve different purposes in training programs: onboarding videos for new hires,

product information videos, videos interspersed throughout e-learning courses, etc. Try to think of ways in

which instructional videos can be reused, since video production in and of itself is a significant

investment.

Job AidsJob aids are meant to serve as a reference to workers on the job – and to that end, they are oftentimes

highly succinct and information rich learning objects that can be reused for a variety of different

purposes.

Instructor-Led Training ManualsBreakout sessions, role-plays, homework assignments, and hands-on workshops

help learners to struggle through the material and learn dynamically.


RECYCLE

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Recycling content with an eye towards improving its effectiveness and design requires the application of modern instructional design techniques to select reusable pieces of content. By recycling existing content, time, effort, and budget are all conserved during the development process when compared to new program development. The three key success criteria for recycling training content are future reusability, content modularization, and content searchability.7, 8

Reusable learning assets come in many forms. Here are some of the most common types of reusable learning assets:

FUTURE REUSABILITYTraining content that can be reused and continually offered to learners for years into the future is an excellent investment. To future-proof training content, it should contain broad statistical trends rather than specific annual statistics, be published in interoperable formats, and contain timeless case studies and examples rather than current events and topical stories.

Broad Statistics > Specific DataUsing current annual statistics, figures, and reports in training content leads inevitably to future

data inaccuracies and learner perceptions that training programs are outdated and irrelevant.

Using mean statistical trends over a period of years paints a broader factual picture for learners,

and will be much more useful as a reference for the future.

Interoperability > CompartmentalizationProperly recycled training content can be used in multiple contexts and platforms. Can

instructor-led training manuals be used by trainers both in-person and virtually? Can e-learning

courses be accessed from desktop computers and mobile devices alike? Ensure that recycled

content can live where learners have a need to access it.

Timeless Examples > Current EventsFive years from now, which leadership development example will have more cultural relevancy:

Odysseus’ epic struggle to overcome a Cyclops, sirens, and Gods along with his own

shortcomings as a man in the Odyssey, or the crude and Machiavellian rise of Snapchat CEO Evan

Spiegel? Illustrate training concepts with timeless examples rather than current events which may

or may not be recognizable to learners years from now.


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Two instructional design frameworks that can be used in content modularization are microlearning and just-in-time training delivery:

CONTENT MODULARIZATIONLogically modularized training content ensures ease of access for learners that want to take a deeper dive into a particular subject area. In recycling legacy training programs, modularization should mostly be applied to formerly lengthy and unwieldy courses that were identified earlier during the Reduce stage of content conservation.

CONTENT SEARCHABILITYOne of the most exciting ways to recycle training content is to ensure that learning assets are properly metatagged and stored in searchable databases like LMSs for learners and LCMSs for learning and development team members. The work of going back and adding metatags to old learning assets is not exciting, but it holds immense potential for ensuring that learners and L&D staff can access training content on-demand.10

TTo add relevant metatags to training content, sometimes the assistance of a subject-matter-expert is also required. How-ever, in the age of Google when learners are accustomed to having information directly at their fingertips, ensuring training content searchability and ease of access is extremely important.

MicrolearningRather than e-learning courses that can drag on for 30 minutes to an hour at a time on a

multitude of subjects, breaking e-learning content up into modules of no more than two minutes

long each for specific subjects is a powerful exercise in content modularization.

Just-in-Time TrainingLearners might want to reference training material on the job so they can learn key concepts just

in the nick of time. If learning modules are laser-focused on specific subjects, just-in-time

training delivery becomes a reality.


RECYCLE

TELECOM CASE STUDYLegacy Training Portfolio revitalized & transformed using InfoPro’s MODERNIZE

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MODERNIZE by InfoPro Learning provided an organized approach for migrating close to 100legacy courses to a more modern design, instructional strategy, and device agnostic format.


ABOUT THE CUSTOMER

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The customer is a Fortune 50 telecom company with over 178,500 employees and operates in over 150 countries. The clientele consists of hundreds of millions of customers for their wireless, internet, and entertainment needs.


The Customer’s Need and ChallengesIn 2013, our client purchased 40,000 tablets to be used by their remote employees. By replacing laptop computers with tablet devices, they faced compatibility issues as theyattempted to deploy legacy training content.

AdditionallAdditionally, the large portfolio of eLearning materials contained content inaccuracies,outdated graphics and images, and most of the content was not aligned to modern day instructional design best practices.

As a long-time partner of InfoPro Learning and with knowledge of InfoPro’s forward looking approach to Modernization and Mobility, this company looked to InfoPInfoPro for an approach formodernizing their training portfolio.

The InfoPro Solution

As InfoPro investigated the legacy content and discussed the desired future state, it becameapparent to our solutions team that InfoPro’s MODERNIZE solution would be the best approach.

This solution would ensuThis solution would ensure that we would be able to properly leverage legacy content, improve the design, correct content inaccuracies, refresh the instructional strategy,and deploy in a platform agnostic format.

REMEMBER

Reduce Reuse Recycle

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MODERNIZE STRATEGYInfoPro then conducted the proprietary MODERNIZE Strategy solution which capturedcomprehensive details about the objects of the courses, environments for deployment, and Learner Profiles.

GATHER SOURCE CONTENTInfoPro began the engagement by Gathering Source Content which contained close to 100 assets covering a variety of subject matter and existed in a variety of formats. When gathering source content, InfoPro focused on making sure that all versions and supporting collaterals were consolidated so that the source could be comprehensively reviewed.

InfoPro Interviewed several stakeholders and gained an appreciation for pain points of the

existing legacy content and also some of the goals for modernization. InfoPro discussed the con-

tent of the courses with the SMEs in order to deduce the changes required.

InfoPro then Examined the legacy content mapping each course’s content, assets, interactivities,

and design elements

InfoPro then came up with a Recommendations document which captured all of the specific

changes which would be required on a course by course basis.

In order to test the revised design, recommended instructional approach, and mobile

interactivities before proceeding with the complete modernization, InfoPro created a Prototype

which could be tested within the existing LMS and on client owned mobile devices. We went

through several rounds of testing and revision to finally arrive at a prototype which could be

followed for the remainder of the assets.


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MODERNIZE DEVELOPMENTUpon completion of the strategy consulting that InfoPro conducted, we moved into the MODERNIZE Development phase of the project. Largely, InfoPro follows an “ADDIE” type model for delivery on Modernization projects however there are some proprietary elements which are unique with regards to our project management methodology and processes.

One significant difference in the MODERNIZE development process is the emphasis on agile and

parallel development. In this project, we were able to break the 100 courses into smaller batches

and stagger the development with parallel teams. This plan allowed us to release storyboards,

betas, and gold releases in a manageable volume for SME reviews. While the company

was reviewing the release, we would keep working on other batches.

With MODERNIZE development projects, the key to improving the quality, reducing the TAT, and

reducing the cost, lies in optimizing the delivery process and evolving the checklists which

accompany each step of the process.


KEY SUCCESSES OF THIS PROJECTInfoPro kicked off the MODERNIZE project in early 2014 with an anticipated turnaround time of 8 months. Due to external pressures and our client’s circumstances, the deadline was shortened with a hard cut-off date at 4 months. InfoPro successfully adjusted the project plan and resourcing to accommodate accelerated delivery.

At the conclusion of the 4 month project, InfoPro achieved the following key objectives:

Close to 100 courses modernized from Flash->HTML 5

Redesigned UI, Graphics, and images

Revised Instructional Design Approach focused on modular design and mobile compatible interactivity

Leveraged legacy content/assets to reduce cost of modernization by 60%

Achieved defect ratio of less than .01%

Process Optimization led to shortened TAT and an additional 10% cost reduction

UNIVERSITY CASE STUDYEnabling Platform Independence,

Cross Browser Support & Cleaner Markup

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Legacy Content Migration - Delivering a Futuristic Content Solution Using HTML5


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Our customer is a leading university in the United States and offers on-campus and online degree programs in business administration, computer information systems, engineering technology, network and communications management, and management. It also proffers professional graduate certificates in business, office management and health information technology.The university has more than 90 campuses throughout North America and enrolls over 80,000 under-graduate and graduate students. The university offers flexible options of on-campus and online programs that allow students to take courses as per their needs.courses as per their needs. To achieve this, the university uses modern technology tools to deliver and manage courses.

Traditionally, the university used a proprietary online learning management platform to deliver online courses and manage completion tracking. The online learning management platform also allowed educators of the university to author and pub-lish a course using an inbuilt course authoring tool. This offered an easy and integrated way for the university educators to create, distribute and manage online courses.

With the advent of newer technologies, smart phones have become one of the preferred choices of students to access online courses. To meet the demands of the students, the university wanted to upgrade its courses for mobile compatibility. Furthermore, the customer wanted to deliver courses independently of the online learning management plat-form. Through this approach, the university wanted to host the migrated new format of courses on a different content management system and link the courses through their current learning management platforms.

ABOUT THE CUSTOMER

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The Customer’s Needs & Challenges

The key challenges faced by the university included:

The university used a single online learning management platform to author and deliver online courses. Educators used the inbuilt ‘Visual Editor’ tool to create the online courses. The ‘Visual Editor’ within the online learning manage-ment platform rendered a huge redundant code base that was becoming difficult to manage with the latest updates.

Since the online learning management platform was a proprietary application and a hosted solution, many other competitors using the same platform caused an inconvenience to the univer-sity over content privacy issues.

Since the courses were authored within the online learning management platform and hosted within the same platform, the courses were com-pletely dependent on the platform and were not interoperable.

The university wanted to attract the new age stu-dents and hence it became a priority for the cus-tomer to enable course delivery to mobile devic-es. The current online platform was not able to offer this functionality.

The university had accumulated a huge volume of courses, nearly 1000 courses containing 70,000 pages, thus making it a humungous task to migrate the legacy content into a new format.

A key consideration towards the content migration was to make the new format mobile compatible.

Approach to Solve the Customer’s RequirementsInfoPro was selected to analyze customer needs and pro-vide an optimized solution. Our solution experts determined that the requirements were a good match for InfoPro’s MODERNIZE solution. This solution would ensure that we would be able to properly leverage legacy content, improve the design, correct content inaccuracies, refresh the instructional strategy, and deploy in a platform agnostic format.

MODERNIZE Solution Overview

InfoPro utilized the MODERNIZE solution framework to ensure the comprehensive treatment and conversion of legacy content to the desired state.

InfoPro began by a comprehensive collection exercise to gather all legacy materials in a consolidated location. This was crucial in order to proper analyze all versions of the content and capture the current state.

Next InfoPro completed the MODERNIZE Strategy phase by conducting thorough inteinterviews of stakeholders, careful audit of legacy content, recommendation for a future state design, instructional strategy and technology format. We then built a Prototype and went through rounds of revision to ensure com-patibility with the future LMS environment.

Finally, we moved into the MODERNIZE Development stage which consisted of a robust delivery plan and customized delivery workflow.

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MODERNIZE DevelopmentInfoPro helped the university in implementing a robust content migration workflow process that ensures a ‘Zero’ error rate during migration. The key things included:

A pilot batch was tested to identify any process improvements needed prior to the full migration lifecycle. This allowed improvements and fixes done right during the pilot phase and thereby eliminating any process gaps and errors thereof.

The solution involves content porting using DDreamweaver templates. These templates are finally published to an HTML5 format.

The HTML5 courses can now be hosted on a separate content management system and linked back to the online learning management platform.

Strong quality assurance processes are integrated with batches of content in the migration process.

A SeA Service Level Agreement (SLA) driven production lifecycle ensures maximum ROI over a vo-luminous scope of work.

Key Successes of This ProjectInfoPInfoPro has over two decades of experience in developing content solutions. We have worked extensively in helping customers keep pace with changing technology landscapes. While we deliver significant value through our innovative use of technologies, our process excellence doubles the value delivered to our customers. Major business benefits delivered to the university included:

Tested Content Migration Process Framework: SLA driven content migration helped the customer achieve this seemingly mountainous task within a defined timeline and controlled budgets.

A Cleaner Code Base:A Cleaner Code Base: The new HTML course output is better streamlined, easier to use and now had a cleaner code base when compared with the legacy courses. This made it easier to make up-dates and future amendments.

Automation in Porting: Dreamweaver templates allows a level of standardized and automated content porting from the legacy environment there-by reducing the error rate typically expected in manual porting.

Platform Independence and Mobile Compatibility: The resulting HTML5 courses allow the university to host the courses independent of the online learning management platform. These can also be accessed on mobile devices, thereby increasing student enrollment and engagement.

Maximum ROI andMaximum ROI and Time-to-Result: Both our batch production processes and SLA driven delivery life-cycle helped deliver the project within defined timelines and assured quality.

ABOUT THE AUTHORKyle Miller is an enterprise learning consultant with InfoPro Learning based out of Princeton, NJ. Prior to joining InfoPro, Kyle served as a research associate on subjects including e-learning, online education, game-based learning, and social media usage in higher education at St. John's University in New York.

CONCLUSION

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Corporate training portfolios are a massive investment, and most companies are allowing the depreciation of their training portfolios by neglecting to use old content. Companies can maximize the ROI on training if they

modernize old training programs by reducing extraneous content, reusing instructionally sound content, and recycling the remnants into future-proof, modularized, and searchable

trtraining programs.


INFOPRO LEARNING

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InfoPro Learning helps organizations rapidly transform talent by focusing on Learning for Performance. A global, award-winning learning and training solutions company for almost 20 years, InfoPro provides performance improvement strategies, blended learning solutions, and managed training programs. At InfoPro, performance innovation, cutting-edge technology, and a talented team are combined to deliver successful workforce solutions and business outcomes. InfoPro Learning is obsessed with helping

customers build training capacity, advance their practices, and respond effectively to changing learner needs.

INFOPRO LEARNINGLearning for PerformanceFor more information about InfoPro Learning, Inc.,

visit: www.infoprolearning.com, call (609) 606-9984 oremail us at [email protected]

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