Many professional associations offer classroom based courses and certificate programs. In some cases, converting these courses into an eLearning format can be beneficial for both the learner and the organization. This presentation explores a successful journey by the Community Associations Institute
2013 ASAE Annual Meeting Education Session: Converting Professional Certificate Courses to Online Learning
1. Converting Professional
Certificate Courses to
Online Learning
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
10:45 a.m. – 12 Noon
Hash tag: #ASAE13 LE89
Diane Elkins, president, Artisan E-Learning
Jake Gold, CAE, director, education
development Community Associations Institute
David Jennings, CAE, SPHR, VP, education
Community Associations Institute
29. Build internally when:
• You have/are willing to hire a dedicated
team.
• You are prepared to keep staff up to date
on technological changes.
• It is easier to hire/allocate staff than bring
on a vendor.
30. Buy (outsource) when:
• Your staff members already have full-time
jobs.
• You’d prefer not to spend the time/money on
becoming/staying experts on e-learning
development.
• It’s easier to contract with a vendor than
add/reallocate staff.
31.
32. Allocation of Training Staff Work Time
Evaluating
Interventions
Leading Change
7%
6%
Selecting
Interventions 7%
Management
24%
Other
8%
Analysis
18%
9%
Design &
Development
18%
Implementing
Interventions
21%
34. Considerations for Choosing a Vendor
•
•
•
•
•
Number of years in business
Examples of past work
References
Policy on copyright (Do you retain?)
Policy on source materials (Do you get
them?)
• Proprietary tools used?
• Use of current technology
35. Considerations for Choosing a Vendor
•
•
•
•
Effective project management process
Size of the company
Ability to meet the timeline
Flexibility with with content/schedule
changes
• Pricing model
• Philosophy on redesigning courses for the
medium
37. Our requirements
•
•
•
•
•
Formal review process
Audio on every slide (video on some too.)
Online discussion boards
Plenty of activities and interactions
End of lesson quizzes
41. Customer Service
• Increased volume of calls
to education department
• Learn by doing
• Browsers or other minor
issues
42. Staff Acceptance of Change
• How will this impact me and my job?
• How will this impact other programs?
43. Leader Acceptance of Change
• Will this be viewed as an “easier” than
what I had to do?
• Will this in any way decrease or lessen the
programs we already have?
44. Changing Vendors, Tools, etc.
• Switching design
firms, authoring
software
tools, etc., can
make the
courses look and
behave
differently.
45. Constant Change in Technology
• Adapting courses for mobile
devices, phones, tablets
48. Experiment & Innovate
• Carve out a safe place
to try new things
• Invest in your own
continuous learning
• Participate in events by
ASAE, ASTD, eLearning Guild, and other
organizations
49. Dedicate Staff Time
• “Rapid development” doesn’t
mean it’s easy, free or fast
• Need organizational support
• Take the time to find vendor firms that will
be a good fit
51. Contact us
David Jennings, CAE, SPHR
Vice President, Education
Community Associations
Institute (CAI)
djennings@caionline.org
703-970-9234
Jake Gold, CAE
Director, Education
Development
Community Associations
Institute (CAI)
jgold@caionline.org
703-970-9241
Diane Elkins
President
Artisan E-Learning
dpelkins@
artisanelearning.com
703-679-8929
The purpose of this education session is to explain how we converted a group of classroom based courses into eLearning courses for our members.
Dave Jennings has been Vice President of Education at CAI in Falls Church, VA since 2006. He also serves a concurrent role as Executive Director of the Foundation for Community Association Research. Prior to joining CAI, Dave worked for ASTD, American Society for Training & Development, and for the National Association of Realtors. Dave has a masters in Training & Organizational Development from Loyola University Chicago, and a BA in International Relations from Brigham Young University.
Contest-worst commute?Anyone else from Washington State?
Diane literally “wrote the book” on Articulate Storyline!
Jake Gold has a masters degree from George Mason University, and was named one of the “Top 40 Training Leaders Under Age 40” by Training Magazine.
Marriott, Booz Allen, Siemens, Air Force, General Electric, CitiBank, Sprint, Lockheed Martin, etc.
300k associations in USA. 64 million residents, 2 million of whom are on the boards. $40 billion annual assessments.
CAI HQ. Remember earthquake two years ago in the Washington DC area? Similar to that, many are experiencing changes in training and education as shaking their world.
Often education professionals in associations wear two hats: The Educator and “The Foreman,” who is concerned with the business of production, schedules, and budget.
Seven years ago CAI was still using overhead transparencies like this in the classroom courses. Our first eLearning course back then had screens that looked similar to this. Lots of text and reading. Part of our story is how we went from this to better course materials.
It really pays to get local perspective on our projects so we know how it will be viewed.
Before we converted to eLearning, we revisited the classroom course materials and update most of them. This exercise enabled us to do a lot of things that helped lay the groundwork for conversion to eLearning: tightening up the learning objectives, updating the content, waking up the instructors and the SMEs, and creating graphics and Powerpoint slides.
This is a high level bare-bones list of our courses. Yellow ones are those we’ve converted to eLearning versions.Courses in the classroom are about 2 days. You can see that we have a long way to go. 6 of our 17 courses-35% are eLearning
Source: Tagoras.
-Minimal marketing-CAI’s changing registrant base: M-100 registrants went from 20-30 per month to 60 per month. Now averaging well over 100 online registrants per month, accounting for almost a third of the learner population. -
This slide shows that the delivery of education is more diverse than five years ago. Some association leaders worried that eLearning would cannibalize the classroom courses. While some have definitely opted for online instead of classroom, the overall pie has grown larger as well.
See how one association increased online course participation by 400% and recouped its investment within one year.
Decision to expand online: History with our first online course – launched in 2004. Very successful. Demand was there.
Adult learners who are geographically isolated from our courses – could benefit from online education
CAI’s increasing international population of learners could easily take advantage of online education
Highlights from checklist/handout
Highlights from checklist/handout
Unless you have a team of in-house course developers, you might need to call in the experts – like we did.
Finding a vendor was a learning process. We actually worked with a few different companies and in the process learned about our own preferences and capabilities and refined what we were looking for.
We were looking for a vendor that could bring these components to our courses at a reasonable price.
For CAI, we needed a course that we could be proud of and our members would find challenging and enjoyable. Artisan e-learning delivered on all these fronts.