Name: Dan Regan
Position: Program Developer and Account Manager
Company name: Pro-Active Learning Inc.
Sector: Web Based Training in automotive sector
What does Pro-Active do?
Pro-Active helps to improve the productivity, capability and efficiency of people and organizations. We achieve this by providing the right combinations of communications, training, motivation, process, and systems support to address a particular organization’s performance issues/objectives. 'Training' is the most tangible of these deliverables.
How would you summarise the state of your industry at the moment?
Full of opportunity. With the rapidly evolving ways that people are able learn and communicate - and even more rapidly changing media to support (or perhaps trigger) those changes, the need for effective needs analysis, instructional design, and performance support tools is greater than ever.
"The need for effective needs analysis, instructional design, and performance support tools is greater than ever."
A lot of our work centers around helping clients to determine what form of training, tools, communication, etc. will be most effective for their audience (and their audience’s diverse range of learning styles).
What type of courses do you create, and who for?
The bulk of our Web Based Training (WBT) work has been in product knowledge and process training.
The vast majority of this work is with Automotive Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), developing programs to support their dealer networks and personnel. A lot of these customers have 'non-controlled distribution channels', i.e. they sell their product/services through dealers and distributors. These types of organizations face unique training challenges due to the additional layer between headquarters and customer.
"'Directed self-study' points learners to existing information and resources that will use every day in their job, and teaches them how to use those resources via e-learning."
Has anything about your approach been changing?
Yes, we have moved from fairly lengthy (30 to 45 minutes) learning experiences to a more modular approach - 5-minute learning segments that can be strung together to form a more complete 'program of study'.
And we increasingly use an approach that we call 'directed self-study', where WBT points learners to existing information and resources (product information, third party articles, reference guides, all kinds of stuff on the web, etc.) that they will be using every day in their job, and teaching them how to use those resources via e-learning.
Tell us about your course developers?
We have five course developers. Some have a greater emphasis on writing/content development, while others focus more on the graphical/video aspects of content development and delivery. We try to give them close access to subject matter experts within the client company, so that little is 'lost in translation' between the product/process and the training for it.
How long have you been creating courses using Mohive?
We took our initial training on Mohive in March 2010 and are currently creating our first two courses in the program. Each is due for completion shortly.
How long does each stage in the development process take to complete?
Although there is typically some overlap between the stages, the average course takes 6 to 10 weeks to create, which breaks down as:
Planning: 2 – 3 weeks
Authoring: 2 – 3 weeks
QA: 2 weeks
Publishing: 1 week
What software did you use before Mohive eLPS?
Speaking as an instructional designer/developer/facilitator - and not a programmer - you could describe my previous process as a two-stage approach. First, I’d create the training program content in a Word document or PowerPoint deck, that my client and I could easily share, edit and mark for changes. Once the content was right, I’d turn it over to our programmer, who would in a sense re-do everything I had just done, using Flash, Lectora, HTML or some other authoring package to make everything work in cyberspace.
What aspect of the Mohive system do you find most helpful?
Online collaboration. The problem with the process I've described above was that, once my content was transformed into an online world, it became ungainly to make changes, additions, modifications or improvements - and harder still to QA those updates.
We’re all still relatively new to Mohive, but the idea that our team of developers and our clients at Jaguar Land Rover North America can all log onto a common platform and use the same program and tools to communicate (or simply do) exactly what we need to update, expand or improve the work-in-process or finished product is very exciting. The bottom line should - at least theoretically - be lower development time/cost per finished program, meaning we can deliver more training content per budgeted dollar.
"The bottom line should be lower development time/cost per finished program, meaning we can deliver more training content per budgeted dollar."
In time (as we develop more Mohive programs across the Jaguar Land Rover enterprise), we’re interested in seeing how we can all share reusable learning objects - everything from images and video clips to entire training modules, module segments or screens. In theory, this should further shorten development times and make new programs more robust than they might otherwise be, versus the typical world where every instructional designer works in his/her own 'development silo'.
Which Mohive templates do you find particularly effective?
Since I’m used to being ‘in charge’ of what happens on a page I’m most happy with the iExplore-Flexi page that allows for the addition of actions.
Several of the pre-programmed question formats are also helpful. The sorting templates are also very useful.
I feel I am still delving into the functionality of the various templates, but what I’m creating is what the tool is intended to be used for.
www.pro-activelearning.com