Food for thought - Proven recipes for e-learning success

Brightwave's Content Editor Peter Styles, sums up Friday's 'Proven recipes for e-learning success' E-Learning Network event.

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If I may be forgiven for using a food-based idiom to kick off this piece, the cream of the e-learning crop gathered in Central London last Friday to share and showcase the projects that won them gold at the 2010 E-Learning Age Awards.

The day was chaired by Kineo CEO Mark Harrison, who said that after 26 years in the business he had concluded that the individual that had most influence over the success of an e-learning project was the person who commissioned it, evidencing one in particular who was on the ball and intent on ensuring learning and business impact.

The first presentation of the day was from Brightwave's MD Charles Gould, who told the story of Brightwave's role in helping to reinvent Bupa Health & Wellbeing UK - replacing 'a tangle of more than 80 IT systems' built up over the 65-year history of the company with a single platform and a single skillset.

We had to push our noses into the Bupa business to champion the project so we could say "you paid us and we achieved this" Charles Gould, Brightwave

'More than 3,000 people had to unlearn and relearn their jobs,' Charles explained, emphasising that it was crucial that Brightwave was proactive in getting involved in as many aspects of the change programme as possible in order to make it a success. This included a full internal comms campaign to win hearts and minds and reassure staff that the transition period would ultimately make their jobs easier.

Ultimately this meant 'pushing our noses into the business to champion the project so we can say "you paid us and we achieved this",' said Charles, before outlining what the training programme had accomplished.

Initially employees cited time pressures as the greatest barrier to completing the One Plan e-learning modules, but a high degree of manager support of the project meant there was 99% take up and a subsequent 98% user satisfaction rating of good or excellent.

In summary Bupa accrued significant business benefits off the back of their organisational change campaign (to download the Bupa case study in full click here), and Charles cited first-class project management and clear, measurable objectives as key elements in making One Plan a resounding success.

Next up was Martin Belton, ex-dresser in the Royal Ballet, whose talk on NHS e-learning provided some useful insights direct from users in the form of video vox pops. Ward sisters, doctors and other health professionals spoke of its unintimidating nature and how it could be conducted at one's own pace and convenience. Once again the thrust of Martin's talk was that stakeholder / user support was crucial for successful implementation. For more detail on Martin's talk - and indeed all the others as they happened search Twitter for #elnproven.

The next seminar was from Ian Lambkin of the Fire Services College, who helpfully pointed out that given the choice people would rather have a fire fighter who had experience of putting out 400 fires than one who'd done 400 hours of e-learning. That said, e-learning drastically reduced the length of residential courses at the FSC's ex-air force base from five weeks to three-and-a-half whilst retaining quantity and quality of skills acquisition.

A 'Proven recipes for success' event would not be complete without an excellent lunch - which was indeed forthcoming - followed by the 'If you were me...' (#elnif) ask the expert session. Those in the room, and Twitterers from far and wide could pose questions to the assembled award-winners. Subjects dealt with included adoption of blended learning in academia, content integration (with particular reference to SCORM standards and development) and a query about open-ended assessment involving hair colour technicians - long story!

Ex-ballerina Laura Dewis of the Open University gave an excellent half-hour about how the OU has updated its operations and image from late-night kipper tie fare to cutting-edge e-provision backed up by substantial social media involvement. Laura said strategies such as allowing users to 'remix' content via a Creative Commons licence and fusing third-party material with contributions from academics had proved to be very successful.

Ultimately, social media was seen as a critical vehicle for OU students as they have no / scant opportunity to meet in the 'real' world. Allied to this, participation on platforms such as Facebook meant the OU could go to where the people were, rather than relying on them coming to the university.

Next in the packed programme were Pecha Kucha presentations. For the uninitiated the rules are one person giving a talk with 20 accompanying slides timed to change at 20-second intervals (six minutes 40 seconds in total). Well done to Craig Taylor for his winning performance, including one twenty second period spent counting pennies into Mark Harrison's hands!

Richard Alberg of MyWorkSearch - who has apparently been to three ballets - concluded the series of award-winning stories - of the website's e-learning journey from prototype through mass-adoption (and Amazon-style 'nudge engine' creation) to a potentially exciting future helping people find new jobs during an often difficult period in their lives.

Rounding up a fantastically organised day, Mark Harrison said that e-learning should be looking to the marketing mantra of AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action) to draw in stakeholders and users. The learning, he said, should provoke feelings of the first three, motivating action in the form of an engaged, retained learning experience and better workplace performance as a result. Food for thought indeed.

You might also like:

• Case study (Bupa): How rapid e-learning can deliver major organisational change
• Brightidea: Time to make a difference
• Brightidea: Introduction to IMPACT: How to create an engaging, effective e-learning experience
• Awards: See a selection of Brightwave's most recent awards

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