From E-Learning Failure to E-Learning Redemption
By Ed Mayberry

It's easy to spot e-learning courses that don’t measure up to current standards. These products are a black eye to the e-learning industry which is already struggling for credibility and resources. But all is not lost; bad e-learning can be redeemed.

E-learning redemption is the process of fixing failed e-learning products--which often represent a financial sinkhole for a company, with numerous resources and thousands of dollars thrown at a project but little or nothing to show for the effort.

Although challenging, situations of e-learning redemption offer opportunities for you to draw upon and expand your knowledge, skills, and abilities. If you're tasked with renovating a poor product, you should have

• efficient and effective needs assessment skills
• knowledge of instructional design principles for e-learning environments
• a clear understanding of the capabilities and limitations of the development tool and delivery media.

The framework

Typical symptoms of bad e-learning courses include poor navigation structure; inappropriate graphics, animation, and interaction; content that lacks chunking; and buried or hidden content. Due to an organization's rush to use e-learning, instructor-led training materials are often hastily converted using an HTML authoring tool. Generally, the developer had no experience with instructional design or courseware development so they focused on demonstrating technical prowess through interactions and animations. Now, these failed projects need fixing.

It all starts with a form of gap analysis. Be sure to establish the state of the current project, where you want the project to be, and metrics for measuring when you've reached that goal.

Determining your starting point requires a complete inventory. Psychologically, you need to start from where you are rather than where you want to be. Outline everything that's needed to translate the failed product into a development tool. This step will probably require data migration of all content into a usable form. Your level of knowledge regarding the content, organizational culture, and key stakeholders (client, SMEs, and sponsors) will increase the overall efficiency of the project.

Understanding where you want the project to be involves communicating accurate analysis of the failed course and a statement of work to the key stakeholders. This is an opportunity to set expectations for the project. Be sure to

• develop a prototype. Don't waste your time talking, show them.
• establish content parameters. Check with the SME about significant changes to the existing content and interaction ideas. In short, identify how much room you have to play with the content.
• create continuous improvement goals and processes. Negotiate how far to push the product. If you're going to put in the effort, make it count.

Specific pieces of the project puzzle include

• Statement of work. Find out specifically what the customer wants. Build your task list by working backward to the project starting point. Write a clear one-page summary based on a description of the finished product, using the rest of the framework pieces as a guide.

• Problem statement. In one paragraph or less, clearly state the specific problems with the existing e-learning course.

• Project scope. Clearly (and briefly) describe the extent to which you will change the product, including a firm date for locking down the content. In addition, work with internal experts to accurately estimate development time, project costs, risks, ramp-up time, and foreseeable project delays.

• Current project status. Accurately state the condition of the existing failed product. Be sure to describe the development tool used, graphic quality, instructional design weaknesses, content issues, development time, and location of all related files.

• Style guide. Develop a guide for designing templates for new courses. Sample elements include font, language usage style, grammatical style, use of capitalization and acronyms, and how to design learner directions. (See "Polishing Your E-Learning Prose" for help.)

• Communication protocol. Establish a process for communicating project status, contact with subject matter experts, and detailing revisions. This should focus on two primary points: 1) how you will communicate with the client based on their availability and 2) how key stakeholders will communicate with you based on your availability.

• File management and version control. Find out from your Web developer how he or she would like to address this issue. In general, this requires the development of project directory structure, a version control protocol, and a file naming convention.

• Quality check. Establish a process for editorial and quality assurance tests. Clearly state at which point(s) you'll have a third party review the course, and how you'll select participants for alpha and beta testing.

• Action plan. Propose a specific alternative and course of action. Break out your short-term action plan (first 25 percent of project) and your long-term action plan (remaining 75 percent of project). Be sure to outline all major milestones.

Finally, deciding when the project has reached its goal requires a live demonstration near the end of the development phase. Plan for a series of milestone checks in which the client approves the product. Factors to include in the sign off are SME approval and detailed editorial and quality assurance tests.

Sample problems and solutions

The following table represents common redemption problems and associated solutions.

This formula has worked for me, but your specific needs will be unique to your organization. Therefore, I offer the following additional suggestions:

• Identify what you need and prioritize those needs into three categories: must have, should have, and nice to have.
• After identifying rough costs, develop a two-page business proposal to sell your redemption plan.
• Make friends with your developer and keep him or her in the information loop.
• Remain organized as you move through the process. Otherwise, your project may be a painful experience for your client, the developer, and yourself.

Indeed, these steps seem simple, but often the best solutions are the least complicated ones. If all goes well, you'll have a happy customer and an improved relationship with your developer. More important, you'll be better prepared to develop, manage, and deploy custom e-learning courses within your organization.

Published: June 2002