Lambda Solutions e-Learning 2.0 Online Training and Moodle Experts

In our last post, we discussed a few fundamental principles of Moodle Usability. In this post, we will continue our Moodle Usability blog series, by discussing the basic elements that make up a good Moodle theme design, namely fonts, colors and graphics. We will continue our discussion of Moodle themes in our next blog post, where we will tackle navigation, layout, widgets and behaviors.
 

The Importance of Moodle Theme Design:

While Moodle Provisioning and Moodle Development focus on the functionality of your Moodle site, Moodle theme design focuses on your Moodle site's overall look and feel. Look and feel is important because color, fonts and layout are the first elements that a learner notices when engaging with your Moodle course. For this reason, a good theme can engage your learners and make your course easier to work through. In addition, a proper Moodle theme can re-enforce your organization's branding and make the transition from your website to your Moodle course seamless. The result is a Moodle course that is easy to engage with, properly branded to match your website and more effective in its transfer of knowledge to learners.

In order to make your Moodle site as effective as possible, we recommend thinking about your Moodle's theme before beginning to build the course. At Lambda Solutions, we've put in place a Moodle Theme Design process which allows us to accomplish the client's goals, while focusing on their learners.
 

Our Moodle Theme Design Process:

• » Initial Meeting
  Meet with the client to discuss necessary required Moodle theme elements
• » Storyboarding
  Storyboard and lay out the plan for the Moodle theme
• » Mockup
  Have one of our graphic artists come up with a Moodle theme mockup
• » Revision
  Present mockup to client and revise appropriately
• » Sign-off
  When ready, have client agree and sign off on a final Moodle theme mockup
• » Design
  Design and deploy the Moodle theme based on the agreed upon mockup

Now that we know a little bit about the process and importance of Moodle themes, let's turn our attention to three specific elements that make up a Moodle theme: fonts, colors and graphics
 

Colors in Moodle theme design

Colors are one of the most important elements in a Moodle theme's design, because they evoke emotion, promote readability and re-enforce your branding. Colors evoke emotion by activating the right part of the brain. For example, according to color psychology, red is seen as aggressive, while blue as serene and calm. In order to effectively use color in your Moodle theme design, be sure that the colors you use match the intent of your Moodle site and reinforce your brand.

Here are a few of our recommendations for color-use in your Moodle themes:

• » Don't over-use color.
  Stick with a maximum of 5 colors in your theme to ensure a professional and clean look
• » Learn to use a Color Wheel
  Use a color wheel or palette wizard to select which colors you'd like to use
• » Make use of Contrast
  Contrast and emphasize text using color, but do not overdo it - too much contrast means less visibility
• » Focus on your Brand
  Always be sure that your overall color-use reflects your intent and branding
   

Fonts in Moodle theme design

After taking colors into consideration, we will now focus on the other most important Moodle theme design element: fonts and typography. Typography is important because, unlike color, it engages the left side of the brain, which is responsible for logic. This means that while color can be used to place emotion and emphasis behind your thoughts, proper use of fonts can allow you to organize those thoughts and present them in a logical order to your learners. The end result is a more structured and effective learning experience.

Here are a few of our recommendations for font and typography use in your Moodle themes:

• » Don't over-use font types
  Stick with a maximum of 2-3 fonts to ensure that your Moodle course content is organized and readable.
• » Font type is important for readability, so choose wisely
  For example, some typographies say that a sans serif font is easier to read on a computer than a serif font.
• » Play around with font size
  Proper use of font size can help categorize and group information for your learners. For example, titles should have larger sizes than content.
• » Emphasis is good
  Important bits of content should be highlighted, bolded, italicized or underlined, but overdoing it will get you in trouble.
• » Fonts have personalities
  The fonts you choose should reflect your intent and brand. For example, Comic Sans may not be the best choice for a corporate Moodle site. Or any site for that matter...

Use of Graphics in Moodle theme design

Graphics are a third element to take into consideration when designing your Moodle theme. Much how "a picture says a thousand" words, the right graphics can elevate your Moodle by re-in forcing your content and aiding in the learning process. Graphics, pictures, photos and icons can all help achieve this by turning learners' attention to important elements of your course.

Here are a few of our recommendations for Graphic use in your Moodle themes:

• » Every Graphic must have a purpose
  Graphics should reflect the intent of the site and reinforce a message. Every graphic on the page should have a purpose; if it doesn't, replace it or delete it.
• » Graphics for Emphasis
  Use graphics alongside important text to draw attention to it
• » Do not overuse graphics
  Similar to color and fonts, over-using graphics can hinder the effectiveness of your Moodle course
• » Ensure Format and Style Consistency
  Make sure all of your graphics are of the same format and symbol (i.e. photo vs. drawing vs. symbol) and are placed consistently in each page
• » Loading Time Considerations
  Take into account loading time and image size
• » Icons
  When using icons, be sure that each icon has a purpose and is intuitive to understand
   

More on Moodle Usability...

This brings us to the end of our basic coverage of Moodle theme design. In our next blog post, we'll discuss navigation, layout, widgets and behaviors. Stay tuned for updates coming soon!
 

About Lambda Solutions

 Lambda Solutions is a full-service Moodle Partnered organization, specializing in a wide range of e-Learning services, including Online Course Development and a full range of services for the Moodle (LMS) Learning Management System. Lambda Solutions has worked with a variety of Corporations, Government Organizations and Educational Institutions throughout North America, including PMC-Sierra, Kumon, Rogers, Vancity, BC Hydro, UBC, SFU and the governments of Alberta and British Columbia. The company was founded in 2002 and is based out of Vancouver, Canada. For more information, visit www.lambdasolutions.net

PS
Did we miss something? Leave a comment or @reply us, and let us know!

When an administrator designs a Moodle course, often the content and back-end functionality comes first. Course creators want to make sure that the course is populated with the appropriate content and participants and Moodle administrators want to be sure that the Moodle is hosted and supported properly and that all tracking and reporting elements are correctly in place. While content and functionality are certainly important, one element of Moodle course design that often gets overlooked, is the Moodle look, feel and Moodle usability.

In the next few blog posts, we will be teaching you the importance of Moodle Usability and how to take your Moodle to the next level. We will explore all aspects of Moodle usability, look and feel, including: Moodle themes, Use of colours and fonts, icons and graphics in Moodle, Moodle layout, Moodle navigation and Moodle Widgets / Moodle behaviours.

Before we begin, let’s first define Moodle usability and why it is of value.

What is Moodle Usability?

Usability can mean different things to different people, although there are usually elements in the definition that are the same. Three of the more generally accepted principles are that usability makes a system:

• »More efficient to use  It takes less time to accomplish a particular task 
• »Easier to learn  Operation can be learned easily and by observation 
• »More satisfying to use  Better usability translates to a more engaged and content audience

From an e-Learning standpoint, usability is the effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction with which users can achieve specified learning or learning related goals; or if you’d prefer – ease of use.

Why does Usability matter for Moodle?

There are a few very simple core reasons why usability is important, especially when it comes to web-based learning. Among these, are:

• »First impressions: Web users form first impressions of web pages in as little as 50 milliseconds (1/20th of a second). A bad first impression could  leave the learner bored, unimpressed and confused. This can ultimately lead to poor motivation, lack of interest and an i  ineffective learning environment. 
• »Rules of engagement:  One of the biggest issues relating to online learning is keeping the learner engaged and interested, in order to facilitate an  effective learning environment. Among the factors which can disengage learners, are: poor use of Moodle activities, lack of  encouragement for participation and use of outdated technology. 
• » Frustration leads to abandonment If a user becomes frustrated in trying to find information or use the system, they simply won’t use it. The same principle stands f  for Moodle – if your learners become frustrated with your LMS, they won’t use it. There’s nothing worse than investing in your  e-Learning project and not seeing results for your learners.

How do you improve usability in Moodle?

 Over the next few blog posts, we will be covering this topic. We will discuss: Moodle themes, Use of colours and fonts, icons and graphics in Moodle, Moodle layout, Moodle navigation and Moodle Widgets / Moodle behaviours.

Stay tuned for updates coming soon!

About Lambda Solutions

 Lambda Solutions is a full-service Moodle Partnered organization, specializing in a wide range of e-Learning services, including Online Course Development and a full range of services for the Moodle (LMS) Learning Management System. Lambda Solutions has worked with a variety of Corporations, Government Organizations and Educational Institutions throughout North America, including PMC-Sierra, Kumon, Rogers, Vancity, BC Hydro, UBC, SFU and the governments of Alberta and British Columbia. The company was founded in 2002 and is based out of Vancouver, Canada. For more information, visit www.lambdasolutions.net.

The great thing about Moodle’s Open-Source framework, other than the cost savings, is the ability to customize and fine-tune your online courses to your exact specifications. Hundreds of custom third-party modules are offered for free by Moodle contributors, which once installed, can change the look, feel and functionality of your Moodle to suit your requirements. Despite their usefullness however, Moodle's list of available Moodle Modules is an exhaustive one. One often needs to sift through and try out dozens of modules before finally deciding on one.

So, in order to make your search easier, we’ve decided to share with you our top 20 must-have Moodle Modules. We recommend these to all our clients and are happy to now share them with you as well! Here are our 20 must-have Moodle Modules, in alphabetical order:

Activity Locking Moodle Module

A Moodle Module which is comes built-into all our Moodle Standard Package installations, Activity Locking allows you to set conditions that a learner must meet beforing being able to move on and unlock the next Moodle activity. For example, you may require that a student pass Quiz A before moving onto Quiz B. 

Attendance Moodle Module

Allows you to keep attendance in your Moodle course.

Adobe Connect Moodle Module

Allows Adobe Connect web-conferencing and online meeting software to be integrated right into your Moodle.

Book Moodle Module

Makes it easy to create multi-page resources, with a book-like format. A great way to bring a textbook to life!

Certificate Moodle Module

A must-have for certification courses in Moodle, the Certificate Moodle module creates customizable PDF certificates/diplomas for learners who have “graduated” from your course.

Contact Form Block Moodle Module

Allows students to email the teacher of a course – sort of like an internal emailing system, within Moodle.

Dialogue Moodle Module

Allows students or teachers to start two-way dialogue with one another. Great for courses where frequent interaction and communication is a key activity.

DragMath Moodle Module

Allows students to build mathematical expressions using a graphic drag-and-drop interface – a must-have for Math Moodles.

Elluminate Live Moodle Module

Integrates Elluminate web conferencing / online meeting software into Moodle

Face-to-Face Moodle Module

Used to keep track of, manage and remind learners of face-to-face training sessions which require advanced booking.

Feedback Moodle Module

Allows users to complete online feedback-style forms using a variety of user input methods.

Flashcards Moodle Module

Allows you to edit and play flashcards – a “memory training” device that uses repetition to facilitate effective learning.

Google Apps for Moodle Moodle Module

Integrates Google Apps’ services with Moodle and allows for Google Apps management and use from within Moodle.

Maximum Enrolment Moodle Module

A Moodle Module which is now built-into the Moodle Standard Package, Maximum Enrolment allows a course to have a limit on participants and have this limit displayed for all to see. 

Months Course Format Moodle Module

Displays course  sections with one section per month.

MrCUTE Jr. Moodle Module

Allows shared resources to be created and added to several courses at once.

PayPal Moodle Module

A Moodle Module which is now built-into the Moodle Standard Package, PayPal adds  a simple yet effective e-commerce functionality to your Moodle.

Quickmail for Large Classes Moodle Module

Adds a link and a mail composition text area to a tool that has a checkbox list of all students in the course. Teachers can check off the students they wish to contact and email them – great for quick, mass emailing within a larger Moodle course!

Scheduler Moodle Module

Used to schedule one-on-one appointments between teachers and students.

User Stats Block Moodle Module

A configurable block which displays site usage statistics such as number of users, teachers, courses, active users and number of days since last login.

So there you have it – twenty Moodle Modules you must have! 

Need information on, or help installing and customizing any of the modules listed above? Click here to check out how we can help you or give us a call!

Are there any Moodle modules that we missed? Leave a comment or reply to us on Twitter - @lambdasolutions. 

 The team at Microsoft announced earlier this month, an add-in for Microsoft Office, that will allow Moodle administrators and teachers to more easily upload their Office files directly into Moodle.

The new Moodle add-in will give you the ability to open any of your Office files located in your Moodle site, directly from Microsoft Office itself. No longer will you need to navigate and log into your Moodle Administration area, in order to locate and modify an Office file. Instead, simply install the add-in and find your Moodle Office documents by selecting "Open from Moodle" right in your Office program's main menu!

The Microsoft Office Moodle add-in will also add a "Save to Moodle" option to your Office main menu. This feature will allow you to save your Office files back into your Moodle website after opening them, without leaving Microsoft Office. 

Here are a few screenshots of the Microsoft Office add-in for Moodle, from Office's blog: 

The new Office Add-in is ideal for Moodle Administrators and Teachers who need to quickly access and modify Microsoft Office files which they have uploaded to their Moodle course. For example, a teacher that uses PowerPoint slides to teach students within Moodle may need to modify and access those slides on a frequent basis. With the new add-in, instead of logging in, searching for and re-uploading files each time within Moodle, the teacher can simply use Microsoft Office. The add-in cuts time and effort, by eliminating the need to switch interfaces and programs - now it can all be done from within Microsoft Office!

The new Microsoft Office add-in for Moodle is currently free for download from Microsoft's Education Labs website. It is compatible with Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, versions 2003-2007. We haven't yet given it a try here at Lambda Solutions, but are excited to give it a try as soon as we can!

For more information about Moodle installation, customization, development, themes and add-ins, visit our Moodle Customization page.

Resources:

• Microsoft's Education Labs - Office Add-in for Moodle Download Page 
• Microsoft Office Blog - Office Add-in for Moodle Discussion
• Moodle.org Forums - Martin from Moodle discusses Office Add-in for Moodle
• Lambda Solutions - Lambda Solutions custom Moodle installation, customization and development page

The idea behind online learning and e-Learning, is to utilize technology to engage learners with course material in more dynamic and interactive ways, than in a face to face classroom. Modern online courses are created in a rich and dynamic way and often incorporate elements such as rich video production, audio narration, flash animation, interactive learning games and more. 

So, what’s the Alternative?

Many organizations, when implementing an e-Learning solution such as an Online Course or courseware in a Moodle framework, ask us to integrate web conferencing software, such as Dim Dim, elluminate or Adobe Connect into the course. Web Conferencing software, is used to conduct live web meetings between instructors and learners. Integrating such software, as well as videos, into a dynamic online course, is ideal for organizations that need to keep a "real-time lesson" portion of their training programs intact, while still taking advantage of all the other features that e-Learning has to offer.

The Shift towards 3D

While traditional web conferencing software solutions are very effective and very popular, it seems like the big innovation lately in the web conferencing, web meeting and webinar industry, is 3D web conferencing, or web conferencing via virtual worlds. This relatively new concept merges the technology of a traditional meeting over the web, with the physical cues one would get from a face to face meeting. Content is still administered over the web, but via 3D avatars, or 3D character versions of participants. The concept is sort of like a video game, that's used for social interaction and collaboration.

At Lambda Solutions, the concept of virtual worlds for eLearning, is nothing new to us. In the past, we've adapted 3D technology to fit within various applications, including 3D games, learning activities, interactivities and more. However, the application of 3D virtual worlds to web conferencing is an entirely new concept and one which may have some potential in its application for online learning.

There has been a surge of new products popping up lately, all specializing in providing 3D presentation technology for businesses. Venuegen, for example, is one such product, which I recently discovered. With venuegen, you upload your face shot and it is placed on a 3d version of yourself. You can customize your clothes etc. and then attend the webinar or web meeting and interact with other avatars and listen in on a presentation, being administered by the presenter via a lead avatar. There are several other products like Venuegen on the market, all with similar solutions. Some of these include:

• »Tixeo
• »Assemb'Live
• »Croquet
• »Edusim
• »Forterra OLIVE
• »OpenSim
• »Protosphere
• »Second Life
• »Teleplace
•  

The Advantages of 3D Technology for e-Learning

Theoretically, because physical cues play such an important role in how we interact, retain information and learn, the idea of 3D web conferencing could be a vast improvement over traditional web conferencing software, for online learning. 3D web conferencing would not only improve how we learn and teach, but would still be more affordable than a face to face solution, saving instructors and presenters travel costs and accommodation costs, among other things.

As well, perhaps as the technology advances, in the future, participants of a web meeting will be able to do more than just learn, participate and ask questions. Maybe in the future, the technology will allow them to work with one another, interact in real time and collaborate, in a dynamic new way. The concept could very well change the way we participate in online classrooms!

The Drawbacks of 3D Technology for e-Learning

Unfortunately, the technology is still relatively new and has not yet been thoroughly explored, tried out and tested. This might make it a tough sell for businesses in the short term. After all, organizations want solutions that have been tested, proven to work and proven to achieve results, before spending the money implementing and using them. However, despite the short term struggles, the future could be a bright one for the 3D web conferencing industry, especially for e-Learning.

Do you think there's a place for virtual worlds in the future of web conferencing? What about eLearning?

 There are many advantages to migrating from a face-to-face training or learning program to one which, at least partly, incorporates online learning. Online learning is proven to be more effective than face-to-face and is often more engaging, easier to understand and quite simply, more fun, than face-to-face learning. eLearning is also often a lot more affordable, saving travel costs, instructor costs and more.

At the heart of implementing a successful online learning solution is a well-thought out project plan. When a client first approaches us with a request to take their training online, there are a series of steps we always take to ensure a successful project. These steps are the framework behind a strategic, methodical and well-thought out project plan, which ultimately results in a successful project, a satisfied client and an effective Online Learning solution.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when planning out your transition from a face-to-face to an online learning environment:

Decide what you’re constructing before Designing the Blueprint

Before any planning for the project begins, the stakeholders and developers should be clear on what exactly the project is. For this reason, during the time immediately before and immediately after a contract is even signed, we make sure to meet up with the client and determine exactly what it is that they’re after.

What is the client’s Goal?
What is it that we’re creating for them?
What content does the client have to provide?

This “Requirements Analysis” process must take place as soon as possible.

Address Content Gaps Early On

After identifying what needs to be done, it is important to begin identifying what you’re working with and what’s missing.
To address this issue, we start by providing our clients with a custom Lambda Solutions “Content Readiness Questionnaire”.This simple and objective document gives the client a chance to let us know exactly what we’re starting with.

What is the format of the current Face to Face Course that’s being brought Online?
Are there any supplementary notes, references and resources to aid the Course Development transformation?
Are there any multimedia assets available?
Are there any Course Reading Materials, such as textbooks, job aids or web resources?

These are all typical questions you’d find on a “Content Readiness Questionnaire”.

After figuring out what we have to work with, it’s time to decide if it’s enough. “Content Gaps” are, as the name implies, holes in the content – areas which need to be addressed to make the Learning complete and effective. Collaborating with a Subject Matter Expert from the organization is usually the best way to fill these Gaps.

Identify Learner and Technological Requirements

In order for an Online Course to be effective, it must be developed to cater to the target audience’s needs and preferences. A “Learner Analysis” can help bridge the gap between who your learners are and how your online course content will be structured.

We usually give our client a custom Lambda Solutions “Learner Analysis Questionnaire” to fill out. The questionnaire addresses learners’ experience with the course material. Demographics, psychographics, attitude, technical savviness, motivation and prior experience with the course material are all covered in detail, in what forms a “Learner Analysis” document.

As your Learner Analysis takes place, make sure to also address the project’s Technological requirements as well, in a “Technical Analysis”. Much like a “Learner Analysis Questionnaire” helps to paint a portrait of the target audience, so does a “Technical Analysis Questionnaire” when it comes to IT. organizational, infrastructural, security, hosting, development and end-user issues and requirements are all important factors that will shape how you structure your online course. A technological plan that’s signed off on by the client is the best way to avoid disagreement between your ideas and the clients’, in terms of technology used for the project.

Create a Thorough Instructional Design Plan and Project Plan

Once you have your finalized content, know your audience and have a plan of attack for technology, it’s time to create an “instructional design plan” and “project plan”.

An instructional design plan takes your various questionnaires and analyses and combines them into a structured plan of what the course will look like. A typical instructional design plan goes into detail about: course objectives, Targeted Learners, Instructor Methodology and a Map/Outline of the Course. Once approved, the instructional design plan becomes the basis for your course, including mockups, interactivity elements, scripts and prototypes.

While an I.D plan accounts for the “how”, “what” and “why”, the project plan goes into details about the “when”. A good project plan provides a detailed schedule of deliverables and milestones complete with due dates, an outline of roles and responsibilities, and the Communication Paths and Amendment processes that will be set in place.

To conclude, there are many factors to account for in the development of an online learning course, but at the heart of a truly great Course, is a well put together plan. Plan your courses in a strategic, methodical and well-thought out manner and your clients will thank you for it; trust us.

Alon Margovskiy,
 www.lambdasolutions.net

Click here to check out a Sample of our online course development work.

At Lambda, we offer both traditional eLearning Course Development, as well as more affordable Rapid Online Course Creation solutions. While Custom Online Course Development involves tailoring the course to the exact specifications of the client, a Rapidly Developed Online Course is less custom, but has a shorter turn-around time (less than a month) and a more affordable price tag.

Here's a great article by Patti Shank from Learning Solutions Magazine, about when an organization should implement a Rapid eLearning approach in an organization:

Rapid works well for lower learning levels

Dr. Benjamin Bloom, an educational psychologist, helped to develop a learning out comes classification system, a hierarchy of learning outcome levels associated with what the learner should be able to do at each level (see Figure 1). This hierarchy helps us think about the level of learning we want the information or instruction to foster, and what we want the learner to be able to do because of the instruction (typically called alearning objective or instructional objective).

Higher level   Level   Evaluation Synthesis Analysis Application Comprehension Lower level Knowledge	What the learner should be able to do
	Recommend, assess, choose...
	Design, plan, construct...
	Compare, calculate, examine...
	Complete, use, demonstrate...
	Describe, identify, give an example...
	List, define, label...

Figure 1: Information -- instruction continuum.

A major factor that impacts whether you can complete a project rapidly is the availability of existing, usable content. Content development often takes a great deal of time, so a rapid approach works best when needed content is already available and adequate for the job at hand. Lack of adequate content is one of the single biggest risk factors associated with rapid e-Learning projects! Even if a rapid approach otherwise makes sense, lack of adequate content will automatically add time to the process.

When considering whether you have adequate content for a rapid approach, you may need to consider the following content type issues.

Slides: If you are using the content from PowerPoint slides as a content source, it’s likely that this content alone will be inadequate unless you are the subject matter expert who created them. That’s because, typically, PowerPoint slides contain abridged content so you will need to consider the effort needed to turn slide content into adequate content. Also consider whether the content you are using will need to be updated, verified, or approved (all of which will add time to the project).

Documents: If you are using content from documents, consider whether the audience for the documents is the same as the audience for the information or instruction. If not, you may need to rework the content. Content from documents often needs condensing, so you will likely need to prioritize and condense it. And, of course, you’ll need to consider whether the content will need updating, verifying, or approval (all of which will add time to the project).

Graphics/Media: Graphics and media can take some time to develop. Consider what graphics and media would be most useful and whether they are already available. If they are available, consider whether they will need to be updated, verified, or approved. If they are not available, consider the time it will take to develop them and whether you can complete the project without them.

Other: Other content may be available or needed. You still must determine if the content is adequate or whether you need to modify it.

Rapid often works well in a hybrid approach

After some analysis, you may discover that a rapid approach won’t work for all elements of an information or instruction project. But that doesn’t mean a rapid approach won’t work at all.

For example, let’s consider a project whose purpose is to train sales staff on a new product. They will need to know the product’s features and benefits, how it fits into the company’s product portfolio, and how it compares to competitors’ similar products. They will also need the skills to effectively sell this product, alone and alongside other company products as well as against competitors’ products. Let’s consider how this situation lends itself to a rapid approach and a traditional approach.

Rapid Approach

Lower-level learning outcomes: The following are lower-level learning objectives:

• Describe product features and associated benefits
• Identify how the new product fits into the company’s product portfolio.

Disposable information and instruction: New product information is extremely time sensitive to sales representatives and others in the organization.

The project is on the information end of the information/instruction continuum: The product’s features and benefits, and how it fits into the company’s product portfolio, are closer to the information end of the information/instruction continuum.

Traditional Approach

Being able to sell against similar competitors’ products, and effectively selling this product alone and alongside other company products, are higher-level learning outcomes. They are also closer to the instruction end of the information-instruction continuum.

Whether you can use a rapid approach for part of this project, however, may depend on the availability of adequate content. Since marketing staff often prepares sales materials well in advance of a new product launch, there’s a good chance that at least some product information will be available for use in this project. You should analyze whether it is adequate before proceeding.

Types of rapid authoring tools

Rapid authoring tools come in a variety of “flavors.” Table 1 describes five commonly used types of rapid authoring tools, what they typically create, and examples of commonly used rapid authoring tools in that category. Remember, for the first four tool types here, the more capabilities you use, the more complex and less rapid the project becomes!

It is easy to see that the dividing line between rapid and more complex authoring may have more to do with what is included in each project and less to do with the tool you use to create it. One critical takeaway: When you use any tool to create more complex content, the project you create will typically take more time and therefore be less “rapid,” regardless of what tool is used. Rapidly produced projects typically produce less complex information and instruction.

Rapid often works well in a hybrid approach

The rapid e-Learning authoring tools marketplace includes numerous vendors and tools. Figure 2 shows the top vendors of rapid authoring tools, and the percentage of responding Guild members who use one or more tools from each vendor. Figure 9 on Page 19 of the complete report shows the percentage of responding Guildmembers who use each rapid authoring tool.

Figure 2: Percentage of responding Guild members who use at least one of each vendor’s rapid authoring tools.

The majority of responding Guild members use one or more of the Adobe tools (See Figure 8 on Page 18 of the complete report). Captivate was initially an authoring product mainly designed to produce quick and easy software application demos. As you might imagine by the large percentage of responding Guild members who use Captivate, the product is no longer limited to that use (although it can still make very rapid and terrific application demos and simulations). Approximately 25% of responding Guild members use Adobe Connect, a synchronous virtual classroom tool. Many of the companies new to e-Learning get started by putting some of their face-to-face classroom-based training online.

Author: Patti Shank
Source: http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/415/

Check out this great article from the Articulate Blog about why eLearning is so effective.

E-learning is hot. And for good reason. If done right, it can produce great results by decreasing costs and improving performance. Also, unlike a one time classroom session, the elearning course is available for others.  This includes the static elearning course as well as any ongoing conversations in networked communities.

Recently, I had a conversation with someone new to elearning and it struck me that she didn’t fully understand the value of elearning.  I think this is common as more people are joining the world of elearning.  Understanding elearning’s value helps you make the best decisions about when and why to use it. 

E-learning Supports the Organization’s Goals

• Improved training costs.  Producing learning content is time consuming whether it’s online or not.  With elearning, each time the course is accessed your return on investment improves because you are dividing the fixed production costs by number of uses.  You also have savings through decreased travel, reduced material, and hopefully improved (and more efficient) performance.
•  
• Decreased material costs.  Let’s say you have to train how to arrange equipment in a sterile environment like an operating room.  If you had to use the real environment, it would be costly.  Even setting up a fake environment has material costs and labor.  By creating the environment online and letting the learner practice, you never have to worry about the costs associated with set up, use, and clean up.
•  
• Increased productivity.  Because elearning is not bound by geography or time, you can control training’s impact on production by training people during down times.  In addition, with the current economy, you’re asking people to do more with less.  So elearning is a great way to give them the tools and skills needed to enhance their performance.
•  
• Standardization.  You may have a great facilitator, but that’s no guarantee that the courses are presented the same across sessions.  Elearning allows you to create a standardized process and consistency in the delivery of content.  It also compresses delivery time.  I’ve combined elearning courses with facilitated sessions.  Elearning delivered consistent content.  Live sessions were interactive case studies that applied the information.

E-learning Supports the Learner’s Development

• • Real-time access.  Live learning events require that those who participate align their schedules to the training calendar.  Elearning eliminates this because the course can be accessed anytime, anywhere.  This can also happen without Internet access.  I saw a Red Cross demo where the learners accessed the content on a PC out in the field and uploaded their results when they were back online.
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  • Freedom to fail.  Let’s face it, real learning requires some failure.  But no one likes to fail in a classroom full of other people.  Elearning lets you fail without fear.  This encourages exploration and testing of ideas.  With the right feedback you create a great learning environment.  Worst case, you can always start over.  Something you can’t always do in class.
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  • Improved retention.  The combination of multimedia and instructional design can produce a very rich learning experience that is repeatable.  Throw in some good practice activities with feedback and you have a learning environment that’s going to help your learners retain the course content which will produce results.
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  • Personalized learning.  Look out the window at your parking lot.  My guess is that you’ll see a dozen or more different cars.  They all do the same thing, yet we have personal opinions about what we want to drive.  The same for learning.  Learners want control.  Elearning allows you to offer control to the learners in a way that classroom learning doesn’t.

E-learning Nurtures a Learning Organization & Community

• Ongoing access to resources.  If you take a class in the real world and need a refresher, you better hope that you took good notes.  Otherwise, you’re out of luck.  That’s not the case with elearning.  Ideally, you continue to have access to the online content and resources to brush up on what you learned. 
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• Knowledge management.  Many people see elearning as only the authored courses.  But elearning includes all sort of online technologies.  If you incorporate some of the tools that allow collaboration and conversation, you can capture organizational knowledge that is available for future learners.
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• Encourage sharing.  The foundation of a learning community is built on sharing what you know with others.  This is where incorporating a forum or wiki really adds value to your elearning.  Depending on how the course is structured, you can encourage sharing of resources and insight gained from the course. 
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• Employer of choice.  People want opportunities to grow.  A cafeteria with high fat foods is one way.  Another is a catalog with all sorts of elearning courses.  This allows them to explore other opportunities in the organization.  During downtime, it would be great to spend fifteen minutes learning to better manage meetings or improve working with peers.  Offering these opportunities to learn makes you a place people want to stay.

Elearning is good for the environment.  Britain’s Open University’s “study found that producing and providing distance learning courses consumes an average of 90% less energy and produces 85% fewer CO2 emissions per student than conventional face-to-face courses.”   

One of the challenges with making elearning effective is how you manage the courses and access to resources.  I’m an advocate of freeing up the course navigation and giving the learner more control.

If you’re using a learning management system you might consider how that impacts the learning.  Do people have access to the resources when the course is complete?  Can they retake it?  Are you punishing them for failing?

Elearning is cost effective and can produce great results.  It’s all a matter of how you use it.  Where do you see elearning’s effectiveness?  What suggestions would you offer to those who are just getting started.

Source: http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/why-e-learning-is-so-effective/

 One of the questions our clients are always looking to answer before implementing their eLearning courses, is "How will this impact my Return on Investment?" Here's a great article by Patrick Lambe that discusses the topic of ROI when it comes to online training courses: 

One of the ongoing admonitions e-learning specialists face is the need to "prove" the return on investment (ROI) for each program they initiate.

But most e-learning programs are funded from ongoing training budgets, which are recurrent (that is, budgeted annually to cover the cost of a year's worth of training, rather than individual projects) and are accounted as operations or infrastructure costs.

Because much training is not budgeted at the project level, discussions about ROI have traditionally had little relevance. It would be like seeking the ROI on groceries in a personal budget or of stationery supplies in a business. Both are simply costs of doing business.

How, then, might one assess the return on an e-learning program?

First, it's important to be clear on the economics of e-learning, which I explain in this article. Second, we must understand some of the most common ways that organizations deploy e-learning to support their strategic objectives, and show how measurement of viability and impact can be approached within those situations.

The Economics of e-Learning vs. Training

A good understanding of the economics of e-learning involves realizing that e-learning is infrastructure.

Infrastructure. Infrastructure is the composite of technology systems, business processes, work culture, and control mechanisms that make up the way an organization operates and does its work. Infrastructure is distinct from assets and resources insofar as an existing infrastructure enables or constrains the performance of assets, such as specific technologies, people, and availability of time. If e-learning were merely a resource or asset, it would be an interchangeable part that could be plugged into an organization and become operational at the flick of a switch.

But that's not the case. In fact, as some of the early implementers of large-scale e-learning initiatives discovered, it introduces significant problems of change management because e-learning is more than an interchangeable, plug-and-play part. Making e-learning work involves more than integrating technology systems. It also involves re-gearing work processes, tuning into soft work cultures, and deeply integrating learning with the needs of business and work processes.

In contrast, although a training class might disrupt employees' work schedules, the class requires no other deep integration. And, although making training stick does require broader change in the workplace, research suggests organizations still offer classroom training without these related changes (see Transfer of Training: Action-packed strategies to ensure high payoff from training investments, by Broad and Newstrom, 2001).

Pervasive nature. This highlights another important difference between training and e-learning. Training has established for itself a distinct niche and role within an organization's infrastructure. It is compartmentalized and relatively easy to manipulate. But e-learning pervades the entire infrastructure. As part of the IT network of the organization, learning content is potentially available at any point in the flow of work, in any business process, and as part of any decision.

Recognizing the role of infrastructure in e-learning has two significant implications for discerning its economic impact or viability. First, because an infrastructure is a complex interweaving of diffuse and diverse elements ranging from "hard" technology to "soft" culture, attributing specific outcomes to specific interventions is extremely difficult. Infrastructure is generally opaque when linking causes to effects, and this substantially contributes to its apparent inertia in the face of change.

Second, any infrastructure-related initiative such as e-learning, has an absorption or integration cost that is extremely difficult to anticipate, precisely because of the opacity of infrastructure.

In layman's terms, an absorption or integration cost is the cost of change management, such as unanticipated costs associated with the technology, like the cost of providing tutoring support to learners (which is a cost that most organizations do not consider when deciding to launch an e-learning effort) or that, despite the fact that staff can access the learning anywhere at any time, if the work environment does not support transferring the learning to the job, learners will not become more productive.

Transfer of knowledge. It's crucial that organizations invest in efforts intended to transfer learning to the job. Whatever these unanticipated change management costs are, they are universally under-anticipated. The consequence is that the economic benefits of e-learning are usually over-estimated and the post-implementation results usually disappoint executives, reducing their confidence in a variety of learning-related issues, starting with the mechanisms for assessing the viability of a proposed e-learning investment.

Benefits of the Infrastructure Perspective

Recognizing the infrastructural aspect of an e-learning initiative is highly advantageous for three reasons.

First, it focuses executives' attention at the beginning of the project on likely integration and adaptation issues with a greater level of precision than if the metaphor of a plug-and- play box is used.

Second, e-learning initiatives that seek to unlock the constraints of an existing infrastructure are likely to have fewer challenges in installation and implementation because they are simpler than those that attempt to graft a complex e-learning system onto an existing infrastructure. In the latter situation, the grafted e-learning system will have more numerous points of integration and, as a result , more issues to address. This is why small, highly localized and focused initiatives always have higher success levels than large-scale enterprise wide initiatives. The smaller initiatives impinge upon, and depend upon, fewer elements of the infrastructure for their success.

The third implication of recognizing e-learning as an infrastructure initiative is that a simplistic ROI model would be inappropriate for all but the most tightly defined productivity-oriented initiatives. For example, simplistic ROI assumes that a quantifiable output can be attributed to the effect of a quantifiable input. But infrastructure often renders the relationships between inputs and outputs opaque. In many cases, the establishment of an infrastructure is not about a single input and output, but several, often unrelated, ones. Attributing the initiative to just one of them seems to underestimate the larger benefits.

Moreover, a complex system has a variety of inputs that affect a variety of outputs, many of which are unrelated to one another or that affect a variety of situations. Purely quantifiable and objective measures are increasingly inadequate for capturing the full range of value that such an infrastructure might create.

So metrics such as "contingent valuation" and "outcomes-based evaluation" are increasingly used for measuring the impact of other intangible, knowledge-based interventions, such as public library services or knowledge-based ecological systems. Because of the similarities of such initiatives to e-learning, perhaps they could be used for measuring the impact of e-learning, too.

Contingent Valuation Model

The key premise of the contingent valuation model is that it measures infrastructures at two different levels. One measure focuses on the value created by the entire ecological system. The other measure focuses on the inter-relations and functionality of the parts as valued by key stakeholders at different points in the ecological system. An ecological system includes all of the facilitating and constraining facets of the environment (in this case, the technology infrastructure) (see S. Macmillan's 2007 doctoral dissertation, "Development of writing for research purposes: An ecological exploration of graduate level non-native English speaker writing process").

The concept is not unique to technological infrastructure; the concept also applies to the design of classrooms.

Contingent valuation was originally developed in 1993 by Nobel prize-winning economists Kenneth Arrow and Robert Solow for the purpose of quantifying the value of ecological systems. It has been applied by a number of public and national libraries as a method of demonstrating the direct and indirect economic impact of the intangible services they provide, such as knowledge supply.

The method involves identifying key groups that obtain value from the services, and then quantifying the economic impact as well as the value perception of those services. This calculation is partly achieved by asking the stakeholders to consider what value they would lose if the service were not provided.

Outcomes-Based Approach

However, it's also possible to take a narrower approach based on objectives, or outcomes-based evaluation. It's similar to criterion-referenced instruction. Both start by identifying objectives at the beginning of the project—even before considering alterative solutions—and, after the solution is implemented, assessing the extent to which the objectives have been achieved.

In the using an outcomes-based approach to assessing infrastructure projects, the entering objectives are strategic business objectives that the infrastructure is mobilized to support. The assessment explores the extent to which these objectives were achieved. Outcomes-based evaluation has several strengths, particularly (but not exclusively) for commercial organizations because it encourages e-learning initiatives to support specific strategic objectives and define the measures of accountability for success. Because the objectives are strategic business objectives for which the organization is most likely already conducting assessment, existing measurement systems, such as the balanced scorecard, can be deployed.

Also worth noting is that, although productivity improvement is one possible type of strategic objective, it is by no means the only one.

Source: http://test.elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=107-1
By Patrick Lambe, Straits Knowledge, Singapore