Super rapid, super slick

imc’s Express builds on decades of experience creating some of the best training solutions, and here we are talking super rapid content development that can be used by pretty much anyone to build out digital content quickly and easily. With just 10 minutes, you can be flying.

We’ve already signposted imc Express as one of the best examples of leveraging AI for elearning content creation and maximising productivity for L&D teams or subject matter experts. However, in 2023, the imc team took this to another level.

Express now integrates ChatGPT technology and makes it extremely easy for anyone – without any previous learning design or techie experience – to create elearning modules in minutes…

The training is very good, including a tutorial mode with contextual help to ensure you build out good learning and help pages.

If you have a lot of material to create or convert and not a lot of time, Express is a great option. This tool is 3 to 4 times quicker to create learning content than the market leaders, and perfect for making dry documents into learning resources rapidly.

Favourite features:

• Super rapid content development
• Good learning design principles (Didactics – designed in)
• 60 languages supported out of the box with voice and text translation done automatically
• AI can generate translated subtitles for videos
• Easy drag and drop of learning assets into a course that are automatically added to your content library and tagged (very neat)
• Collaborative development
• Outputs to SCORM 1.2 and 2004, as e-book, MS word or as a link

Learn more about content creation with imc Express.

A Complete Suite

iSpring Suite Max with iSpring Space

If PowerPoint is your chosen medium to build from, then iSpring was the way to go. iSpring is easy to use and has an awful lot of flexibility and capability.

However, i-Spring Suite Max now has a lot more capability.  The all new iSpring Space offers browser-based development capabilities and manages the learning assets to allow for sharing and their re-use.  iSpring Space allows for the developing of micro learning, which is now exceptionally well catered for.

Favourite features:

• Collaborative development
• Micro learning development capability
• Article editor feature (very cool)
• Create video-based learning with powerful editing and polishing tools
• Super quiz development capabilities, probably the best on the market

Learn more about iSpring Suite Max and iSpring Space.

Lighthouse content creation made easy

Open eLMS Creator is a well evolved authoring environment that just keeps getting better and better. With its 3d background effect it is incredibly easy to build elearning that is in the context of your organisation’s workplace.

Add a narrator and the learning is starting to look really impactful. With a devotion to ergonomics the company behind Open eLMS Creator really gets how to create a tool that produces highly visual “lighthouse content” easily.

Favourite features:

• 3d template approach
• 1000 or more different templated backgrounds
• Narrator feature (a green screen filmed narrator is yours to use)
• Able to update content in situ in an LMS (no downloading, amending and re-uploading here).
• Alexa does the audio narration for you

Learn more about Open eLMS Creator.

Elegant, easy and effective

Nimble Author keeps things simple and it does it superbly well. With sound instructional design principles designed into Nimble Author it is easy to build out e-learning quickly and easily. Nimble handles interactions well and really does make life easy to build content.

Nimble allows you to build learning through the eyes of the learner.  The material design approach meaning a familiar and intuitive interface for learner and creator.

Favourite features:

• The learner view is very good and easy to switch through to
• Templates are provided to build the learning in
• The rule of digestibility – Nimble Author2 will tell you if you have too much content on the page
• In situ screen editing meaning no need to storyboard (this is my favourite feature)
• The Nimble support promise……get stuck and the guys from Nimble will lend a hand…no problem.

Learn more about Nimble Author.

The post Top eLearning Authoring Tools appeared first on Learning Light.

Complete Curation from Anders Pink is an AI-powered learning content curation tool equipped with skills mapping and useful workflows to manage, maintain, and publish targeted and up-to-date learning pathways. Complete Curation provides the ultimate, indispensable tool for any organisation needing to accelerate their processes of curation and building learning pathways.

The result is like hiring an additional resource into your L&D team to boost its efficiency.

While large corporate organisations can benefit because they have the volume of learning content and complex skills taxonomies, smaller organisations can benefit too, because they might have limited resource, with curation falling to a small team or even one person.

All-in-all, Complete Curation is a very elegant way to solve a complex problem.

Who are Anders Pink?

The team at Anders Pink have been in learning technology for a long time. They’ve designed and built digital learning courses, blended programmes, learning management systems and grown successful businesses, including Kineo – now a leader in the global learning market.

Since launching Anders Pink in 2017, it’s grown to become a fully integrated feature in the world’s leading learning platforms, tools and apps. Now more than a million people access continuous learning through Anders Pink. With their acquisition by Go1 (the fastest growing elearning company globally) at the start of 2023, the future looks bright for Anders Pink and the many diverse clients who are currently benefiting from their innovative products.

How does Complete Curation work and what problem does it solve?

Complete Curation significantly reduces the time it takes to search, aggregate, and curate content, and then build targeted learning pathways of the most relevant content for learners. It also helps clients get a better return on their content investment because they have full visibility of all the content they own and licence.

It enables them to target meaningful content to address each learner’s upskilling needs and can map and index learning content to skills using any skills framework or taxonomy.

For skills-focused organisations, it enables them to identify the learning content required to plug skills gaps, making it easier and quicker to upskill and reskill their workforce, thereby ensuring they are future-fit.

Complete Curation uses Anders Pink’s Content to Skills Mapper to automatically tag any content using any skills taxonomy (internal or industry standard). It even auto-updates content skills tags when frameworks change – an essential feature in the fast-paced landscape in which we find ourselves keeping our workforces relevantly skilled.

Some of the USPs that we felt really mark Complete Curation out are that it provides a natural language search using a skill, question or phrase (including a learning objective or outcome), so you could use a meaningful query such as ‘moving into leadership’ to get the results you need. It employs filters such as asset types, languages, durations and providers, and there is no limit to the number of skills within a mapped taxonomy, and no restriction on the number of content assets searched.

It also searches freemium content on the web alongside your other content sources, meaning curated learning plans can be kept fresh with the latest online content.

Complete Curation has been built in response to the challenge faced by L&D when it comes to curating learning pathways in their organisations. Many organisations have a vast amount of learning content, either created internally or via external learning subscriptions (e.g. LinkedIn Learning, Udemy, Coursera etc).

Manually searching across all this content is both difficult and hugely time-consuming due to the sheer volume across multiple libraries and platforms. There might be a series of spreadsheets to sift through, skills might not be tagged against content, and there is much room for human error.

Even when content is all organised within one LMS or LXP, the task to search and curate content natively is still hugely time-consuming – a challenge many platform vendors are well aware of, evidenced by Anders Pink’s growing number of market leading platform partners who are utilising Complete Curation to boost their own native content filtering and skills tagging capability.

The benefits of Complete Curation to an organisation as a whole or to any L&D department, is the huge reduction in the time taken to search, aggregate, curate, and build learning pathways. They can receive a better return on investment on the content, because they’ll be able to utilise more of the appropriate content that is mapped to the skills that they are developing within their organisation.

They also have a better view on which subscriptions have more value and which ones they could dispense with, enabling L&D teams to make better content buying decisions.

A powerful tool for any organisation, no matter how big or small

Complete Curation is an incredibly powerful tool for any organisation, big or small. For smaller organisations, those who might only have a single individual in their L&D team or other limited resource, it can increase their capacity and adds value by facilitating intelligent curation of all the different learning content that an organisation might subscribe to. It then makes it a much easier task to create the required learning pathways that can be targeted to what their learners need and what the organisation wants.

For larger organisations who are likely to have huge volumes of learning content, including internal content on SharePoint, content across several learning platforms, and multiple external subscriptions like LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, Udemy etc, it saves a huge amount of time by aggregating content from disparate sources. It maps the content to skills taxonomies, then makes the curation task and the creation of learning pathways much simpler, targeting learners with highly relevant learning content.

So, even though large and small organisations will have very different challenges and will benefit from the tool in slightly different ways, the very real benefits on offer are of equal value.

It doesn’t matter where you are on your skills journey

If an organisation already has an existing skills framework (or taxonomy), which larger corporate organisations probably do, then Complete Curation is of huge benefit.  You can upload your own and then all the curated content will be automatically tagged with the skills from your own taxonomy.

Equally however, an organisation that perhaps is not quite as far along on their skills journey can benefit from the tool’s default skills taxonomy. This is an industry standard called Lightcast, which has 32,000 skills and is a brilliant addition as it allows those organisations that haven’t got to that point in their thinking about skills frameworks to get up and running and in a position to progress to the next level, fast.

With skills undoubtedly already the ‘new currency’ in the career landscape, this is a no-brainer for enabling fluidity amongst workforces and a skills centred L&D agenda.

No LMS or LXP? No Problem

Anders Pink partner with a growing number of leading LMS / LXPs (and are flexible about developing integrations with new partners), but an interesting aspect to the Complete Curation tool is that an organisation doesn’t need to have an existing LMS or an LXP in place to benefit from it, and as such don’t need to be as digitally mature.

Obviously, having an LMS or LXP to create learning pathways and assign them to learners might be considered ideal, but because of the way the curated content can be exported, you don’t need this. You can export a curation as a csv file or as a publicly shareable html link.

This means that an organisation that perhaps is much smaller, or hasn’t yet invested in an LMS, possibly because it hasn’t got the number of users that warrant that investment, can still benefit. They may still have learning content from a variety of content subscriptions in addition to internally hosted content and can still use this tool independently to help deliver the appropriate content (including the curated web content) to their users.

Taking Content Curation to the next level with generative AI

Finally, if Complete Curation is like having an indispensable content curator drafted into your team, the new release from Anders Pink harnessing the power of generative AI is going to accelerate the skills and competency of your new content curator. In addition to everything Complete Curation already does, it will possess additional AI capabilities, reducing human intervention by the curator or learning designer even more.

With generative AI technology, it will be able to respond to a search query by generating a list of sub-skills or competencies that can then be broken down into sub-sections, auto-generating a pre-built learning pathway (or learning plan or playlist, depending on your LMS terminology). This can be edited before publishing.

AI curations will allow the content curator to define both the proficiency levels and desired duration for a particular learning plan. It will then intelligently produce a learning plan divided into weeks, with curated content targeted to the preferred skill level – even auto-generating intro text for those sections and sub-sections. This massively reduces the time required by a learning designer to design and copywrite a learning plan and decide what learning assets might be appropriate.

For example, let’s say you wanted to create a learning pathway for people stepping up into their first management role. You decide that this will be for beginners, and you want it to be a paced programme over a six week period.

You can input those parameters and Complete Curation will generate the appropriate content into the appropriate subsections together with the into text (that now just needs to be edited rather than created from scratch), thereby creating a quite sophisticated learning pathway or plan.

Ordinarily, you’d have someone spending days designing and curating a pathway like this; sourcing the appropriate content, pulling it into the plan, writing the appropriate text to position it correctly to its audience etc. However, Complete Curation’s generative AI features will do all the heavy lifting for you and then simply require the curator or learning designer to review it with a human eye to ensure it is appropriate and edit it accordingly.
This massively reduces the time needed by a learning designer to decide on which assets are appropriate to form part of a defined plan.

We feel that this is a very exciting addition to the Complete Curation toolbox.

 
Visit the Anders Pink website to learn more about this exciting, AI-powered tool for L&D.

The post Complete Curation from Anders Pink: AI-Powered Learning Pathways appeared first on Learning Light.

Artificial intelligence may be grabbing all the headlines recently, but many companies remain sceptical when it comes to actually implementing text-based AI solutions. The elearning industry is no exception to this, but we shouldn’t ignore the potential benefits of AI within L&D.

The imc Express authoring tool is a leading example of AI being put to good use and has already integrated OpenAI’s GPT technology.

There has been a lot of buzz in the elearning industry surrounding AI. Recent advancements in the field have led some to question the future of human authors and creators of digital training.

As a drafting-aide, AI makes standard tasks much quicker and easier. imc Express, the new authoring tool from imc Learning has integrated OpenAI’s technology under the name ‘Express GPT’ and uses artificial intelligence elsewhere to make elearning content creation as simple and intuitive as possible.

Rapid, Multilingual eLearning Creation

The imc Express product promise is confident and bold: any user can get up and running with the tool in just 10 minutes and become proficient in creating high-quality elearning content within 30 minutes. Thanks to its integrated AI, imc has achieved several industry milestones with imc Express, including the automatic translation of texts into over 60 languages and the meaningful tagging and cataloguing of images through object recognition.

But the AI also makes it possible, for example, to give the tool commands such as “Convert the text into simple language” and “Add more to the text”.

The automated question-answer function is a great feature for users. When you tell Express GPT to “Draw up a list of questions based on the text”, the tool automatically generates logical questions from the text and presents them with both correct and incorrect answer options. This makes it easy for users to test their knowledge and learn new information.

imc Express was created by Oliver Nussbaum, Managing Director of imc Austria. With 25 years of experience in the market, Nussbaum and his team understand the needs of their customers.

They observed that companies are keen to digitise the knowledge their employees have gathered over years. To do this, it’s important that their knowledge carriers themselves can create user-generated content.

Unfortunately, traditional content authoring tools are not suitable for this purpose. They are complex and require expertise to operate. That’s why imc Austria believes that an elearning authoring tool backed by AI is essential. Nussbaum goes on to point out that the failure to adopt the new technology would be a mistake:

“It was clear to us that we needed a tool that everyone could understand quickly and use easily. A strong AI that helps the user and takes care of time-consuming tasks such as translations or layout is an enormous advantage.

Artificial intelligence has become indispensable, even in elearning. Not to use it in the development of new tools would be downright negligent.”

imc Express at Hansgrohe

Since its introduction, imc Express has received positive feedback from customers confirming Nussbaum’s assessment. One such customer, the Hansgrohe Group, a leading global player in the bathroom and kitchen industry, implemented the platform and saw enormous success within six months.

The platform enabled 16 team members from various departments at Hansgrohe to independently create 47 digital training courses on topics such as internal software usage and management-level training. The feedback from Jasmin Gargano, Human Resources IT & Processes at Hansgrohe, has been overwhelmingly positive, with claims that imc Express saves both time and money by not requiring additional training and making it easier for employees to create elearning courses.

Nussbaum points out that the primary purpose of imc Express was to simplify the content creation process for learning and development efforts. The tool was designed to be accessible to subject matter experts without requiring the expertise of learning professionals or elearning designers.

By empowering subject matter experts to create and publish training materials, imc has eliminated the need for time-consuming and often unnecessary approvals from the L&D department, resulting in a successful tactic.

imc Learning’s CEO, Christian Wachter, at Learning Technologies, London 2023:

AI for both quality and quantity?

imc does not believe that tools with artificial intelligence will ultimately make elearning designers obsolete. It recognises that certain training courses which are either of high priority or meant for a large audience will always require the skills of experienced professionals.

This is because the creative aspects of course design, including conception, ideation, and visual design, cannot be replicated by AI in the foreseeable future. However, for the majority of training needs, overly complex elearning solutions may not be necessary or cost-effective.

Suppose you want to post a cell phone photo but it’s a bit too dark. What options do you have?

You could use a filter on your phone, apply an Instagram filter, or edit the photo in Photoshop. The level of effort you are willing to put in depends on the importance of the photo. If it’s just a casual photo, then a simple filter might do.

However, if it’s an important event like a wedding photo, then more effort might be required to get the perfect shot.

Photoshop is a powerful image editing software that offers an extensive list of editing options, giving you the ability to manipulate almost anything in an image. However, beginners may find the software challenging to master. It requires a significant time investment and dedicated practice to become proficient in Photoshop.

The situation with classic authoring tools is similar in that they are designed for experts who are experienced in design and learning methodologies, specialising in the creation of digital training. However, using an Instagram filter doesn’t require a design degree or complex expertise, making it accessible to everyone.

In his view, Nussbaum considers tools such as these and advancements in artificial intelligence as opportunities that can benefit everyone. The efficient use of technology can empower individuals to better express themselves and facilitate effective learning.

On the other hand, elearning initiatives that fail to contribute to growth can be a drain on resources without providing any tangible benefits. Hence, our goal is to prioritise top-quality elearning content, irrespective of its origin, while striving to achieve a balance between quantity and quality.

Learn more about how imc’s innovative authoring tool can boost elearning content creation productivity on the imc Express page of their website.

The post AI for eLearning Content Creation – Maximising Productivity appeared first on Learning Light.

Who Are First Media?

First Media are a well-established elearning company based in Lincolnshire UK. Their mission is to deliver high quality elearning, campaign-based training, and micro-learning.

They started in 1999 and now have over 20 years delivering quality training content to a variety of organisations, with a particularly strong showing in the sporting sector.

What Can They Do?

First Media’s focus is to deliver high quality elearning services, and they specialise in taking a concept or objective and turning it into a learning campaign on behalf of their clients to help them deliver a message. In doing so, their aim is always to deliver great looking elearning content with a creative approach that is bespoke to each client.

This creative approach, the bespoke solutions they can engineer for their clients, their flexibility and ability to understand the REAL needs of their clients (rather than the perceived ones) and a reputation for going the extra mile to meet them, means that First Media have developed an impressive range of USPs.

As a creative agency in the eLearning space, they have the unique talent to create brand-aware digital learning solutions using a range of products, Articulate Storyline, Rise, Adapt and their own bespoke HTML5/CSS3 framework, FM Bespoke. Combining this with animation and video, they can provide the full package for eLearning, micro-learning and blended solutions.

Their highly experienced team comprises instructional designers, elearning design specialists, and developers.

On the horizon for their elearning clients is an in-house learning platform to host clients’ courses, which they describe as an “LMS lite”. This will be a welcome solution for those clients who may not already have their own internal LMS.

A creative agency with software development capability is a strong combination – demonstrated by the fact that they also manage some proprietary e-prospectus software that is widely used by local authorities in the UK to support student applications to further education colleges.

What’s Their Ideal Customer / Target Market?

First Media’s top clients tend to be leaders in their field. They don’t have a focus on any particular sector, which is demonstrated by their diverse client base across the likes of sport, aviation, agriculture, education, and healthcare, in addition to a growing and impressive list of corporate clients such as Lloyds, Amazon and the Financial Times.

Whatever sector their client might be in, they naturally find it easier to work with those who are already delivering elearning, because they believe that the communication of concepts and objectives is more fully developed when the client understands what’s involved. This naturally leads to a more creative collaboration.

3-Stage Process for Delivering Bespoke eLearning Solutions

First Media approach their projects with a three-stage process in mind. First is their Explore phase, where they spend time ascertaining exactly what their client needs and how their organisation works.

This naturally involves looking at the target audience, their learning needs, the requirements of the organisation, and assessing the technical aspects of the project – including any LMS that may be used.

The second stage is the Design phase, where they will develop the concept, the brand guidelines, tone of voice and get an idea of the visuals that they’ll mock up in Adobe XD. They have also developed their own fully customised HTML CSS framework using in-house front-end developers.

The final stage is the Production phase, which includes prototyping, full scripting, and continuous testing. Tests are conducted on different devices, as well as tests for usability and tests in the LMS – both for SCORM conformance and reporting. Any branching scenarios are thoroughly tested as well.

Some of the fruits of their approach can be witnessed in the work they delivered for the IOC and the FA. For the IOC, they developed an interactive course covering health and wellbeing, designed to educate female athletes globally.

Their team worked with sport and health experts from around the world to create tailored learning modules on subjects that included Bone Health and Nutrition, Injury Prevention, and Sexual Harassment.

For the FA, they work alongside their safeguarding team to develop equality & diversity elearning content, which was designed to challenge, educate and inspire coaches to change attitudes and behaviours. This elearning included illustrations, video content, and interactive scenarios, and was delivered to over 50,000 learners.

A Truly Holistic Approach

Something that really stands out for us about First Media is that they are a creative agency rather than just an agency that churns out a conveyor belt of elearning. This means that when you look at the campaign-based learning they can create, and the variety and diversity of projects that they have been involved in, it’s very clear that they are able to provide a holistic solution to their clients’ needs, rather than just a piece of elearning.

A great example of this ability to provide a more holistic solution is the work that they did with Breast Cancer UK. Here they delivered a whole campaign-based solution that educated people, and was designed to raise awareness of breast cancer – in particular urging women to check themselves.

It was much more than just a simple piece of elearning for people to learn about the topic. For example, you can sign up, do a quiz, and then it sends you targeted information based on how you answered the quiz.

What First Media can deliver for their clients is very bespoke – they don’t have a rigid set of solutions and then work out how they can shoe-horn the client’s needs into these. Instead, it’s very much a case of understanding exactly what the client wants, and then discovering how they can best provide a very bespoke solution for that client.

All of this is undertaken through their three-stage development process: 1. Explore, 2. Design, 3. Produce, and which combined with their creative agency background, means they possess a whole host of internal skills including learning designers, instructional designers, developers, and a lot of their solutions include more than just elearning content – like micro-sites for example.

They can use a range of tools and existing technologies to create content for clients, such as authoring tools like Adapt Builder and Articulate Rise. The use of these popular products is a huge benefit to clients, as it allows them to manage their ongoing maintenance if they so wish.

They also use H5P, an open-source content collaboration framework which provides a huge array of interactions like drop downs, carousels, hotspots and word games. This can suit every type of learning intervention, and First Media use this to input creativity into content and interactions.

First Media have their own framework, which to our eyes looks a little bit slicker and more professional than perhaps Adapt Builder does. This ability to offer such a wide variety of tools makes them extremely versatile when delivering solutions for their clients.

Not only can First Media use various external tools and technologies to create a solution (whether that’s elearning or micro-sites or campaign-based learning campaigns), they can also work with a client’s current LMS to maximise the learning experience and create inbuilt learning solutions.

A great example of this ability to create content within a client’s LMS is the work they did with the Financial Times. Here they used the tools available to them through the client’s platform to create a more engaging and appropriate learning experience for their audience, and they put in the work to overcome any limitations presented by the platform itself through their development expertise and CSS coding experience.

This level of thought and energy enabled First Media to push the parameters of what was possible to achieve within the learning platform, and by maximising the inbuilt functionality to create the best user experience possible, they provided a great solution to their client’s requirements.

They also offer an “eLearning Assist” package for ongoing support and maintenance, adding further value to their clients.

To learn more about how this create elearning agency can take learning and development to the next level for your organisation, visit the First Media website.

The post First Media Review: The Creative eLearning Agency appeared first on Learning Light.

Assuming you are not going to build the materials in-house, here is Learning Light’s guide to some of the best elearning content development companies in the UK – experts who deal with clients nationwide and worldwide. There are also explanations of why we like what they do.

Our advice when procuring bespoke elearning solutions is to make a list of companies to evaluate, and we hope this list helps. When making your shortlist, have in mind what your requirements are, how you would like the developer to present their ideas to you, and have in mind some key metrics to measure developers and their work.

We have conducted reviews of content from all these companies, and have a good understanding of their capabilities.  We look at Full Service content development companies, as well as specialist developers for specific niches.

Full service elearning content developers

The full service elearning developers below offer a wide range of development services and very often LMS solutions as well. They are well-used to large and complex projects, and can work closely with L&D or HR teams to align learning to performance, as well as providing ongoing support during the implementation stage.

Day One Technologies

Experts in immersive learning – this is one of the very best elearning content development companies in 2023. True experts in Bespoke Content Development, Scenario-Based Training and Simulations.

Day One Technologies is an elearning development company that has built very considerable expertise in content, scenario-based training, and system simulations. They have an impressive client base across a wide range of sectors, including Health, Finance, Retail and Industrial and many more.

However, their bespoke elearning content solutions could be of great benefit in any environment, and we’d like to see companies from more industries making use of their elearning capabilities to increase employee engagement and improve training outcomes though immersive learning experiences.

The Day One simulation training solutions that we’ve seen them implement for the likes of healthcare, pharma and leading financial services providers, can replicate multiple and interlinked platforms within highly complex environments.

Day One, while experts in system simulation, have also developed considerable expertise in creating elearning content for complex topics, such as in corporate governance and anti-corruption, where their ability in high-level learning design comes to the fore.

Day One Technologies Limited
Batley Business and Technology Centre
Grange Road
Batley
West Yorkshire WF17 6ER
Tel: 01924 510 524
Web: www.dayonetech.com

Learning Pool

Learning Pool have built very good elearning content for some time now, but what really excites us is the development of the Adapt learning framework.

Learning Pool has undoubtedly high quality development skills and has pioneered the use of Adapt to build out some very effective mobile-enabled elearning materials.

The Adapt builder tool, which we have spent some time evaluating (lookout for a detailed view soon) allows for the learning to be updated or customised for the individual user or by the user. This is a trend that we identified as being in demand in our 2012 research into what the customer wants. Full marks to Learning Pool for this development!

Learning Pool offer LMS solutions and a library of off-the-shelf content, much of which is suitable to be modified by Adapt.

Learning Pool
The City Factory
100 Patrick Street
Derry
Northern Ireland
BT48 7EL
Telephone Number: 0207 101 9383
Website: www.learningpool.com/

Walkgrove

Walkgrove have been building elearning courses since the 1990s and they have a reputation that is hard to beat. They have many very loyal customers and for good reason.

Walkgrove have expertise in building elearning that is exceptional. We reviewed some materials they built several years ago and found them to be of very good quality indeed, but their solutions have developed since to keep pace with, and make great use of, the latest technologies and multimedia content tools available.

Walkgrove listen to their clients very closely and are able to come up with imaginative and effective learner-centric learning designs, then execute the development of the chosen design with a well-defined process and absolute transparency.

Walkgrove pride themselves in delivering training content design and development solutions that make a real difference to the individual learner and toward the business goals of the organisation. Based on what what we have seen, we think they do an outstanding job.

Walkgrove Limited
7 Maisies Way
South Normanton
Alfreton
Derbyshire DE55 2DS
Telephone: +44 (0)1773 864 640

DESQ

Based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, DESQ are reinventing the way people learn, challenging conventional methods and constantly exploring new ways to help people achieve more. The company designs and develops creative, digital solutions to learning and engagement problems.

DESQ’s tailored digital learning, blended programmes and learning games help drive their clients’ businesses by:

• creating learning experiences tailored to business culture and brand that deliver results. They help companies welcome new people, retain talent, and motivate and inform their teams.
• blending their digital learning with existing learning and training programmes to create a ‘digital backbone’ that makes learning more effective, meets the needs and lifestyles of modern learners, and increases impact and retention.
• selecting the right game mechanics to motivate and immerse people in topics they might struggle to understand or apply in normal circumstances.

For quality of design and alignment to your learning needs DESQ have a terrific track record of producing digital learning solutions that really do deliver results. The materials and feedback we have been privileged to look at over the years indicate a company that absolutely delights in exceeding clients expectations.

DESQ Ltd
Sum Studios
1 Hartley Street
Sheffield
South Yorkshire S2 3AQ
Telephone Number: 0114 399 1010
Website: www.desq.co.uk/

Virtual College

Virtual College are one of the UK’s leading development houses with some very strong specialisms in food, healthcare, defence, manufacturing and local government.

We have reviewed their courses and design and development methodologies and find they combine great value for money with very high production values. They have a very capable development team and solid quality assurance processes which coupled with good learning design skills ensures that clients do get the great courses they want at a price that is attractive.

We have been particularly impressed with the diabetes awareness courses which are used across the NHS. They are genuinely excellent pieces of learning that will save lives.

Virtual College are of course a full service e-learning provider with an excellent newly-updated LMS, Enable.

Virtual College are the market leaders in delivering full service academies to organisations encompassing LMS, bespoke and off-the-shelf content with first-line learner support. Virtual College have several hundred off-the-shelf elearning courses available.

Virtual College Limited
Marsel House
Stephensons Way
Ilkley
West Yorkshire LS29 8DD
Tel: 01943 605 976
Visit: www.virtual-college.co.uk/

City and Guilds Kineo

We reviewed some materials built by Kineo for their Essentials offer using the Adapt Framework. We were very impressed with the quality of the elearning produced.

Kineo has undoubted expertise in designing elearning courses and have a very strong creative learning design team and offer full service provision.

Kineo are well versed in dealing with complex learning conundrums for clients and are able to design and develop learning programmes that deliver real organisational change. For large organisations with challenging learning requirements, Kineo offer a wealth of expertise and undoubted ability.

Kineo offer the Totara LMS solution and a very good library of off the shelf courses “essentials”.

City & Guilds Kineo
Sovereign House
Church Street
Brighton
East Sussex BN1 1SS
Telephone: +44 (0)1273 764070
Web: www.kineo.com

Specialist elearning development companies

Specialist elearning content developers are companies who have focused tightly on specific genres of learning and can develop materials using one or more of video, gaming, virtual reality or system simulation, for example. The vendors listed are not only capable of developing in their chosen genre, but crucially understanding the learning theories that underpin the genre, and can provide invaluable advice and insight into their effective usage.

Virtual Reality – eLearning studios

eLearning studios are a well-established development house with a strong streak of innovation combined with excellent learning design skills. They are capable of producing some wonderfully engaging e-learning materials.

We are particularly impressed with the Virtual Reality materials being produced by eLearning studios as they continue to push the boundaries. VR courses built creating a new market segment in premium compliance courses and will be hugely impactful in leadership and management skills as well.

We are also delighted to note that the VR materials have been integrated and aligned to a Learning Record Store (Watershed) allowing for the xAPI driven learning statements to be recorded.

The 3 VR courses we sampled are excellent indeed and quite breath taking (and vertigo inducing in one case) and really have brought this genre to life with proven learning efficacy.

eLearning Studios Ltd
Office DC2.3
Design Hub
Technology Park
Coventry
West Midlands CV1 2TT
Telephone Number: +44 (0)24 7652 5550
Visit: www.e-learningstudios.com

eCom Learning Solutions

Some very impressive elearning courses have been built by eCom Learning Solutions (formerly eCom Scotland). Their work with the RNIB, which we have closely reviewed, demonstrates a commitment to accessibility that is excellent and augments the overall learning experience.

eCom have also developed a considerable expertise in engineering and manufacturing and their learning materials in these areas are extremely well made. The attention to design detail impressed us greatly.

With eNetAuthor they have good mobile elearning development capability as well, and eCom are a full service provider offering LMS and the very capable eNetenterprise which is a full scale talent and people development platform.

This is a capable company with strong innovation and development heritage that continues to produce elearning content of great quality.

eCom Learning Solutions
18b Dickson Street
Dunfermline
Fife KY12 7SL
Telephone: 0845 643 1344
Web: ecomlearningsolutions.com/

Serious Games – Totem Learning

Creators of some of the most exciting, immersive learning experiences we have seen, Totem is our go-to developer when it comes to serious games for elearning. Totem have some of the UK’s leading experts in this genre of learning on their team and have produced some excellent results.

We highlighted Totem in previous previews of the Learning Technologies event as one of the companies we were most looking forward to seeing – and they did not disappoint. Helen Routledge is one of the world’s leading experts in games based learning, and her book – Why Games are Good for Business – is highly recommended.

Totem Learning’s online course The Business Game is an example of effective use of gaming in learning and one that still impresses.

The Totem team is unique in having built up a serious evidence base of how gaming improves learning. Totem offer amazing off-the-shelf games-based learning material, specific development skills,  and excellent simulation skills courses in areas such as welding.

Totem Learning
Top Floor, 6 The Cable Yard
Electric Wharf
Coventry
West Midlands CV1 4HA
Tel: +44 (0)2476 555 904
Web: www.totemlearning.com

Corporate Learning & Development – WillowDNA

Bristol based company WillowDNA are one of the most highly regarded elearning developers we know. They develop learning materials with a high degree of diligence that is designed to deliver change.

The team are ex-large corporate and with this experience in mind they have transformed into a bespoke elearning development company that really understands and aligns to the challenges of corporate learning.

WillowDNA offer a highly personalised approach to the development process and bring huge amounts of innovation and personal attention. WillowDNA were the UK pioneers of social and peer-to-peer learning as well as fusing knowledge management and elearning together very effectively.

Willow Learning Ltd
Bristol & Bath Science Park
Dirac Crescent
Emersons Green
Bristol BS16 7FR
Tel: +44 (0)117 370 7735
Visit: www.willowdna.com/

Multimedia and Comedy – elearningWMB

An amazingly innovative company when it comes to elearning content development who bring the use of video, pictures and 3D to the fore. elearningWMB also offer comedy-enhanced e-learning development (Comed) which is unique and not surprisingly incredibly effective and engaging.

elearningWMB’s 3D learning puts the learning into great context as well as offering video presenters to customise the e-learning. Clients have a choice of customising and adapting existing elearning from elearning WMB’s large library of content or having courses built for them using the unique and innovative elearningWMB approach which is very effective indeed.

eLearning WMB
Merlin House
Reading
Berkshire RG7 4AB
Phone: +44 (0)118 902 6825
Web: www.elearningwmb.com

If you want to provide your staff with an online learning experience that they will complete, and maybe even love doing, then bespoke content, tailored to their unique roles and needs will really help. We hope that this list of top elearning development companies in the UK will point you to the right provider for your needs.

Let us know how you get on and if you’d like any further help or advice, learn about Learning Light Consultancy services.

Based outside the UK? Many of the companies above could meet your needs and already work with global clients. However, we also created a list of the best custom elearning development companies worldwide.

Running an elearning company? Get in touch if you’d like some advice or run a company that you would like to be included.

Email Me

Av Srivastava

eLearning Research & Marketing Consultant

About Av

Av Srivastava is an eLearning Research & Marketing Consultant who has worked with a range of learning solution providers in the UK and worldwide.

He researches and writes about the latest and best elearning solutions to help buyers choose the ideal company for their needs.

He also helps great elearning companies to understand their perfect customers and develop steady streams of inbound enquiries.

The post eLearning Development Services – Top UK Content Developers appeared first on Learning Light.

They have also been used to improve sporting performance through access to data and analytics.

Learning Platforms for Global Sporting Events

One of the world’s leading elearning providers, imc Learning is trusted by many global brands, including the likes of Vodafone, Audi, BASF and Sky.

Following decades of successful learning platform projects for large organisations including the National Rugby League in Australia, imc were asked to develop a range of elearning solutions for the Commonwealth Games.

This included a powerful learning management system (LMS), and a toolkit for quick and easy training content development by subject matter experts.

Initially developed for Birmingham 2022, a future-proof LMS for the Games has been designed to cater for subsequent games as well.

Organising over 50,000 employees, contractors and volunteers required the ability to quickly and effectively create elearning content in-house.

The imc Express rapid content authoring tool brought the flexibility to quickly design and deliver training content for the Games without the time and expense involved when bringing in a specialist elearning development agency for bespoke content.

Bitesize Learning for the FA, IOC & Premier League

First Media is a full-service elearning company with over a decade of experience creating top-notch solutions across a range of sectors, but they have done some particularly impressive work for clients in sport.

Projects in this sector include:

• International Olympic Committee (IOC) – an interactive course covering health and wellbeing, designed to educate female athletes around the world. Their team worked with sport and health experts from around the world to create tailored learning modules on subjects that included Bone Health and Nutrition, Injury Prevention, and Sexual Harassment.
• English Football Association (FA) – work alongside the FA’s Safeguarding team, developed Equality & Diversity elearning content to help tackle this sensitive subject, issues within it, and its impact on the game. The online learning was designed to challenge, educate and inspire coaches to work to change attitudes and behaviours. Through elearning included illustrations, video content, and interactive scenarios, and was delivered to over 50,000 learners.
• English Premier League (EPL) – an online course for educating and informing Premier League Scholars about Equality & Diversity, Anti-Doping, and Health & Safety. To maximise engagement, there was an emphasis on fun, interactivity, and bite-size content.

Give them a call on +44 (0)1507 607 783 or learn more about First Media’s impressive elearning solutions for sport here.

Sudden Cardiac Arrest Training for Sports Coaches

For over 20 years, the elearning development services from Day One have helped well-known companies across the globe. These include many clients in health, such as the NHS, leading mental health charity Mind, and private healthcare providers.

This experience made Day One well-placed to create sudden cardiac training for sports coaches as an elearning project for UK Coaching and Sport England.

Working in collaboration with St John’s Ambulance, Resuscitation Council UK, and Joe Humphries Memorial Trust this multimedia elearning was interactive and included illustration, animation, and video interviews with professional sports people, including Fabrice Muamba and Martin Johnson CBE.

The sudden cardiac arrest training content gave background information on the need for awareness and rapid action in an emergency, and guidance on performing CPR and using an AED (Automated External Defibrillator).

You can call Day One Technologies on +44 (0)1924 510 524.

Interactive eLearning for Football Scouts

Real Projects are helping football scouts worldwide to leverage the abundance of data available today through interactive elearning on analytics.

They’ve been helping professionals across the football industry to explore the exciting new frontier of sports analytics, with courses on Technical Scouting and Performance Analysis.

The are also integrated into programmes offered by universities like UCFB and overseas football associations that include the MLS and the UAE FA.

Read more about this innovative elearning for football scouts on our profile of the project.

Email Me

Av Srivastava

eLearning Researcher & Marketing Consultant

About Av

Av Srivastava is an elearning researcher and marketing consultant who has worked with a range of learning solution providers in the UK and worldwide.

He writes about the latest and best elearning solutions to help buyers choose the ideal company for their needs.

He also helps elearning companies to showcase their strengths, understand their perfect customers, and develop streams of inbound enquiries.

The post Online Training for Sports Coaches, Professionals & Organisers appeared first on Learning Light.

That’s not always the case – elearning content needs to work well with your learning management system, videos need to be on-brand and on-message to deliver a natural continuation of other media experiences, and those creating and delivering the content need to be able to understand the business and training goals of the client’s HR or L&D teams.

The companies on our list below all offer elearning content, good learning platforms to deliver that content, and the advice & support services needed to make those solutions work to meet your unique requirements. Full-service doesn’t necessarily mean big – there are some relatively small, boutique teams of experts offering Content, Platforms & Consultancy on the list, while some big names in elearning – including leading LMS providers – are not shown here because they specialise in that one area.

The strengths and weaknesses and the offerings of elearning companies are not always apparent when you arrive at their websites – many say they can take care of all your training needs, but have some crucial skill gaps – at least in terms of what and who they have in-house.

So, based on our own experiences and research, we’ve done some of the leg work for you, producing this list of full-service elearning companies. We have only chosen providers with credible, impressive case studies and have highlighted the situations in which you should have a company on your shortlist of providers.

You should be able to approach any of these online learning companies with your wants, needs and goals – confident that they can deliver on all of them.

Even so, every organisation has its own personality, experiences and USPs, so we’ve also highlighted where each one has special powers. Here’s the list (in no particular order!):

Day One Technologies

Based in Yorkshire, UK – so not far from us here at Learning Light – this is an elearning company we know well and have been hugely impressed with. Their senior management team combines backgrounds in both learning psychology and technology, making them well placed to deliver elearning that works.

The Day One elearning case studies include some excellent success stories for the likes of Lloyds, ghd, Co-operative Bank and global not-for-profit – The Internet Society (ISOC).

Sector strengths: Finance, Retail, Call Centres

Specialist skills in: elearning scenarios, system simulation, white label elearning solutions for training providers, true to life practice with IT & systems, call centre training

Located in: UK

Shortlist if: you want to create true to life, immersive learning experiences – which are proven to increase learner engagement and improve learning outcomes. If you need training for the banking / finance sector and/or call centres, then shortlisting this company should be a no-brainer.

Website: www.dayonetech.com

CrossKnowledge

One of the world’s learning providers of digital learning solutions for business, with a truly international presence. Their blue-chip client base includes the likes of Carrefour, Reed Midem and Jaguar Land Rover.

Sector strengths: Retail, Technology and Telcoms, Professional Services and Automotive.

Specialist skills in supporting: Onboarding, Leadership & Employee Development, Sales Performance

Located in: France, USA, Germany, UK, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Brazil

Shortlist if: you need a solutions provider with the tools and experience to integrate digital learning with your existing technology infrastructure.

Website: www.crossknowledge.com

Virtual College

One of the leading UK providers of compliance training via low-cost online courses. Particularly popular for accredited training in food hygiene and health and safety in the workplace. Increasingly popular is their easy to use Enable LMS, and a suite of safeguarding courses for those working with children.

They have supported over 100,000 organisations with their training needs and delivered elearning courses to over 4 million learners.

Sector strengths: Food & Hospitality, Construction, Retail, Education, Housing, Health & Social Care

Specialist skills in supporting: fast, low-cost compliance training

Located in: UK

Shortlist if: you or your company is based in the UK and need to deliver workplace compliance training that comes with industry-recognised accreditations.

Website: www.virtual-college.co.uk

D2L

Well established in the education sector with a strong client base of schools, colleges and universities, Desire2Learn is now also growing in the corporate sector, with clients including the likes of Walmart.

Sector strengths: K-12 schools, higher education and retail

Specialist skills in supporting: VLEs, eportfolios, video learning and ready to go courses.

Located in: Canada, USA, Brazil, UK, Australia, Singapore

Shortlist if: you need video and other multimedia content, accessible on the go, and with advanced analytics.

Website: www.d2l.com

Cornerstone on Demand

A leading global provider of cloud-based HR, talent and performance management solutions.

Sector strengths: Medical / Healthcare, Financial Services, Retail, Hospitality, Transport & Logistics, Technology, Universities, Public Sector

Specialist skills in supporting: recruitment, onboarding, training and staff retention.

Located in: USA, India, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia & New Zealand, Middle East and Africa, Latin America, Italy, France, Germany, UK, Netherlands, Spain, Belgium and across Scandinavia.

Shortlist if: you want an all-in-one technology solution for HR and talent management.

Website: www.cornerstoneondemand.com

Learning Pool

A UK provider of eLearning content and learning management systems. Learning Pool are also the co-creators of the popular Adapt content authoring tool. They offer a large and growing library of ILM approved online courses in Business Skills, Compliance, Housing, Financial Services, Hospitality, School Governance and more.

Sector strengths: Local councils, professional bodies, hospitality

Specialist skills in supporting: gamification and product knowledge training.

Located in: UK

Shortlist if: you’re based in the UK, looking for high quality, ready to go training in business skills or industry-specific best practices. Also if you’re a large UK company or public sector organisation looking to start or improve your online training. Content that you can update and take forward yourself, using their Adapt authoring tool.

Website: www.learningpool.com

imc Learning

This German elearning technology and content provider has a growing international presence. They specialise in interactive, multimedia training for enterprises.

Sector strengths: Transport, automotive, food and healthcare.

Specialist skills in supporting: multimedia content development, interactive video, web based comics and storytelling, 3D, infographics.

Located in: Germany, the US, Switzerland, Netherlands, Austria, Romania, Singapore, United Kingdom and Australia.

Shortlist if: you’re looking for something different to really wow, engage and develop learners in a large enterprise.

Website: www.im-c.com

WillowDNA

The team behind WillowDNA come from fast-moving, operations backgrounds and bring deep knowledge and expertise in all things learning. They have an extremely impressive client list that includes the likes of Vodafone, Unilever, John Lewis Waitrose, Pitman Training, Telefonica O2 and Oracle.

They offer complete elearning solutions, including platforms, content and consultancy, while their already-great Pathway Cloud LMS has recently been enhanced by integration with the gomo rapid authoring tool and the SkillPill library of micro-learning content from top publishers.

Sector strengths: Professional bodies and specialist training providers, retail, technology, medical and apprenticeships.

Specialist skills in supporting: rapid content development, serious games based learning, evidence-based assessment, interactive scenarios and social learning.

Located in: UK

Shortlist if: You’re a specialist training provider or professional body that needs easy to use solutions for getting learners online. Also – if you’re a global corporate looking to work with true learning experts who are proven in delivering great results for some of the world’s largest brands.

Website: www.willowdna.com

SAP Successfactors

A global technology company offering the complete range of L&D solutions for your own staff and for extended enterprise. Large enterprise solutions, from recruitment and onboarding to HR, workforce planning and analytics.

Sector strengths: Mining, Oil & Gas; Life Sciences; Industrial, Chemicals & Manufacturing; High Tech; Engineering & Construction

Specialist skills in supporting: Recruitment & Onboarding, HR & Payroll, Performance Management & Compensation, Workforce Analytics.

Located in: North & South America, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Australia & New Zealand, India, China

Shortlist if: you’re a large enterprise looking for an integrated suite of HR, L&D and talent management systems. Especially relevant if you have an international presence and are keen to have local support available in your timezone.

Website: www.successfactors.com

Walkgrove

For over 20 years, Walkgrove have provided business compliance and soft skills training to well-known brands.

Sector strengths: Financial services, travel, construction, retail, public sector.

Specialist skills in supporting: complex content, IT & systems training, compliance

Located in: UK

Shortlist if: you’re looking for a well-established, reliable UK company proven in delivering business and soft-skills training to leading brands.

Website: www.walkgrove.co.uk

Aims Digital

Specialists in elearning development outsourcing solutions to support L&D teams

Sector strengths: Biotech, Automotive, Manufacturing

Specialist skills in supporting: Explainer videos and whiteboard animations, updating of documents to modern digital formats, rapid authoring.

Located in: India

Shortlist if: you’re looking to outsource some of your elearning solutions to reduce costs but are keen to work with a provider proven in delivering high quality solutions for large organisations.

Website: www.aimsdigital.com

LEO

Experts in strategic learning that aligns with overall business goals and delivers measurable return on investment.

Sector strengths: Automotive, Defence & Security, FMCG, Transport & Logistics (including Airlines), Pharmaceuticals, Professional Services.

Specialist skills in supporting: Bespoke and off the shelf elearning content, video and animations, learning roll-out and communications, strategic capability building.

Located in: UK, USA, Switzerland and Brazil.

Shortlist if: you’re a large company or public sector organisation looking to work with an elearning company that will support you in developing a training strategy, as well as creating and delivering effective content.

Website: leolearning.com

Blackboard

One of the biggest names in technology and services for education, Blackboard is a multi-award winning company that is also growing in the government and business sectors. US based, but with a global presence.

Sector strengths: Higher Education, K-12

Specialist skills in supporting: web conferencing and online collaboration, safe and secure learning management systems, personalised learning

Located in: USA

Shortlist if: you’re looking for safe and secure online learning and collaboration tools from a proven provider – especially if you are in the education sector.

Website: www.blackboard.com

Sponge Learning

Coming from a content-focused background, Sponge specialise in creating vibrant, immersive and interactive learning using the latest technologies. They offer complete elearning solutions, with LMS as well as learning content development, and the advice and support to help you find the right blend for your needs.

Sector strengths: Retail, Pharmaceutical, Automotive

Specialist skills in supporting: 360 degree AR & VR, gamification, interactive video, simulations.

Located in: UK

Shortlist if: your goal is to drive learner engagement through technologies and techniques that create a rich, immersive experience and make learning fun.

Website: www.spongelearning.com

Kineo

One of the best known and respected names in elearning, Kineo has developed from its UK base to being a global presence. Now part of the City & Guilds Group, they have worked with global brands such as Credit Suisse, BMI Healthcare, Pizza Express, Ministry of Justice, Samsung, BP, Tesco and, fittingly, Rolls Royce.

Sector strengths: Retail, Public Sector, Automotive, Charities, Healthcare, Electronics

Specialist skills in supporting: Customer Experience, Compliance & Policy, Leadership & Management, Sales & Product Knowledge Training.

Located in: UK, US, Middle East & Africa, Sweden, Australia & New Zealand.

Shortlist if: You are a large business, charity or public sector organisation looking to work with one of the world’s best elearning companies, trusted by many of the top brands in their industries.

Website: www.kineo.com

Skillsoft

This EU and US based company is undoubtedly one of the world’s top elearning providers. Their platforms and extensive library of content support enterprises worldwide, including over half of the Fortune 500 companies.

Sector strengths: Business Services; Information Technology & Telecoms; Banking, Finance & Insurance; Energy.

Specialist skills in supporting: Ready to go compliance training courses, business & leadership skills, IT knowledge development

Located in: Ireland, USA, Germany, UK, India, Singapore, Canada, Australia

Shortlist if: you’re a large company in need of a vast array of engaging, multimedia content across a range of disciplines. Especially good to look at if you have an international workforce with content requirements across several languages.

Website: www.skillsoft.com

Allen Interactions

Established for over 25 years and coming from a publishing background, Allen Interactions has become a leading provider of custom elearning design and web-based tools. They have a stunning client list that includes the likes of Google, Hilton, GoDaddy, Expedia, Mastercard and American Express to name just a few.

Sector strengths: Banking & Finance; IT & Telecoms; Travel & Hospitality

Specialist skills in supporting: Microlearning, mobile-first elearning, custom content and blended learning.

Located in: USA

Shortlist if: you’re looking for custom elearning development that is flexible enough to be quickly adaptable as you learn what is working. Highly customisable content, rather than set and forget (and maybe regret!). Performance based design from a company that can become your learning partner.

Website: www.alleninteractions.com

An ‘elearning company’ can mean different things to different people and making everything work together, seamlessly, requires a wide range of backgrounds, knowledge, skill sets and technologies at hand.

There are many types of client that want to be able to work with a single company that has the know-how to take all their training and assessment needs online, and don’t want to need to organise a portfolio of solutions providers.

Hopefully this list of the some of the best elearning companies worldwide will prove useful to you when shortlisting a provider. Based on over 10 years of experience in online learning market research and analysis, we are signposting these solutions providers that we know well and / or we believe are not only credible and reputable, but should be able to support you in creating effective, engaging elearning whatever your location, needs and goals.

However, if you would like to discuss your unique requirements, feel free to contact us here at Learning Light for more advice.

Email Me

Av Srivastava

eLearning Marketing Consultant

About Av

Av Srivastava is an elearning writer and marketing consultant who has worked with a range of learning solution providers in the UK and worldwide.

He researches and writes about the latest and best elearning solutions to help buyers choose the ideal company for their needs.

He also helps great elearning companies to understand their perfect customers, get the visibility they deserve, and develop steady streams of inbound enquiries.

The post Full-Service eLearning Companies appeared first on Learning Light.

These providers can create elearning videos for employee engagement, leadership development, health and safety training, technology / software tutorials, company onboarding, how-to guides and more.

Magneto Films

Magneto provide elearning video production for corporate training, as well as online learning for the public sector, education providers and charities.

Magneto Films specialises in making videos that have a uniquely personal and intimate feel. They work to insire emotion and action.

Their skills, style and values come directly from the founders’ training as film makers for the BBC and Channel 4.

163 Herne Hill Road
London
SE24 9LR

Tel: 020 7274 2986
https://www.magnetofilms.co.uk/elearning-video-production/

Bold Content Video

Bold make videos and animations from scripting through to distribution.

Bold Content is a London based video production company with an in-house team of film specialists who can manage the process from concept through to completion and distribution.

Unit 27, City Business Centre
St Olav’s Court
Lower Road
SE16 2XB

Tel: 020 3637 1467
https://boldcontentvideo.com/e-learning-online-course-production/

Shy Guys

Shy Guys is an outsourced elearning animation studio that partners with online education and training companies. They can help you to create amazing animated videos for your clients’ courses.

Shy Guys Studios is a full-service animation and visual content studio based in Bristol, UK. They specialise in 2D and 3D animation, motion graphics, illustration and CGI. They’re also a tight-knit team of creatives who believe in the power of animation.

Old Market Studios
68 Old Market Street
Bristol
BS2 0EJ

Tel: 0117 251 0001
https://shyguys.co.uk/outsourced-animation-for-elearning-companies

Epipheo

Epipheo specialises in producing elearning courses for businesses, nonprofits and thought-leaders. They use animation, live action and learning management systems to educate your audience in a fun, engaging way. Epipheo has created over 1000 educational videos, as well as full-length courses for their clients.

They find the most important thing about you and your organisation, and work hard to focus on and showcase that.

700 West Pete Rose Way
Cincinnati
OH 45203

Tel: 888 687 7620
https://epipheo.com/services/e-learning-video-course/

 
If you’re looking for a top elearning video production agency, then one of the companies above should do a great job for your project.

Email Me

Av Srivastava

eLearning Research & Marketing Consultant

About Av

Av Srivastava is an eLearning Research & Marketing Consultant who has worked with a range of learning solution providers in the UK and worldwide, including video production specialists.

He researches and writes about the latest and best elearning solutions to help buyers choose the ideal company for their needs.

He also helps great elearning companies to understand their perfect customers, increase their visibility, and develop steady streams of inbound enquiries.

The post Top eLearning Video Production Companies appeared first on Learning Light.

Funded by Sport England, the multimedia training content guides learners in the use of an AED (Automated External Defibrillator) and in how to perform CPR.

The material was developed in association with Resuscitation Council UK, St John Ambulance and Joe Humphries Memorial Trust.

This successful project had helped over 30,000 within just 3 months of its launch and is likely to save many lives over the months and years to come.

It won the prestigious Digital Learning and eLearning Award at the Learning Excellence Awards 2022, which were held at the National Conference Centre in Solihull.

UK Coaching and Sport England wanted to deliver a free course to all of their sports coaches and the general public so that if they found themselves in a situation where someone has a sudden cardiac arrest (SCA), they are well prepared to save a life.

The client wanted a course that was media rich, engaging and thought-provoking, and that would leave an impact on the learner so that they remember what to do in an SCA emergency.

No doubt this important elearning course will save a great many lives.

How to get in touch with Day One Technologies:

Address
Unit 55, Batley Business and Technology Centre
Grange Road, Batley
West Yorkshire
WF17 6ER
UK

Tel: +44 (0)1924 510524

Learn more about the project on the Day One website here:
www.dayonetech.com/case-studies/sudden-cardiac-arrest

The post Award-Winning Sudden Cardiac Arrest Training Created by Day One appeared first on Learning Light.

For an industry whose primary role is to help people understand things, the eLearning industry is ironically non-transparent.

There’s a lot of jargon and sales talk thrown around, so the goal of this article is to cut through the noise and help you make an informed decision.

But before we start laying everything out, let’s take a step back…

Only pack the essentials

Make time to behave like a kid/therapist

You’re probably wondering ‘what?!?’  Let me explain… Both kids and therapists want to know the truth of things – challenging your reasons for something, digging deeper until you have to face a fundamental (and occasionally painful) truth underneath. How do they do this? – They simply ask  WHY. And they don’t stop until they hit bedrock (or you send them to bed).

It can be hard work but the reality is that it ends up being much better to build from that essential solid foundation, if you take the time to reach it.

The exact same thing should be applied to choosing a training solution – Challenge what you think you want and do a quick check to find out what you actually need. It will always pay off in the long run and avoid you making assumptions as well as wasting budget.

The key is drilling down to the essential business need underneath, because if training doesn’t satisfy a business need, then it is fundamentally useless.

Like Alanis Morrisette famously sang – “It’s like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife” – except it’s not ironic… it’s just a waste of resources.

So ask yourself:

1. What is the essential business need behind this training? If you don’t know the business need behind the training, find the person who does and ask them. For example – your company has merged with another company and all the new staff and customers need to be onboarded as quickly as possible into the existing company to minimise resource costs.

2. What are the minimum essential actions you need your learners to do to meet this need identified in question 1? For example – the essential thing is your new staff need to be able to transition new customers onto the main database to keep money flowing in.

3. What is the minimum essential knowledge that your learners need to carry out these actions from Question 2? For example – Your staff needs to know how to transfer account details and set up new direct debits.

Now it’s your turn, give it a try.

1 – Take a piece of paper or a whiteboard and, starting at the top, write your business need.

2 – Then write the various essential actions required underneath it in columns.The easiest way to identify them is to ask yourself:

‘What is critical to do, and in what order, or we can’t meet the business need?’

3 – Finally list the essential knowledge for each action in order. Ask yourself:

 ‘What is critical to know, otherwise we can’t perform this action?’

Armed with this map you should now have a clear idea of what essential knowledge your learners need in service of your business need.

This also makes it much easier to talk to a content provider when you are scoping out a project as you’ll already have done a lot of the work when it comes to setting your goal.

Good – Fast – Cheap

Below is a very popular venn diagram that sums up the fundamental relationship between three key attributes which apply to any project. It’s referenced universally across every industry and it’s designed to illustrate that you can only ever have two of the three attributes:

• Good and Fast but at a higher cost.

OR

• Fast and Cheap but with a compromise on quality.

OR

• Cheap and Good but with a longer delivery time.

The common argument is that the sweet spot in the centre with all three is unachievable, so as a customer you should –  “Just stop asking for it because it doesn’t exist!”

But this is a simplification used to end an argument. ‘Good’ is completely subjective and in this case very non specific. We need to dig deeper like a kid/therapist again… What is ‘good’?

Good means it satisfies a business need. Surely?

In which case it’s not so black and white any more. As long as you have defined your business goal, you can explore the greys of ‘good enough’ and get a healthy balance.

Don’t be perfect. Be good enough. The Pareto Principle or 80/20 rule

The basic idea is 80% of effects come from 20% of causes.

So in theory if you can ensure that you focus your 20% of resources correctly, you can get your 80% of results you need. You reach your ‘good enough’ and you can be much more cost-effective instead of using 80% more resources stretching to reach that last 20% to ‘perfect’.

In this context, if you have defined your business needs you can weigh up what your 80% is. What is ‘good enough’ to fulfil the business needs? Staying cost-effective is all about focusing on your ‘good enough’.

For example:

You could provide onboarding for your new team members with VR – they get to explore the office and meet the team and interact with them. Sounds great! But If you can get them onboarded to a ‘good enough’ level with just a 2D interactive office map showing important locations, coupled with a personalised bio of each team member, then why waste those extra resources.

The same goes for the content itself as much as the delivery method. If you can onboard them to a ‘good enough’ level with only 20% of the content, do it. They can always pick up the rest once they are up and running.

The 80/20 rule can be applied to everything and is all about asking, ‘is this critical?’ If not, lose it.

Now we are looking at everything with an ‘is this critical?’ eye, we can dive into the different types of training:

Off the shelf content

Premade eLearning that is cheaper and faster to deliver. The compromise is there are limits to the level of customisation of the content. The trick is making sure it is ‘good enough’ and that all your learning goals are met.

Advantages

• Is generally cheaper as it’s already built
• Readily available content for faster delivery – pick and mix modules.

Disadvantages

• Limited customisation of content both in regards to content and style/branding.

Custom content

If you can’t find off the shelf content that meets your needs then bespoke content can give you greater levels of customisation. The compromise is that delivery duration and costs can be greater as you are paying with time for the added control. The trick is making sure it is ‘good enough’ and that all your learning needs are met in the most cost effective way possible.

Advantages

• Simpler to edit and update
• Can be aligned exactly with your learning needs
• Can be aligned exactly with your Business culture

Disadvantages

• Takes more time to produce so is generally more expensive
• Takes more time to produce so takes longer to deliver

Let the message dictate the medium

As a rule of thumb, the best way to get the most impact from your training is to choose the medium that most effectively and efficiently trains your learners on what to do. For example, if you want learners to be able to use a piece of desktop software, present them with an interactive interface to practise navigation rather than writing lengthy copy about it.

On the flip side, if all it takes is a well designed infographic to meet your learning goal then use it. The focus should always be on the best value medium for delivering learning in service of the business need. Which leads us to…

Blend the best of both worlds

Custom or off the shelf content aren’t mutually exclusive though. Courses can cover a wide range of topics so mixing mediums can be a great option to give you greater flexibility and the best value for money.

You can save resources when off the shelf is good enough for some topics and spend resources when other topics require greater levels of control with custom content.

Advantages

• Optimised use of resources is better value for money.
• Greater control to edit and update where it matters.
• Can be aligned exactly with your learning needs where it matters.
• Can be aligned exactly with your business culture where it matters.

Disadvantages

• You need to have defined your business needs beforehand or it won’t be effective.

So with the right strategy, a blended approach can hit that sweet spot in the middle and give you the best value for your budget.

Other things to consider

Scenario-based learning is practising

If most corporate training is designed to enable a person to perform on a given task or in specific situations, it raises the question, ‘if you can’t think of a scenario in which you can use it, should it even be taught?’ As humans, we learn from a very early age by practising and mimicking.

The parts of our brains that are stimulated by carrying out a task are also stimulated by watching and mimicking the very same task. This is why the best way to learn is to get as close to the real scenario as possible. It’s a natural and very effective way to learn. So when considering your training ask yourself, ‘what would I use this for?’ If you can’t think of anything, maybe lose it.

Engagement is the result of a good user experience.

Engagement is a buzzword thrown around like a silver bullet, but in reality, it is a byproduct of a good user experience. It doesn’t matter how many bells and whistles you put on something – if it doesn’t teach them what they need, or wastes their time, or is awkward to use, learners will disengage and look elsewhere.

Just think how many people go look things up on YouTube or Google. It’s because there is no barrier to access what they need.

It should be treated as a product and always focus on the critical path – if you keep adding blades to razors like Wilkinson Sword and Gillette do, sooner or later users will realise they don’t need it, while someone else will come along with no nonsense Dollar Shave Club.

Accountability through data

eLearning should be measured just like every other aspect of business. Look at Netflix – it makes every decision based on its metrics, embracing the scientific method.

Teaching is often seen as an art so the idea of measuring it is somehow cold and inhuman. But the reality is data is the only way you can add accountability, eliminate assumptions and prove results.

Science and art aren’t mutually exclusive – use both If you want your content and business to evolve. Holding your eLearning accountable for the results it promises is key, just like in any other area of business.

And it’s done by adding SMART goals at the start, data tracking throughout, and reviewing stages upon completion. This helps you not only measure success but evolve in an informed way going forward. At the end of the day, what would it cost you if your eLearning achieved nothing?

Review projects at both ends – choose what is worth measuring at the start and then benchmark it. This way, you can refer back to it at various milestones after the solution is up and running and get a good sense of the overall success of the piece. If it hasn’t been measured it’s easy to make assumptions.

Good design is reductive

Don’t feel all content has to be the same level of complexity either. Don’t be scared to ask, ‘can this piece be simplified and still be effective?’

For example, with onboarding, once learners are familiar with the bigger picture and company culture, sometimes all it takes is an easy-to-find screenshot to solve their issue when the time comes.

At the end of the day, time is everyone’s most valuable resource, make the most of it.

If you’re looking at the pros and cons of custom content vs off the shelf elearning courses, we hope you found this article useful!

Written & Designed by Brendan Cox

Co-Founder of Blend Interactive Content

Visit Blend here at https://Blend.training

Connect via Brendan Cox’s Linkedin profile here.

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