For HR Experts
E-Learning has now become an organic part of the training culture of a number of domestic companies. The introduction of this new form of tuition on the other hand requires a lot of work.
1. Selection of training contents, production of electronic learning materials
2. Identification of the worker groups to be taught and those who take part in the training
E-Learning training can be launched with 20, or even 5000 or more people to be trained. E-Learning can effect all the staff of a company or only a few special areas and positions.
- training of new entrants
- expansion of managerial skills
- further training for sales reps
- transfer of labor and fire safety notions
- language training
- ICT knowledge transfer, preparation for the ECDL exam
3. Selecting learning environment
4. Organizing tutorial support
Depending on the different contents of learning materials, the difficulty of learning and testing, learning can happen completely independently or coupled with tutorial support. Prior to the launching of the course, the HR management of a company must at all times consider that, as the outcome of the training can largely depend on that decision.
- At a basic level, the tutor simply responds to the e-mails and questions of students.
- At a higher tutorial level, the tutor elaborates a complex course progress, and assists the students actively during the learning process, by setting schedules for the various tasks, follows the work and progress of the individual students, gives feedback on that, gives extra exercises, and assesses them together with the tests integrated into the teaching material, and finally sends them back, corrected, with comments. The presence and role of the tutor at this level is far more active.
- The most ideal form of acquisition of knowledge is when traditional and e-Learning tuition are merged. The tutor may – on demand – appear personally, and complement his/her active participation with personal consultation, by having consultation hours on given days, or holding skills development sessions and seminar days. The final exam, within the framework of this form of tuition, may also require personal presence.
Organizing tutoring – which is normally covered by the educational institutions and training companies that took an active part in the development of the teaching materials – may be done within the company, internally, too, provided that the personnel involved has a certain methodological background.
5. Applications and approval of applications
The courses to be launched by be public (for all the staff of the company, e.g. training of new entrants), or private (publicized only for a limited circle of the workers, e.g. language training). The selection may be done according to pre-defined criteria, or after filling in the test built into the learning material.
Let's see how this works in practice!
All the staff of a company must be given fire safety training. The learning material in this case is public, and anyone within the company may have access to it.
As opposed to that, a training course organized for medium and top managers concerns only a well-definable circle, therefore the electronic material prepared for them is accessible only by them.
But what if the company wishes to start a language further training program, but they don't know what the actual level of employees is in that particular language. The circle of people to be trained in this case is also easily definable, by making candidates fill in the placement test which is part of the learning material.
After the identification and registration of the workers who will take part in a particular course the frame system makes sure that only authorized users have access to the specific learning materials by giving them a login name and a password.
After that, it is only a computer and a network connection that we need to launch the training, while users need a simple web-browser application and of course a pre-defined time.
