1. What is the purpose or mission of starting an eLearning program at your organization? In other words: what are you trying to accomplish?
Determining your need for starting an eLearning program is important as you need to know what educational gap you are trying to fill. Research and evaluations can be a good indicator that there’s a need for a new eLearning program
2. Who will be responsible for the management of the overall project budget and how will your budget be determined?
Understanding the budget is imperative for starting your online learning planning process as you need to know what you’re working with in terms of dollars and staffing.
3. Do you have a plan in place to evaluate both the educational gap you are looking to fill and also the success of your program?
There are a plethora of electronic survey tools out there such as SurveyMonkey that are easy to use and allow you to quickly gather data. Many eLearning systems even have build-in pre and post-course evaluations to collect information to determine knowledge learned.
4. Do you have IT infrastructure in place to support things such as student access (e.g. registration)?
A course could be amazing, but if there’s no way for the learner to access it then it’s pretty pointless. Planning for access, for example, perhaps with your organization’s database can be tricky and needs to be planned for well in advance.
5. How will you ensure your course is designed so that it is pedagogically appropriate for online learning?
Not all content is “eLearning worthy” nor is it “eLearning ready”—meaning something that worked well in a brick and mortar establishment many not work for eLearning.
6. Do you have a eLearning support plan for course content?
A poorly supported course will overshadow the best of the best content hands down! Don’t ruin your eLearning program failing to properly support the course content inquiries as well as technological issues.
7. Do you have an eLearning interface/platform/technology design plan?
Planning for what is the best interface and platform to deliver your eLearning program are important to consider and looking at your audience is critical. In most cases making your program easy to use/navigate will produce a positive learning experience.
8. Do you have a plan for designing a program that is easy to use and appealing for the adult learner?
This ties in to number 7, but it is more so related to the content itself—making a course that utilizes a variety of media such as videos, forums, and on-demand lectures are all examples.
9. Do you have a plan to market your eLearning program to achieve the usage results and reach the audience you desire?
Working with a marketing team to develop the promotional content is a good way to ensure that they are in alignment and that you are getting learners to your program that are getting what they expected.
10. How will the eLearning program be protected?
Considering copy-writing your eLearning program or minimally using Creative Commons to provide some protection to your program are all good ways to ensure that your hard work is not for nothing.
Breakthroughs in eLearning: My Journey of HRE 533 