Following on from this.

Providing a course to people inside your organisation is problematic. But you usually know which operating systems, browsers, plugins, and so on, you have to target. You also have a good idea of the sort of people who will be doing the course.

Providing courses to the outside world — that’s much harder. What about the user whose company is still insisting on using Internet Explorer 6? The user whose Flash plugin is too old? The user whose popup blocker is interfering with a quiz?

So …

Test the Browser

Minimise the number of browsers and operating systems you support.

Make is clear which platforms you support.

Test the user’s browser before the course runs. Check for browser objects, properties, methods, plugins, and so on.

Fail early and gracefully. If you can, report the failure to support automatically. Don’t flummox the user with weird messages. Just let the user know the course doesn’t support the user’s browser. Tell the user how to change browsers. Provide a link to support.

Test with Users

What may seem intuitive to someone who uses computers a lot will seem weird to a person who doesn’t use computers a lot. And people who create courses tend to use computers a lot.

That clever simulation may will not just test a person’s ability to repair an engine. It will also test the person’s ability to mouse-over objects, click and drag and so on.

Don’t require extraneous computer skills. You’re not testing computer skills.

Don’t trust the judgement of computer literate folks on this topic!

You will need to watch some people from that industry do the course.

If the course is for plumbers, watch some plumbers do the course.

Computer literacy is not the only concern. Age groups, language groups, etc, are all important considerations. Again: work out what sort of people the course is for and watch them do the course.

Remember: to the user, the LMS and the course are the same thing. For testing purposes, you need treat the LMS and the content as one thing.

Users aren’t doing the course to learn how to use an LMS!

Computer-Phobia

Some users are afraid of computers. Those people who freak out when the wireless connection fails. When their audio level is set too low. They don’t quite know what a browser is. “Is that the big blue E?” they’ll ask.

Do you have to cater for this type of person?

Yes? Then identify them early on.

You can do this by asking some simple questions about the user’s computer. With each question, have an “I don’t know” option. A few “I don’t knows” and you might have a computer-phobic person. Try and provide personal assistance to these people. Although not always possible, person-to-person support is often ideal.

Gather Data

Problems are always going to come up when you launch a course. If it is a high volume course, then you’ll have a lot of unhappy customers.

Use a product such as snap a bug to collect user ticket info. Snap a bug is brilliant.

It’s easy for the end user, takes a screenshot for the support staff, and gives you really handy data.

We also note the number of support tickets per 1000 users. They vary across industries. But if you see a spike, you may have an intranet blocking content, a new browser roll-out in a company, a new version of Flash causing problems, etc.

Open Sesame are trying to solve a big problem for course creators. So are Rustici, with their Scorm Cloud product.

Let me explain.

Let’s say you create a course. You’re faced with:

The Content Creator’s Big Problem

You sell your course to a few different institutions. They have different LMSs.

You have to support the course across all those LMSs. Deal with the quirks of Sharepoint’s odd built-in LMS. Make sure it works with that old version of Moodle. Deal with some weird proprietary system.

Argh!

If you want to update the SCORM package, you have to re-build the course, re-package it, and upload it to all those LMSs. Again.

Even if it’s just to correct a single page or spelling error.

You have no way of tracking usage.

No way of protecting your content.

Moreover, you have no simple way to sell your course. And what about credit card transactions? Collecting customer details?

You have to work it all out for yourself. It’s crazy.

Specialists in their areas of expertise often have great courses. But they don’t have resources to deal with this stuff.

So they remain the little guys.

They lose out to the ElementKs & Skillsofts of the world. The big guys who can deal with this stuff.

But there’s change in the air.

Solving the Elearning Infrastructure Problem

Open Sesame are providing infrastructure to course providers. They’re providing a way for little guys to sell courses and easily maintain them.

A central marketplace to sell content. Where credit card transactions, usage tracking, updating of courses and on on is all taken care of in one place.

It’s awesome.

It’ll help people find great content. It will help get courses out there.

It will allow for better licensing models. Per student instead of per site, for instance. (Being able to license on a per student basis would make our customers very happy.)

Course as A Service

This model is a variation on the notion of “course-as-a-service”. What’s that? It’s where the content of a course resides on a central server. Rather than upload the content to an LMS, the course buyer just consumes the course as if it was a service. The SCORM package the client uploads to his LMS just hooks into that service. The package doesn’t contain any content.

This centralisation of content takes care of many of those pesky licensing, tracking and maintenance problems.

Rustici has the dispatch product built into their Scorm Cloud system that does this. Indeed, SCORM cloud offers many interesting ways to distribute content.

I imagine Open Sesame plan to provide courses to buyers in similar ways.

In either case, experts are now tackling the infrastructure problems that are currently so painful for course creators.

It’s a great thing!

What’s Next?

So what’s next?

A simple “one-size-fits-all” marketplace will work for some. But for many markets there is a need for more specialised course provision. Where quality assurance is provided. Where legal requirements are met. Where the content is vetted by certified professionals. Etc.

We’ll see some “white label” products built on top of more generic course-as-a-service infrastructure to handle these extra requirements.

But whatever form it takes, it is inevitable that course-as-a-service in its various forms is going to be big. Scorm Cloud and Open Sesame are showing the way.

Very exciting times for us elearning geeks!

I’m often stunned by how few people use RSS readers – Ecampus staff included.

From the very talented Instructional Designers at commoncraft.com