LAS is an award-winning provider of elearning consultancy, design, development and training services in the UK and internationally.
Established in 2005 as LearningAge Solutions, we work with some of the best known organisations in the world to boost their performance through the innovative use of learning technologies. Working in partnership with our customers, we draw on proven principles from human behaviour, how people learn and how the brain works to create impactful digital learning solutions with real return on investment.
Rob is a designer through and through who is fascinated by how we learn, what we remember and why we pay attention to certain things. He is a huge enthusiast of all that technology can offer to enhance learning and has completed a huge variety of projects in his 14 year career.
He is the editor and co-author of The Really Useful eLearning Instruction Manual published by Wiley and featuring contributions from the brightest and best elearning minds on both sides of the Atlantic.
by Rob Hubbard
Posted 17 October 2024
The Fosway Group Digital Realities 2024 report revealed that 69% of L&D teams plan to resource L&D projects by upskilling Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). SMEs are, of course, experts in their fields but what they are not (often) are experts in how people learn. Whilst it's true that AI is, to some extent, democratising content creation, this doesn't automatically result in a great learning experience. In order to be able to impart their expertise effectively, SMEs will need to learn about learning.
The theoretical benefits are substantial; you can effectively ease the pressure on your L&D team, whilst helping the business self-serve by creating it's own learning content. Then your central L&D team can focus on the projects of high complexity and/or high strategic value. Sounds great, doesn't it?
But only if you get it right! Here are the typical challenges of taking this approach:
1. Too much content
SMEs often mistakenly think that the way they offer best value is to provide the most content. Sounds logical, but it leads to the audience being swamped by an information dump and not knowing what is important and what is just nice to know.
2. Dry treatment
Learning design is not an SME's day job and so the treatment may well be a bit dull and uninspiring.
3. It needs lot of work to get it release ready
Then when your central L&D team get to review the elearning they need to do quite a lot of work to get it to be both presentable and effective. This can lead to the SME feeling that they've wasted their time.
4. AI won't do it all for you
eLearning author tools are beginning to integrate AI functionality and new tools are appearing that include it from the ground up. However, currently the support AI provides is useful but limited.
However, if you invest some time in educating and upskilling your SMEs, you can sidestep these challenges and help them build better learning content. HEre's how, and we'll reveal more in our FREE Upskilling SMEs to Create Effective Digital Learning Content webinar on 23 October 2024
Give them the right knowledge and skills to be successful
Investing time in upskilling SMEs on a few essential skills will massively improve the quality of their output. One crucial area to focus on, is the limitations of human attention and memory. Understanding how people notice, process and retain information can help SMEs create content that is more memorable and impactful.
Training in Plain English is also vital to ensure that written content is clear, concise and accessible to a broad audience. This skill enables SMEs to communicate complex ideas effectively and avoid jargon or technical language that might alienate readers.
Lastly, providing basic knowledge of graphic design and video production can empower SMEs to create visually appealing and engaging content. Gone will be the risk of migraine-inducing diagrams or 20-minute videos of them talking over Powerpoint slides!
Explain that these new skills are totally transferable to their day jobs
Help SMEs see how these new skills and deeper understanding of how the brain works will help them hugely in their wider role. For example:
Provide them with templates and examples in your elearning author tool of choice
A great way to give your SMEs a headstart on elearning production is to provide a set of basic templates in your author tool of choice. This will mean that they can get to a decent quality result with much less effort than working from scratch, plus you'll see more consistency across different projects. The risk here is that everything can end up looking the same - that's where you, as an L&D professional, can bring some of your magic.
Stress that you are always there to help
Make sure the SMEs know that your digital door is always open! By beginning to author elearning content they are stepping into an area in which they are novices. This is a brave thing to do, especially since the output will be seen by their colleagues within the business. By providing the support I outline above, you are setting them up for success and also helping the audience by avoiding them being deluged with sub-quality content.
If you'd like to learn more, come along to our FREE Upskilling SMEs to Create Effective Digital Learning Content webinar on Wednesday 23 October 2024 at 1pm BST. Book your place here
