Answered Question on Linkedin.com: Instructional Design standards for online learning? Ideally specific and measurable that can be used in contracts with vendors.?

This question was posted to theInstructional Design & E-Learning Professionals' Group:

Does anyone out there have any useful resources to share around ID standards for online learning? Ideally specific and measurable that can be used in contracts with vendors.

I have used the standards posted by the Open ECBCheck. Open ECBCheck is "a new accreditation and quality improvement scheme for E-Learning programmes and institutions in international Capacity Building." Their members focus on a specific subject (international capacity building), however, their e-learning standards can be applied to any e-learning program.

I download the standards from http://www.ecb-check.org/2011-06-15-07-04-37/guidelines. They publish them as a pdf and Excel file. In the Excel file, I find the most useful section to be the tab labeled "Quality Toolkit." That tab has a list of specific, measurable criteria that you can use to judge the quality of your e-learning program. For example: "Does the navigation allow learners to always understand their position within the programme?"





Not all the standards in the Quality Toolkit will apply to all online learning programs. I copy and paste the standards that apply to the job into the contract for that job. This is a section of the contract that I label "Course Standards."


The Course Standards section also includes subsections for things like: the file formats of the material developed for the course, voice and tense of the speaker, the skin to be used when generating files from Articulate of Captivate, and the source(s) of the graphics used in the course.

The quality standards supplied by Open ECBCheck have made a good starting point for the course standards in my projects. Post your favorite resources for quality standards in the comments below. Or,

Answered Question on Linkedin.com: What successful techniques have you used to improve learner's retention?

I recently answered a question on the Instructional Design & E-Learning Professionals' Group of LinkedIn, and wanted to share that answer here on my blog. The question posed was:

What successful techniques have you used to improve learner's retention? Based on my experience, there's only so much information you can stuff into people's heads.
What's the best single tip you would give to help improve the quality and quantity of information that people retain after experiencing the training you've developed?

My single most important tip is this: Instead of training your students to perform the task from memory, teach them why and when to perform the task, and how to use support materials to succeed at the task.

If you are training your students to perform a life-and-death skill under strict time constraints, then of course they need to be able to perform the task from memory, on demand. An emergency room medical procedure would be one example. In that kind of situation, you want them to leave class knowing exactly how to perform the task without any kind of support materials. But that is a rare situation.

In most situations, your students will have time to perform the task. That is, they will have time to find and use reference materials to help them with the task.

Instead of overloading your students with the detailed steps of how to perform a task, perhaps you should consider teaching them how to use the reference and support materials to perform the task. Then, you can focus your training on:

1. Why they need to learn to perform the task (motivation).
   
2. Who needs to be involved in the task (roles and responsibilities).
   
3. When they need to perform the task; where it fits into their workflow (context).
   
4. Which steps are critical or especially difficult (roadblocks and "gotchas").
   
5. Where to get supporting materials for the task (reference materials and job aids).
   

Of course you will still take your students through the detailed steps of performing the task. But instead of focusing on memorizing the how-to information, you'll focus on the information above. While demonstrating, you can reassure them that the "clicks, keystrokes, and actions" are all included in the support materials. After the student performs the task on-the-job a few times, with the help of the support materials, then it becomes committed to memory.

In my experience, this approach avoids information overload during class while enabling students to learn complex, long tasks. Does this agree or disagree with your experience? We want to hear from you in the comments!

The Fastest Way to Create a Course Review in Moodle

Students who read a passage, then took  a test asking them to recall what they read, retain about 50 percent more of the information a week later than students who used two other methods to study the material. That research was published in the journal Science.

Fortunately, Moodle makes it easy to create a quiz that you can use for review purposes. A Review Quiz in Moodle will enable you to re-use a log of the work that you do while creating the course, and, increase your students’ retention of the material. The keys to successfully creating a Review Quiz in Moodle are:

• using feedback in your quiz questions.


• creating a separate category of questions for each topic in your course.


• creating one-page review for each topic in your course.

First, let’s look at the feedback for Moodle questions.

Feedback in Moodle Quiz Questions

In a previous post, I wrote about the various kinds of feedback that you can create in a Moodle quiz. I wrote about how to use feedback that is display when:

• the student selects a specific answer.


• the question is completed, no matter what the student’s answer.


• the student achieves a specific score on the quiz.


• the quiz is completed, no matter what the student’s score.

These four types of feedback give you the ability to make a Moodle quiz into a teaching tool. Instead of using a quiz to just test the student, you can use it to teach.

If you create quiz questions for every topic in your course then you can use a fast, easy method to create a course review. This method assumes that each question in your course includes feedback to teach the student why (s)he is right or wrong, and to help the student remember the correct answer.

Creating a Review Quiz in Moodle

With this method, you will use four phases to create a review quiz:

• Create a category of quiz questions for each topic.


• Create a quiz for each topic.


• Create a one-page review for each topic.


• Assemble the one-page reviews and questions into a review quiz.

Let’s step through each phase below.

First: Create a category of quiz questions for each topic

Here’s how to prepare your questions for a review quiz:

• For each topic, create a category of quiz questions.


• For each of the categories that you just created, create several quiz questions. Now, you have several quiz questions for each topic.


• For every answer in each question, create feedback that teaches them why that answer is right or wrong. Now, every answer of every question is a teaching tool.


• For every question, create general feedback that explains why that question is relevant. Now, no matter which answer the student selected, (s)he will learn where that question fits into the bug picture.


• Make sure that each quiz question can stand alone. Do not refer to or depend upon any other questions.

Now your question bank for the course looks like this:

Topic 1 Questions

Question 1

Question 2

General Question Feedback: “This question relates to the concept of…”

Answer A

Answer Feedback: “This answer is correct because…”

Answer B

Answer Feedback: “This answer is incorrect because... The correct answer is…”

Answer C

Answer Feedback: “This answer is incorrect because... The correct answer is…

Question 3

Topic 2 Questions

Topic 3 Questions

Now every answer, and every question, is a teaching tool. And, every question can stand on its own. You are ready to create a quiz for each topic.

Second: Create a quiz for each topic

For each topic, create a quiz. You can make the quiz appear in the gradebook, or, make a practice quiz that doesn’t affect the student’s final grade.

Third: Create a one-page review for each topic

For each topic in the course, create a one-page review. This can be a simple bulleted list of key points, an infogram, a video, or any other technique. Keep the review short enough so that it can be read, viewed, or listened to in a few minutes.

Fourth: Assemble the one-page reviews and questions into a review quiz

Finally, you are ready to create the review quiz. In the review quiz, you will assemble the one-page reviews and teaching questions.        Â

• Create a quiz, and add instructions that look like this:

This quiz is practice for the final quiz. Your grade for this quiz will not be used to calculate your final grade.

This quiz will present one page of bullet points for each topic that we covered. These bullet points are reminders of what you studied in the topic.

Then, the quiz will present some random questions from that topic's quiz. Do your best on these questions. Feel free to refer back to the topic's presentation while attempting the questions. As before, the questions will give you feedback if you answer incorrectly.

The reminders before the questions, and feedback after the questions, are designed to help you learn the material.

You can attempt this practice quiz as many times as you like. When you're ready, proceed to the final quiz.

There are two things that make creating a review quiz in Moodle easy. Moodle enables you to add Descriptions to a quiz, and to add manual page breaks.

In a Moodle quiz, a Description is just a question that consists of nothing but a Web page. You can put anything into a Description that you can put on a normal Web page. The student doesn’t need to answer anything, and the Description doesn’t get scored. Usually, you use a Description to explain a section of the quiz. In this case, you will use the Description to display the one-page summary of the topic.

• Add a Description to the quiz, and name it something like “Topic 1 Review Page.” Then add the one-page review for the topic to the Description.


• After the Review Page, add a page break.


• After the page break, add several random questions from the topic. To do this, you will select the topic’s question category, and then instruct Moodle to add a certain number of random questions from that category.


• After the random questions, add a page break.


• Repeat steps 2 through 5 until you have a Review Page and random questions for each topic in your course.

Congratulations! You’ve created a review test for your course. Because you re-used questions from your previous quizzes, you made efficient use of your work. Because you alternated a brief review of a topic with questions about that topic, you used the learning principle of Immediate Feedback to improve retention.

Guest Post: Free Online Classes to help Freelance Tech Writers become Effective Bosses and Business Owners

While some technical writers are employed by large corporations, some on the other hand choose to freelance and start their own tech writing businesses. Going the entrepreneurial route is more or less ideal for those who like to make their own working hours and for those who wish to create a versatile portfolio by working for a variety of clients and projects. Unfortunately however, most technical writing degree programs don't adequately teach students how to be their own bosses or how to even oversee a team of subordinates.
While formal education in business applications can in fact teach students how to tackle the complications that arise with establishing a start-up business, this option is expensive and time consuming. Thankfully there are free online classes provide by distinguished brick-and-mortar institutions that can provide freelance tech writers with the knowledge they seek to become effective leaders when owning and operating their own business. While these classes are in fact free and typically include free old class materials such as course readings, syllabi and lecture notes and slides, note that some may require the purchase of specific textbooks or software. With that said, to learn the best classes that can help you become a more effective leader in the tech writing industry, continue reading below.
Finance and Accounting Online Classes. Because most tech entrepreneurs are strapped for cash and struggle coming up with enough capital for operating costs of their small business, all too often tech freelancers cannot afford to pay a professional to take care of the bookkeeping and other finances. So they opt to do it themselves. But handling your own finances is extremely risky, especially if you do not know anything about cash flows, how to acquire monetary income, or how to meet budgets—you don't want to over spend (or skimp) on buying necessary equipment such as authoring and editing software, style guide books, reference manuals, insurance, or proper licenses. In fact, any small mistake can result in your business quickly plummeting to the ground. So to make sure that your business doesn't fail due to your lack of knowledge in finance or accounting, check out a few of these classes that can teach you how to properly evaluate your blooming business' financial needs:

• Introduction to Economics [Utah State]
• Fundamentals of Personal Financial Planning [UC Irvine]
• Business Skills for Success [Kutztown University of Pennsylvania]

Content Management and Software Documentation Online Courses. In this new day and age most freelance teach writers are required to do far more than just write—they have to be editors, content modelers and even graphic designer at some moments. With that said freelancers who deal with a high volume of clientele needs to diligently work to stay organized and keep proper documentation of all of their various works—no telling when you may be able to reuse particular information. An easy way to do this is to use programs such as XML and SGML. These programs will not only keep all of the content consistent throughout your business, but will also aid in easy retrieval of those important documents from databases.

• Software Engineering For Web Applications [MIT]
• Learn and Apply HTML [Utah State]

Business Negotiations Online Courses. Typically a freelance tech writer is given the option to bid on projects individually or delve into a long-term contract with a publisher. Either way, freelance tech writers need to know how to market their business to find clients as well as how to make contract negotiations once they find a client. Not only will these classes do just that, but they will also teach students how to make deadlines, create a project plan, stay within budgets, and ensure client satisfaction.

• Introduction to Project Management [UC Irvine]
• The Art and Science of Negotiation [MIT]

• Entrepreneruial Marketing [MIT]

• E-Marketing [UC Irvine]

Leadership Online Classes. Lastly, if you work individually and do not have subordinates or business partners, the following classes may not necessarily pertain to you. However if you choose to hire help, these classes will teach you how to listen to your employees' complaints (happy employees equal a happy workplace environment) and how and why it's important to take the lead during writer's meetings etc.

• Listening to Employees [Stanford]

• The Influence of Leadership on a Company [Stanford]
• The Difference Between Management and Leadership [Stanford]

By-line:
This guest contribution was submitted by Lenore Holditch, who specializes in writing about top online colleges. Questions and comments can be sent to: holditch.lenore @ gmail.com.

Moodle 2.0 E-Learning Book Just Published!

Packt Publishing has just released my latest book, Moodle 2.0 E-Learning Development. I hope you find it as much fun to use as I did to write.

How to develop training when the subject is a moving target?

Recently, I received this question from someone who had read my book on Writing Successful Software Classes. My answer appears after his question:

Problem: They keep changing the software spec's, as I'm developing training!

> The company is
> currently in the process of creating and implementing a new core business operating system.
> Our legacy system is antiquated to say the least (it is DOS based).
> The new system is being built from scratch, so this is no out of the
> box ERP that we are talking about.
>
> My team and I are competent instructional designers and trainers but
> our experience is limited to training on processes or systems that are
> already complete. What I am struggling with is building training for a
> system that is being built as we are expected to develop training. If
> the system were complete and then we had 6 months to develop the
> training before it was implemented, we would be okay, but that is not
> the case...we are expected to develop training from
> Functional Design Documents which by the way are not necessarily
> well-written. The system is being given to us in milestones, but they keep changing things and changing the milestones.
>
> I have found resources on major software rollouts, and systems
> implementations, but they are very technical in nature and gloss over
> end user training. Other resources that do concentrate on technical
> training make the assumption that a system or concept is complete when
> you develop the training.
>
> Do you have any advice or ideas of how we can tackle this? Let me know
> if you want any more details. I really appreciate your thoughts and your time.

Solution: Focus on documenting business processes first, then write keystrokes-and-clicks second

Training and user documentation almost always comes at the end of a software rollout. By the time the trainers and technical writers have the information we need, almost everyone else has finished their part of the project. And when people at the beginning of the project take more time than planned, and the deadline stays the same, that extra time they get must be taken from someone else. Usually, that's the trainers and technical writers. "We allocated three weeks for you to develop training, but testing and bug fixing took an extra week, so we had to shorten your time to two weeks."

At most companies, this is just the nature of the job. There are ways we can adapt.

First, focus on writing good instructions for your users. Unless your users must perform their work without referring to a manual, the instructions will be the user's safety net when they need to begin using the software.

Research I've done among the users that I serve showed that they prefer printed instructions. They don't like switching between two windows on their computer screen: one with instructions and one with the software. Among my users who have dual monitors, that is not a problem. But most of my users have a single, 17- or 19-inch monitor. I suspect that is why they prefer printed instructions.

Notice that I've been using the term "instructions" and not "user manual." A user manual is more than a collection of instructions. It gives background and context to the instructions. That is, a user manual doesn't just tell how to perform tasks, but also when and why. Think of instructions as a series of cheat sheets, or quick reference guides.

As you're writing those instructions, you will be simultaneously developing the demonstration that you use for training. More on that later. (At this point, you were probably wondering when I'd get around to answering your question about developing training. Hang in there).

Our biggest challenge is that as we are writing user instructions and developing training, the software is changing. We need to document and develop training for a moving target. How to do this? Here's something that has been key for me: start first with the information that will not change.

Forget about beginning your writing and course development with the introduction, or the clicks and keystrokes. Instead, begin with the information this is most unlikely to change.

In my experience, the specific list of business tasks that users need to perform with the software is unlikely to change. So I start with that. For example, suppose the business tasks I must teach are:

1. Create a new customer.


2. Enter customer demographics.


3. Attach a mortgage record to the customer.

Each of those tasks will have a quick reference guide, and a demonstration in your training class.

Now, I understand that you do not yet have the keystrokes for performing those tasks. The software is changing, so you can't write the keystrokes and clicks yet. But there are some things you can write about each of these tasks, such as:

• When to perform this task (where does if fit into your workflow?)


• Why to perform this task (what deliverable is produced; what result?)


• Next steps (what do you usually do next?)

So on each of your quick reference guides, you can add that information. For example, for the task "Create a new customer" your quick reference document might look like this:

Section: Creating a new customer

Subsection: When must you create a new customer? [This is business process information. You should be able to write this even if they don't have the software finished]
Subsection: When How to create a new customer [This subsection isblank, you don't have the keystrokes and clicks yet because they keep changing them on you]
Subsection: Results [This is business process information. You should be able to write this even if they don't have the software finished]
Subsection: Next steps [This is business process information. You should be able to write this even if they don't have the software finished]

Notice in that example above, you can write three out of four subsections even while the software is still being changed.

Remember I said that you can simultaneously develop the training demo? So at the same time that you start writing these instructions, you can start writing the slideshow for class. Your slides might read something like this:

Slide 1: Creating a new customer
When must you create a new customer?
Create new customer only when...
Slide 2: Demo
...blank slide, here you begin your demonstration...
Slide 3: Results
A new customer record in....
Slide 4: Next steps
At this point, you can now do this....

You can also start writing the in-class exercise, if there is one. For example, "Create a new customer using the following information..." During the exercise, you would have the students try to perform the task, using the quick reference guide that you wrote.

At this point, you send the instructions back to the subject matter experts for their sign-off. Since you don't have the keystrokes and clicks yet, you probably won't be sending the material to the software guys for sign-off.
But what you do have is the business process information, that is, what the user will do and where that fits into their workflow. So you will send this to the business owner of the software.

As the software team finalizes the screens, you'll be able to fill in your instructions with the keystrokes and clicks. You'll also be able to plan your training demos. When all those instructions and demos are filled in, you have most of a user manual and a nearly complete training course.

When you train, you'll make it clear that you don't expect the people in class to come out with the keystrokes and clicks memorized. That is what user documentation is for. Instead, your purpose in class is to:

• Show the students where each task fits into their workflow.


• Emphasize the critical steps in each task: things you must do.


• Stear them around the mistakes that you cannot recover from.


• Show them where to get further help with the software (if your company offers this kind of support).

In your email, you mentioned Functional Specification documents. You might be able to pull much of this information from those documents. But don't get bogged down in trying to write detailed instructions from those functional specs. It just isn't realistic to document clicks and keystrokes until you have a working product in front of you, and an authority figure who says, "freeze this interface here." Until then, you are writing the framework, or outline, into which you will drop these keystrokes and clicks.

This is the process that has worked for me. I hope that you will find it useful. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to help.

8 Tips for Improving Your Technical Writing (guest post)

Good technical writing is always clear, practical and tailored to a specific audience, be it a technical or non-technical audience. What separates good technical writing from average technical writing, however, is taking the time to make the written material as user-friendly as possible. Here we will explore 8 tips for improving your technical writing.

1.) Break up text under clear headlines and subheads.

Technical writers are familiar with using headlines to transition from topic to topic when writing material. What often gets forgotten is effectively using subheads to further break down the material. Most technical readers strongly prefer to cherry-pick the specific information they're looking for, and the frequent use of headlines and subheads allows them to do this with ease. For non-technical readers, there's nothing more intimidating than large blocks of text with no place to rest the eye. You'll find that breaking each topic down into small, manageable chunks will also aid you in the writing process. Writer's Digest recommended revisiting your headlines to make sure they accurately summarize the content of that particular section.

2.) When possible, break up text into brief lists.

Not everything technical can be broken down into a short, snappy list some individual steps involve numerous vital details. However, if you can lay out a list of steps before plowing through those details, you'll let your readers know early on that there's an end in sight and logical steps to get them there. Lists also create a break for the eyes.

3.) Keep your tone professional.

Technical writing is not prose or creative nonfiction. It is written only to teach a reader how to do something or how to use something. While the For Dummies books exemplify a move toward technical writers creating more folksy and conversational how-to material, most technical readers aren't looking for clever wording or side stories while they read. They want stripped-down, straightforward writing that will help them learn how to accomplish a task. This doesn't mean you can never include clever and related anecdotal elements; it only means that technical writers should use them sparingly, particularly for a technical audience.

4.) Use present tense and imperative sentences.

Readers want to be told implicitly what to do. Writing imperatively and in the present tense is not only helpful to the reader, but it also eliminates unnecessary wordiness. For example, "Select Menu, and choose from the available options" works better than the more conversational "Once you've found the menu, you can choose from the available options."

5.) Keep it simple.

When you're proofreading your writing, keep an eye out for big words that take away from the simplicity of the material. While some jargon is unavoidable, you can certainly substitute "use" for "utilize" and "end" for "terminate." You're not trying to impress anyone and simple words are often just as effective as more elaborate words. Also, try to break up compound sentences whenever possible into two simpler sentences.

6.) Use specific words.

Part of using specific words involves avoiding the word "it," even on the third and fourth reference. Readers need to know what "it" is throughout a specific section to avoid confusion. You will also need to use consistent terminology. Do not alternate the terms you use to add variety to your writing.

7.) Write in active voice.

Using imperative sentences whenever possible will help you avoid the passive voice most of the time in instructional material, but for other technical writing you will need to actively avoid the passive voice, which will not only make your material more wordy, but will also weaken your sentences.

8.) Ask for feedback.

Some supervisors are better at giving feedback on your technical writing than others. You may need to ask specifically for them to look over your work and point out any consistent weaknesses in your writing and areas where you can improve.

About the Author

This guest post is contributed by Angelita Williams, who writes on the topics of online courses. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: angelita.williams7 @gmail.com.