Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Moving from training to performance support

Course characteristics you can deploy to switch from "Training" to "Performance Support" might only entail:
1. Course design that invites the worker to jump into the middle of the
content (e.g. get away from linear presentation-style structure). Provide tables of contents so the user can get to any content in 3 clicks or less.

2. Content that is searchable (e.g. built in HTML/XML) rather than
Flash/Video. Put a search engine on your repository of course content,
and you now have a basic knowledge management system.
3. Testing throughout the content rather than just a final exam at the
end of a linear sequence.
4. Chunking the content into self-contained pieces (e.g a page with
sub-pages). Narration becomes somewhat less useful in this scenario.
5. Presentation of same content in different contexts (narrative, bullet
points, step-by-step printable procedure, video/animated procedure,
quiz, test, exercise).
6. Easy access: Move away from the LMS operations concept (Log in, take
a course, take a test, log out) to a web operations concept (Go to
company home page, search keyword, find/read page from course, possibly
take a test, read neighboring pages to get related information).
7. Move towards "courselets" or "Knowledge Pills" - courses should have
15 minutes of information rather than 15 hours.
8. Include a "what's new" section in any required course so that
experienced workers can skip the material they already know.

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