You may have the world’s most sophisticated learning management system and enough bandwidth to run a cable TV network, but without content that will satisfy the learning needs of your organisation, on time and to budget, you’ve got yourself a pretty embarrassing white elephant. In this article, I attempt to explain how to fill the content void, making an informed selection between in-house development, having the work done for you outside or buying off-the-shelf.

In, out or off?

So you’ve forked out half a million dollars for your Saba Turbo Convertible learning management system. You’ve even got it to work with your lightening fast ATM network, driven by a server farm containing more Suns than the known universe. It connects to your mountainous PeopleSoft database so you now know more about your employees than they would dare tell their analysts. The MegaCorp Virtual University is a reality.

But do they come? Do they hell? Would you consider a visit to a real, bricks and mortar university if it had no teachers and no courses, other than to admire the architecture? Of course not. You have infrastructure, but like the man said ‘content is king’. Populating your virtual university with content – not just any old content, but the sort any self-respecting corporate citizen would really want to use – is the only way to populate it with people. Unfortunately, the right content can prove frustratingly elusive.

So, anxious that the most ambitious training project your organisation has ever embarked upon is approaching its first anniversary and has yet to yield a cent of return on its investment, you ponder your three choices - in, out or off? Will it be in-house development, out-sourcing to external contractors or an off-the-shelf purchase?

The issues

Four issues are most likely to influence your selection – cost, availability, relevance and quality.

Cost. With so much of your budget already spent, cost could well be uppermost in your mind. But comparing the options on the grounds of cost is not that simple. At face value, in-house development looks the attractive option, but only because it consumes the least direct cost. To make a fair comparison, you need to look at all the costs – direct and indirect – from all stages of development through to delivery and evaluation.

Availability. The development of content of an acceptable quality, even with experienced personnel and the best tools, could never be called a quick process. We are definitely talking months and not weeks. Sometimes you simply don’t have that luxury. You’re implementing Office XP in three months’ time and all 5000 staff must be trained before then. No way will you be able to develop your own product or have it made outside. You go with what’s available.

Relevance. Yes, you say, but we can’t go outside for an off-the-shelf product because we are going to be using a slightly modified version of Office XP. Not only that, but we’re also launching a new appraisal system and we need training for that, too. It’s our own unique system (they all say that) – we don’t do things like other companies. If this is the case, it really might mean you‘ll have to design your own training programme from scratch. But there’s also the possibility of finding an off-the-shelf product that can be customised or supplemented with your own material, a feature that the best publishers are increasingly making available.

Quality. There’s a lot of rubbish talked about the quality of e-learning materials, mostly by people who have never worked right through an online course and probably never will. The only meaningful definition of quality is ‘fitness for purpose’ – if it does the job, then it’s a quality product. If a Volkswagen Polo meets your needs for getting from A to B reliably, in reasonable comfort and a little style, then it’s a high quality car, at least for you. If an e-learning product helps your employees to meet their learning objectives, then that’s a high quality product too. Along the way, all this probably means it conforms to accepted usability guidelines, technical standards and principles for effective adult learning.

So which method will best meet your needs for controlling costs, availability, relevance and quality? It’s time to look at the strengths and weaknesses of each in turn.

Staying in

If you’re considering developing your own e-learning content in-house, you should be aware of the wide range of skills you’ll need at your disposal. As a minimum, you’ll be looking for project management, instructional design, interface design, subject matter expertise, writing, media production (graphics and more), authoring (and perhaps a little programming), not to mention online mentoring to support the product when it’s implemented.

If you’re getting a little anxious about the size of the team you’ll need to find room for, then bear in mind that most developers are multi-skilled and can fulfil a number of roles in a project. And, of course, you don’t need to have all the skills in-house. The most specialist technical and creative roles are usually more economically resourced externally, as and when needed. What you need is a versatile team of generalists, able to fill the middle ground.

Unfortunately, history tells us that in-house units tend not to survive in the long term. Media development is not core business, so there is an ever-present threat of the dreaded outsourcing. Donald Clark, Chief Executive of Epic Group, has seen many in-house teams come and go: “Unfortunately, they have to live with the Sword of Damocles hanging over them. They’re not core business and that makes them vulnerable.”

How to avoid this? Well, don’t set up an ostentatious studio, brimming with expensive equipment and talent. Instead, maintain a small, core team of all-rounders, centring on project management and instructional design skills, and concentrate on managing and supplementing the efforts of content publishers and external producers.

Work out a daily rate for each person involved in the project – don’t forget to include project managers and administrative support. The daily rate should include all the overheads of the department (space, furniture, equipment, support services - the lot) and take account of time lost through sickness, holidays and training. Then keep timesheets from the inception of the project to its completion and use these, with the daily rates, as a basis for calculating labour costs.

On top of this there will be some direct project-related costs, including travel and other general expenses, and the use of external specialists, such as graphic designers and programmers. Add these to your labour costs and you’ll have a pretty good idea how expensive your project has been.

Going out

Your second option is to contract with an external producer to do the work for you. At least you can claim to be ‘sticking to the knitting’, as the management books like to call it, concentrating on running your business rather than establishing a completely new area of competence. You get to exploit the not inconsiderable skills of the external developer, safe in the knowledge that you can ‘use them and lose them’ if they fail to deliver the goods or the work runs out.

On the other hand, you cannot just sit back and wait for the content to be delivered on the due date. There’s a considerable amount of work still required to manage the relationship and ensure that you get what you want, not what the developer would like to make for you. You’ll need a sound knowledge of the process of design and development, excellent project management skills and the ability to cajole subject-matter experts into co-operating. And don’t underestimate the work required in obtaining approvals from all the interested parties (not least the corporate lawyers) at each stage in the process.

At first look, external development seems expensive, but in practice content development is always expensive, however it’s done. When all costs are taken into account, in-house development can actually be more expensive, without access to the tools, experience and expertise that an external producer can call upon. If you think a developer is overcharging you, look at their profits. Chances are your own business is making a better margin.

Prêt-à-porter

And so to the third and, in many respects, simplest option. The off-the-shelf e-learning product is available now and, as such, is sometimes the only feasible alternative. It should also be considerably cheaper than building your own product; if it isn’t you might want to question the price – after all, the publisher is spreading the development cost over many different customers.

Track record: Find out how long they’ve been in business and what they’ve managed to achieve in this time. Speak to some of their current clients and find out what they’re really like to work with.

Industry knowledge: How much do they know about your industry sector? If you’re a bank, find out what other financial institutions they’ve worked with. It saves time if they understand the issues you’re faced with and the jargon you use.

Financial stability: E-learning development is very often a cottage industry, with many small firms working without adequate capital. Small firms will often provide the most innovative solutions, but if your needs are substantial, you’ll want to work with a firm that will be around long enough to finish the job.

Sound project management: It’s not usually creative ability or technical nous that causes developers to come unstuck, it’s bad project management. Remember that what we’re talking about here is software development and think of the number of software projects that you can remember coming in on time and budget. The best developers have done it all and learned from their mistakes. They help you to sleep at night.

In-house skills: Check that your developer really exists. Do they have the required skills in-house or do they have to contract them all in? You’re safer with a firm that has a foundation of full-time staff that know what they’re doing – and are available for your project!

Responsiveness: From the early days of the corporate video, those commissioning media projects to external producers have experienced that sinking feeling when they asked for a horse and were presented with a camel. Sure, the developer will often be able to offer you good advice that causes you to change your requirements for the better. But what you certainly don’t want is to tie yourself to a bunch of arrogant and inflexible prima donnas more interested in winning prizes than facilitating learning.

A fair price: Clearly you’ll want to pay a fair price for the work, but a fair price is one that provides some room for contingencies and the likelihood of a profit for the developer. Rarely will the cheapest quote be the most sensible option.

Quality standards: It helps if the developer is accredited by the IITT to conform to their Code of Practice for e-Learning Providers. That way you’ll know that their commercial practices have been externally validated, their employees possess the required competencies and that the learning materials they produce conform to the highest standards.

Buying off-the-shelf is also a somewhat lower-stress approach, freeing you from the anxieties of product development and allowing you to ‘try before you buy’.

On the negative side, the ‘one size fits all’ design philosophy can mean a mismatch between what’s on offer and what your organisation really needs. Hopefully you can get around this by a little customisation, if that’s possible, or by supplementing the materials with some of your own. You may also have to fight the rather frustrating ‘not invented here’ mentality that plagues so many training departments and resign yourself to the fact that you won’t have the fun (???) or potential kudos that you’d get by creating it yourself.

Relevance: You want products that match, as closely as possible, the needs of your organisation. If there’s a mismatch, see if the products can be customised.

Topicality: Hopefully the products will be reasonably up-to-date. Video Arts had to re-shoot a number of their most popular training films when the flares and kipper ties were causing more laughs than the script.

Cultural match: At least a proportion of your audience will resent any voiceover or dialogue spoken in a different accent from their own, as well as any unfamiliar behaviour or references. Clearly, this will be less of a problem when there is no audio or video material.

Modularity: Ideally the products will be designed in a modular fashion, allowing you to pick and choose the parts that you need.

Learning effectiveness: You’re buying the products in order to make learning happen. If the products are pedagogically flawed (try saying that after a couple of shandies), you might as well not bother.

Usability: When training is delivered on-screen, usability is key. They best products require no help pages and no technical support. They are effortless to use.

Technical compatibility: The products need to work with your browsers running on your computers, in turn running with your management system on your network. Don’t take the publisher’s word for it – try it for yourself.

Tutor support: If the publisher does not provide tutor support, remember that you may end up providing this yourself. If support is available, check the response times.

Customer service: Nothing causes a breakdown in relationships more quickly than poor customer service. Check that the publisher is adequately resourced in this area.

Pricing structure: You need a pricing structure that means you pay a sensible amount given the amount of likely usage. Don’t get stuck with a long-term contract that ties you to high volumes which may never happen.

Quality standards: You can have more confidence in a publisher who has been accredited according to the IITT’s Code of Practice for e-Learning Providers.

Who’s doing what?

According to a survey conducted in February 1999 by Epic Group, for Technologies for Training and the DfES, all three ways of sourcing content have a part to play:

At an IITT e-learning seminar, delegates were asked which methods they were considering implementing or had already decided to implement in the next twelve months, for a variety of subject types:

What is interesting here is the way the balance shifts depending on the subject. It also looks like there’s a market opportunity for anyone developing new off-the-shelf products on health and safety and other mandated subjects!

Clearly all three methods – in, out and off – have their part to play, and most e-learning libraries will contain a mixture of content sourced in all three ways. With a little pragmatism, invention and plenty of hard work, you should be able to find content that’s ready when you need it, meet’s your organisation’s own, specific needs, won’t break the bank but will do the business. If not, your virtual university will be virtually useless and e-learning will never be given another chance.