Enhancing Your LMS: 3 Essential Systems Integrations

One of the main purposes of your learning management system is the automation of tasks. Does your learning management system “talk” with other enterprise data systems?  If not – you’re missing a golden opportunity to maximize your return on investment and minimize your data entry tasks. Integration of your LMS with other key business systems can greatly increase efficiency.

Even if you aren’t in the process of acquiring or changing LMS providers, consider the benefits of integrating your LMS with other systems.

IT & Central Authentication

Many information technology departments use a central authentication service (CAS), commonly known as “single sign-on”.  This keeps your users from having to remember separate user ID’s and passwords.  If a user is currently signed on to the network, the computer passes that information to your LMS. If a user is not signed on, they are directed to the CAS page; once they log onto CAS the proper user information is passed to the LMS.

There are other types of authentication that can be used as well. If you’ve logged into a site using a Google™ or Facebook™ password, then you’re using a form of central authentication. One strength of central authentication is that the end application (your LMS) provides a seamless transition for the user. With the implementation of CAS best practices, this can also be a very secure solution.

Payment, Accounting & Finance

Does your training center charge for training?  If so, integration with a payment processing service such as PayPal should be high on your list.  In today’s world, people are fairly comfortable using a trusted payment processor.  By using a processor, your potential customers may be able to pay using more payment methods as well (such as BillMeLater™ or direct bank draft). Another benefit is that you never actually have or see the customer’s credit/debit card numbers – reducing the potential for security breaches. Most payment processors store common payment methods to expedite checkout and transaction processing, which can improve customer experience.

For larger training centers and systems that support corporate universities, consider integration with your internal accounting and budgeting systems.  Do you have a single department that occupies a disproportionate number of seats for every training, relevant or not?   Many training groups use an internal charge-back structure for training taken. Your LMS should integrate seamlessly with any internal accounting systems, whether QuickBooks™ or a legacy system.

Human Resources

Many LMS system administrators work with employee data daily. Adding new hires, updating job titles, or applying training requirements to individuals takes valuable time. Integration with your human resources information system (HRIS) can automate some of the manual entry tasks.  Take the new employee – when they are entered into HRIS, he or she can have the appropriate information populate into your LMS.  How much easier would it be if a job change was processed automatically, and the new role’s training requirements populated?

Information that can come from your HRIS might include:

• Employee name
• Address
• Telephone numbers
• Department
• Supervisor
• Job title

Integration with HRIS should be done in a manner to maintain the security of information.  Your LMS should not open a “back door” to payroll or other personal identification information. Be sensitive to your human resources professionals concerns, and be willing to address them.

Integration Basics

Your LMS vendor should be well-versed at integration with other systems. When talking with your vendor:

1. Know what products your company is using in these other areas. Provide details on version, release dates, patches, etc. Many web-based software products use application programming interfaces (API’s) to communicate information between programs.  Providing detailed information on the products you are using helps your LMS vendor identify opportunities for integration.
2. The more customized your other systems are, the more complex and costly an integration can be.
3. Move toward integration in steps.  The tools and methods to implement CAS are fairly standard – many vendors include single sign-on with the purchase.  Identify simple integrations and document performance or efficiency improvements to help justify more costly integrations.
4. Integration between systems that are used daily can be a challenge. Use “sandbox” sites and test during non-business hours. Expect there to be hurdles.  Ensure each system is backed up before testing so that you have the ability to revert to a known working configuration.
5. Always test software updates and patches before applying them to the live site, to ensure integration processes aren’t affected.

Integration is a great way to reduce manual entry and ensure your data is current. Once the integration is complete, little to no maintenance is required. The process is a great opportunity to build relationships with other groups in your organization.

Why Students Hate Your Training: These 3 C’s Equal Failure

Why do you offer training?  Why do you teach? If you’re involved in the design, promotion, delivery, facilitation (insert all popular buzzwords here) of training, the answer to the question should be both simple and resounding:  to provide someone with knowledge, skills or abilities he or she didn’t have when stepping into the learning environment.  Especially in the work environment, you have an obligation to carry it a step farther. The information has to of use to the individuals. You can quantify and apply metrics to training value in hundreds of ways.

So why do we continue to screw it up?

Cramming

Let’s be clear.  You cannot cover 180 PowerPoint slides in a 210 minute class. So put yourself in the student’s place.  When you hand out the 60 page handout of 3-up slides, can you hear the audible groans from the class?  Let’s be honest – if you’re even attempting to pull that off, you’re kidding yourself.  An instructor recently argued when challenged over this exact situation, pointing out “but 15 of them are review questions!”

The problem isn’t PowerPoint – it’s the underlying instructional design.  Keep the amount of information appropriate for the audience and time period allotted. If 180 slides are really necessary, that’s perfectly OK. Break it into two or three sessions. On the other hand, if the information will fit on 60 really good slides – get rid of the less valuable 120!

Cramming can result from three common conditions.

The Instructor is the Designer
In project management this would fall under “scope creep”.  An instructor develops instructional materials, often good ones, but continues to add photos, videos, or concepts beyond the initial idea or concept.  Because the designer and presenter are the same, there is no check or balance.  This is easily resolved. If you’re developing your own materials, put together an advisory or peer review group of people that will be honest in their assessment of the materials.  Accept their constructive criticism and feedback.

Training to a Regulation or Standard
Developing and delivering compliance training can be a real challenge.  The more specific and detailed the guideline or standard, the less flexibility an instructional designer has. Because the regulatory agency has mandated a training minimum instructors feel compelled to cover only that content, and cover it in a single session.  To get out of the trap, training centers may want to consider breaking a topic into multiple sessions and actually expanding upon the core material. Add interesting information, including graphics and video.  The extra time can also be used for hands-on exercises that you otherwise wouldn’t have time for.

PowerPoint becomes the Presenter
If slide notes and presented slide share more than a heading, this condition may be a contributing factor. Visuals must be visually appealing, professional appearing, and supporting of the instructor.  Take a step back and really look at the visual. Do you find it interesting? The PowerPoint itself is not the presentation; first and foremost, the slides are tools.  The presentation is what the instructor has to say – not what is projected on the screen.  Presentation slides were called visual aids in the past – the displayed information is there to reinforce and strengthen the message, not replace it. Minimize the amount of text displayed; use relevant images or brief video clips that show the desired behavior(s); and create graphics that are supportive of your key points.

Confusion

When a student leaves a training session, three things should be absolutely clear:

1. Why they were there,
2. What knowledge, skills, or abilities were learned, and
3. How the knowledge, skills or abilities can be applied.

Too often, students leave a training program with more questions than answers. Training programs must have clearly defined outcomes. They should be communicated at the beginning of the program, reinforced during the program, and evaluated at the end of the program.

Outcomes are a throwback.  They focus on a simple concept – how the student behaves after the training program.  For example, a classical objective might be written as:  “Upon completion of this class, the student will be able to identify the emergency stop button.”  It’s specific, measurable, and attainable.  Every training professional remembers those basic rules of objective writing.  Does the company or instructor really want the student to simply identify the switch?

What the instructor wants is for the student to understand why the switch is there, be able to locate and press the button, and make correct situational decisions about when the button should be used. A student learning outcome for this situation would be “Uses the emergency stop switch appropriately.”

Although student learning outcomes have been a staple of the academic world for the past few years, corporate instructional design has been a bit slower to adopt the idea.  No matter how you choose to describe them, a student has to know the answer to the three basic questions outlined above.

Conditions

Training professionals learn to adapt to a variety of conditions. LCD projectors, computers, USB drives, network connections – they all fail from time to time.  You arrive to a classroom only to find they are repaving the parking lot just outside. Students are smart.  If the conditions are too cold, too hot, too noisy – they will be miserable. One class, conducted outdoors, was poorly rated because students had to walk nearly a half-mile to usable restrooms.

It’s pretty simple: a student can’t learn if they are too tired, cold, hot, or hungry.

Part of being a good instructor is setting the right environment for the student. The environment not only includes the physical classroom, but setting the proper tone and atmosphere for the class as well.

The reality is that some audiences enter training with a very negative attitude.  Use changes in the environment to counter anticipated negativity.  If past classes have been taught in a company break room, consider moving the class to the board room or off-site.  Provide food and beverage.  Coffee and doughnuts before an early morning session can help create a more positive situation for the instructor.  If the material has been taught by the same instructor for several years, consider using a different trainer or encourage a different instructional method.

Always look to improve the status of the program in the student’s eyes.  Telling students that a program is important generally has little impact.  Having the president of the company or a relevant outside speaker introduce the training session not only improves credibility, but carries the unspoken message that training is important.

Manage the C’s and Improve Training

Managing training so that the right amount of information is clearly presented to students under favorable conditions is the core mission of an instructor.  Just like you tell your students – remember the basics.

Are Narrated PowerPoint Presentations Really Online Training?

Training and PowerPoint go hand-in-hand in many training centers.  As many training centers moved from classroom-based to distributed, the standard PowerPoint presentation made the journey as well.  Although many groups have developed standards for online training, a huge element of online learning still consists of PowerPoint slides dropped onto a server. Some organizations provide a PowerPoint file with detailed notes on the presentation, while others narrate the presentation.  Do these qualify as e-learning?

Online PowerPoint is e-learning, if not in theory then at least in practice.  Narrated PowerPoint really isn’t something a company should showcase as online training.  It’s not snazzy, jazzy, or ideal. PowerPoint is largely linear in nature and not all that different than standard instructor-led training. You are taking advantage of the ability to deliver a consistent message independent of time and location, but you aren’t delivering cutting-edge learning. Training centers use online PowerPoint for a number of reasons – lack of time or funds to develop truly rich, interactive e-learning being the most common.

Training & PowerPoint

Microsoft’s PowerPoint has been a staple of the training center since it’s release in May 1990.  The usefulness and efficacy of PowerPoint is often debated by training theorists. How many times have trainers heard and / or used the term “Death by PowerPoint”?   The term was originally coined by Angela Garber in an article for Small Business Computing. (Garber, 2001).  The primary criticism of the software is that ideas must be simplified, condensed or otherwise modified in order to have them fit on a readable slide.

Edward Tufte, in a blog article reviewing slides presented between the launch and demise of the Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003, makes three key points:

1. Critical information was demoted to the lowest bullet points;
2. The compacted nature of the slides led to generalizations and acronyms rather than specific, technical description; and
3. PowerPoint was very limited in it’s ability to display scientific language and measurements.

Tufte concludes that PowerPoint is good for presenting visual reinforcement of a written document, especially for a technically complex document.  How does that relate back to the pre-PowerPoint days?  Trainers had to carefully prepare and select images to be recorded on slides.  The purpose of the slide was to reinforce what the presenter was saying.  One of the benefits of using PowerPoint in an online environment is that it allows the instructional designer the latitude to focus on the message using narration in lieu of the live presenter.  Unlike a live presenter, narration provides a consistent message that can be repeated by the end user.

PowerPoint is a perfectly acceptable method of delivering training information for some online topics. A simple online search returns many articles eschewing “rules” for visual presentations; these rules may govern font size, suggest font choices, recommend a number of slides, etc.  Simply put, these may be good resources but above all, the presentation must be visually appealing, professional appearing, and supportive of learning outcomes.  Unlike the traditional classroom where the instructor is the speaker and the PowerPoint is a tool, with online deliver the PowerPoint becomes both the delivery agent and the visual aid.   The presentation is what the instructional designer has to say about the topic.  The presentation slides were called visual aids in the past – the displayed information is there to reinforce and strengthen the message, not replace it.

Instructional Design

There are a number of published standards for the development and integration of training for the online environment. One of the most popular is the sharable content object reference model, SCORM.  Another popularly referenced standard is the Aviation Industry Computer-based training Committee (AICC) standard.  Both of these allow an instructional designer to deliver complex material to students, and have extensive tracking and reporting of student interaction.  These standards have been in  place for a number of years and are widely supporting by authoring packages.

When developing for e-learning, be sure to avoid common mistakes.

That’s great for companies developing high-level fee-for-service training and firms with expansive corporate universities. But what about teaching the simpler concepts?  Are branching scenarios really critical in the delivery of an electrical safety awareness training online?  Even with software such as Adobe Captivate, branching scenarios and media-rich online programs are resource-intensive.  What are the expectations of a student who is paying a premium fee for an online certification course, compared to the operations staff completing a required OSHA-compliance course?

Some specific instructional design characteristics where a narrated PowerPoint might be appropriate include:

• When there is a separate method in place for assessing knowledge, skill and ability
• When new or updated information on a topic already well-known to the student is being presented.
• When the information being presented is principally administrative or procedural (i.e., without a hands-on component).

Training centers often cite the need to do traditional classroom training as a reason for keeping PowerPoint as a base.  Authoring tools such as Adobe Captivate can usually generate an executable file that can be used for classroom presentations by an instructor as well.

Taking Your PowerPoint Online

If you find a case where the best option for a training program is conversion of an existing PowerPoint presentation for online delivery, there are some simple ways to improve the student experience.

1. Deliver the PowerPoint as a finished product. In other words, display the presentation embedded in a web browser window. Avoid forcing students to download the presentation onto their computer if at all possible.  Downloading presents all kinds of problems – for example, what happens with embedded audio and video files.
2. Include narrated audio as part of the presentation. The narrated audio should include more depth than simply reading the on-screen content. Select a variety of individuals, both male and female, to be narrators for classes. Select people that sound casual and relaxed, that speak clearly. Use a quality microphone, positioned properly (normally 8-10″ away), and use a script.
3. Use images, diagrams, and video elements to support the information presented by the narrator. Remember, when using PowerPoint for online coursework the presentation is both the visual aid and the delivery agent.
4. Use PowerPoint’s native features to encourage student activity.  Consider using the 1 to 1-1-1  concept; for every bullet slide, use 1 graphic slide, 1 audio/narrated slide, and 1 interactive slide.  These don’ t always have to be complex; they simply need to appeal to the multiple student learning preferences. An easy way to build interaction is to use an on-screen clickable object to advance slides. Even though the standard mouse click and page down buttons will still work, the visual cue and interaction builds engagement.
5. Provide a separate, downloadable PDF reference document for the topic.  Reference PDF’s should have enough information to be useful, but should NOT be a replacement for a student’s having viewed the presentation.

For more tips about rapidly developing e-learning courses, see here.

The Future of Training: PowerPoint vs. E-Learning

Training managers and instructional designers should always be looking to improve their training. Consider online PowerPoint an interim solution and begin laying out long-term plans to move courses to a true e-learning platform as time and resources permit. The process involved with developing true e-learning is often very beneficial to an organization and increases buy-in to training across the board.

References

Garber, A. “Death By Powerpoint”. Small Business Computing.com. April 2001.

Tufte, Edward (09/06/2005). “PowerPoint Does Rocket Science–and Better Techniques for Technical Reports”. Retrieved 04/15/2013.

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