Input desired from professional Instructional Designers and eLearning developers

[TPK]

At our organization we employ web-based distance learning courses through an LMS. Many of the courses we develop in-house are not developed by people with degrees in Instructional Design. Instead, as is often the case, they are developed by people with no special educational accolades, but who do have years of experience within the organization. These courses are often very rich in information.

This is where the dilemma occurs. An instructional designer once told me that lessons developed for distance learning courses should be “self-contained”. That is to say, the content developer should limit (url) linking to additional materials outside the actual course. (These “linked to” materials might be within the domain of the training, but not necessarily and might be anywhere on the web.)

Additionally, the instructional designer mentioned that if material (to a lesson or course) is important enough to a lesson or course, the material should be incorporated into the course, not just linked to from somewhere within a course lesson.

Instructionally, what are considered “good practices” in regards to linking to outside materials? (I would really appreciate links to any white papers on the subject).

Obviously there are several pros and cons to including URL links to information outside a web-based course:

Pros:

1)      Make the lesson “richer” by adding links to additional information.

Cons:

1)      Links need to be periodically checked for validity and correct content/context.

2)      Report metrics (student time viewing material) provided by a LMS can be invalidated if reading outside material is elective. (Some students do and some don’t read the material, how to tell using LMS reports?)

3)      Outside material may allow the student “drift away” from the core lesson (especially if linking to outside material that might contain additional links.)

I would really appreciate any comments (pro and con) from Instructional Designers or seasoned developers in the community. If anyone knows of any white papers that address this issue, please include links to the resources.

Thank you,

TPK

[nuguyhillside]

Our agency practice is to keep essential information on the page/screen/slide.  Links and rollovers can give interesting additional info, but it is not essential to the core learning objectives. This allows advanced learners to still get new content, but allow less proficient users and individuals who are at base-level learning to get the required content.

We face the same issue of SME versus course development person.  Case in point, I had a THREE HOUR meeting with our Privacy Officer yesterday discussing content for a course on HIPAA. They want the sun, moon and stars in "their" course, to the detriment of other essential courses.  I use an external arbiter to help manage the conflicts on time/contnet overkill.  It helps keep the working relationship between the SME and developer positive.

(ice pick + temple = relief!)

Just my perspective.

[TPK]

Greetings nuguyhillside,

Thank you for your response. It seems we might share the same industry. I just wound up the 3^rd iteration of a HIPAA course a few weeks ago.

When you mention an “external arbiter” would this be a instructional designer (or is that your role)? I assume you are the developer.

TPK

[nuguyhillside]

Actually, it bumps to administration.

I pretend to know what I am doing in development and also wear the SME hat in some instances.  Our training/development shop is small. When we have to go outside for subject expertise, and they get obsessive about contnet, my practice is to roll with hearing them out, doing teh storybook, and tatfully bumping questions up a level - depending on the situation, to my boss, or the SME's boss if i have a good working relationship with them.

Whoever is used, it allows a "neutral party" to arbitrate.

As to the field, TPK, I am in human services, non-profit.  So we have to do anything from mental health evidence based practices to fire safety. You?

[TPK]

Greetings nuguyhillside,

There are interesting parallels here. I work for a non-profit health care group. The department I work in is human resources information services. I help construct material for legal compliancy (such as HIPAA), safety, application use, etc. A big part of my job is to help others understand what a learning management system is and to use tools like HTML/Javascript, Captivate, Powerpoint, etc.

Strictly speaking, in my present job role I am a developer, however in the past I was a instructional designer and consultant. Like you I feel that I need to listen to my customers.

I have found through experience that some customers might not have a good working knowledge on adult learning theory. Sometimes there is confusion as to what is e-Reading, e-Learning or just a web site. Part of my work is to help focus their effort so that they get the desired results. If instruction is their focus, that might be one path, if general information is what they want to present, that is another path.

TPK

[nuguyhillside]

TPK

I have an intersting role in my agency.  My background is service delivery, but a few yers ago, I was recruited to join our training and development department.  I work in what we consider a small department (5.5 FTE) in a large (2,200 employee) organization - in relationship to other agencies of our nature, we are quite large. In relationship to other entities in general, I am sure many would think us almost tiny.  My department is responsible for anything from New Employee Orientation to Leadership Development.  I have to straddle the roles of SME, persenter, facilitaor and content developer. We are JUST beginning the journey into distance learning.  We don't even have an LMS yet (suggestions?) but are searching.

I must strongly agree - many folks outside of our roles have little awareness of Adult Learning Theory, or Instructional Design principles.  I also find it difficult to convey to folks the importance of these domains when teh person is coming from the experience of being immersed in a particular subject, and asked to convey information on said topic.

Desired outcome, as you noted, is everything in design.

[dratndarn]

Hi TPK. If I am reading this right, it sounds like you are looking for evidence to support your position when your SMEs demand you link to outside web sites? I'm sorry; I don't have that evidence, but certainly agree with the premises/problems/risks you mentioned.

I too have a client that insists we need to provide links despite the risks I have stated. So, here's how I handle it. Every time one of those links appear, I introduce it with the following verbiage:

For more information, bookmark this site for later review.

(Be sure to come right back to this lesson!)

If you find the evidence you're looking for, let me know. I'm still not sure it will help in all cases - especially in those in which we IDs don't have veto power over the client or SME developers.

kt

[Erik Lord]

Whether content should be linked-to or incorporated would seem to me to be dependent on what that information is.

In general, I would link to PDFs, which can be incorporated within the learning content (if not within the UI, at least within the context). There's definitely an advantage to linking to actual web resources as far as pulling the most recent information, but there's also the disadvantage of having that URL suddenly go dead or otherwise be inaccessible, as well as the user then wandering off through that window and site.

Overall, I'd say better to PDF or otherwise incorporate the content within the lesson and just ensure the SME for that lesson reviews it yearly to ensure the content is current.

Say your talking about HIPAA. It may be wise to link-out to the official government site on the regulation, just for information...but maybe better to email the user a list of those links at the conclusion of the training. I don't think the biggest concern is ensuring that the external content is necessarily part of the training objectives (unless it should be) but more that it's distracting and not under the lesson's control (i.e. dead links).

I definitely agree that putting together a couple pages with a general summary and links to outside resources isn't 'training' in itself!

Erik