Learning at CA

CA has a TON of people to help learn – mostly customers. Their group wanted to extend beyond the classroom,

What they did:

• Went to one LMS, instead of many
• Implemented an eBook platform
• Standardized the virtual classroom
• Integrated podcasts, vodcasts and Learning Collaboration

They needed something that used SCORM, ahighly configurable, moderated discussion threads, blogs, wikis and RSS Feeds, a resource library, subscription options, chat and virtual classroom, tagging and full-text search capabilities, training centers, wrapped and transitional (pre-post learning) learning and it had dto enable push and pull of information.

For the tool they chose: Q2 Learning’s: xPert eCampus. It looks customizable from a UI perspective. It does not have the ability, however, for the user to customize what they want.

Best Practice Tips:

• Use the ADDIE model – identify business and learning needs up front
• Involve stakeholders from the beginning
• Make use of RFPs and Test-case scenarios
• Used seasoned Project Managers
• Evaluate the effectiveness during and after
• Be able to use templates in your tool
• Over communicate
• Crawl before you walk, walk before you run, run before you fly

They won the Bersin & Associates Learning Leader for 2007.

Tips & Tricks – What should you be looking at when you choose a tool?

• It needs to map to real human interactions – people like to interact with people. There are levels of

He states the conversations are THE core business process – particularly ‘Sustained conversations for action.’

Affordance is the word of the day: The features that ‘call you’ to do certain things. A coffee cup calls you to grab the handle. Question: What are the affordances for sustained conversations? (Great thing to think of and evaluate.)

Ha, he just labeled Jive’s Clearspace as a Social Networking platform linked with Facebook instead of a Collaboration platform. Interesting. (UPDATE: I talked with him afterwards and found out that he misspoke – he meant to say NING, which would be correct.)

What is the difference he shows?

Community platform:

• Small Town mentalilty
• Norms & Practices
• Real Names
• Read all new
• Email participation

Social Network

• Large city mentality
• Anonymity
• Avatars
• Report Abuse
• RSS Feeds

Four different key Affordances:

• Conversation: forums, blogs, wikis, IM , chat, webmeeting,email, attach files and pictures, track and read new material, RSS, Discussion reads as transcript, post in discussion, reports on utilization by forum and person, lenear & branching discussions.
• Content: Attach files to posts, resource library, Full text search, tagging, rating, version control, check in/out
• Community: Profiles with photos, Online status, directory, personal home page, endorsements, share photos/videos, reputation management (rating the file and that goes into their rating)
• Corporate: Enterprise architecture, role-based management, multiple sites, interoperability

They built a custom connector between this tool and their LMS. What usage are they tracking? The conversations and linking them to the courses. Interesting… I am not sure why it is being tracked.

Personally, they lumped Jive in as not fulfilling these and I completely disagree (AGAIN, SEE UPDATE ABOVE). I do agree with the “Four different key Affordances” however. These are all parts of the evaluation you will need before you start choosing a tool.