LMS Blues (akin to "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water")

Strange title for this posting....when I read an email joke this week saying that students starting college this year were born in 1992 never took a swim and thought about Jaws.

I digress already.

So my LMS blues continue.  I really thought things were going "swimmingly", pardon the pun.  I had launched our LMS earlier in the year and users seem to like it to register for classroom courses.  Educators seem to love the idea of adding electronic curriculum to the catalogue.  Learners were told to begin their mandatory education (6 courses - WHMIS, ER codes, Accessibility, etc.) in June and have until Oct. 1 to finish.  All seemed to be going according to plan with little hiccups here and there along with cries of discontentment due to CHANGE.  "What?!? We aren't doing this on paper any more?" and "I don't know how to turn on a computer."

So all the ranting and raving seemed to subside.  I sent out a report at the beginning of the week that over 1000 people had started the training. That's a third of our general staff.  Of that 1000, over 700 had completed the training.  Not bad for our normal track record.  Yes I did say this was mandatory...and that's another story.

So, yesterday the management team had a development day where the speaker talked to them about things that were mandatory in health care and things that were not.  Then asked them if they were leading by example and had they completed the material.  Well luckily he didn't have them raise their hands since only 18 out of 150 have.

Today the questions are flying.  Why are we doing this online? (my reader most likely can answer this themselves, but at the simplest level - it takes me 9 months to mark the paper ones, but it isn't just about me) Can't we go back to paper? (so we can cheat off of one another - no) We don't have access to computers. (actually you do, there are several dedicated for this purpose in the library)  One particular area we reluctantly made an exception too.  We let the staff read the material and sign a declaration that they did so and laid the responsibility back to the manager.  This has gotten to others and now they don't want to do the normal version they just want to read it.

This brings us to the issue....do we, as an organization, care if our staff knows this material.  The Ministry says we have to and frankly we want our staff and patients to be safe and know what to do in an emergency; so yes we care.  If we care then we need them to read it.  So if that is all we care about - give them a brochure.  However, the reality is that is not all we care about.  We want to KNOW that they read it and understand the material.  Hence the reasoning for not only the material but the test as well.  We also want to know that EVERYONE has read it and not one person in a group of 20 that has read it and "shared" the quiz answer with everyone else.  Hence the reasoning for it being online.  In this format, each person is now more accountable for reading and learning the material.  Each person has the questions delivered in a random format.  (It's not perfect and we - the readers of this blog - know that, but it is a method to more closely coming to the goal required here.)

And so the lovely journey or fight (depending on how you look at it) continues to haunt my daily existence as a proponent and champion for elearning.

(I think I need a super cape)

"Up Up and Away" - Super Smiley
(see yesterday's blog for more Captain Smiley Costumes)

Finally some nice feedback

After months and months of hard work slaving over the implementation of our LMS system. Then many long painstaking hours and overtime hours to get our mandatory core curriculum courses created. The system and courses have been launched to the entire organization.

True to form they hate change. Why can't we do this on paper? (Because you cheat off of each other) (Because no one reads it) We don't have enough computers. (One computer, everyone take turns over the course of 3 months, that's 720 times the courses can be done in one dept over the course of 3 months and the largest dept here has about 150 people).

Okay now I'm whining. I guess I was very naive in thinking that everyone would be as excited learning my this method as I am. So to have so many negative comments come my way since the launch of the mandatory courses has really gotten me down on my work environment. (The 34C weather hasn't helped either).

However, today for the first time I got feedback from a frontline worker. Not someone I know. Not someone I owe a favour to or wants a favour from me. Just another person here doing what she needs to do wrote me this:

"My name is XXX and I work in PACU. Just working my way thought the online
Core Curriculum package and wanted to let you know that I am so impressed.
It is extremely easy to use and the visuals make for a way better learning
experience than the old booklet version, especially when you are a visual
learner like myself. Everyone here in PACU is working away on their
package. Thanks again for doing such a great job."

Wow! How cool is that? How nice is it to hear positive feedback from a complete stranger. It completely made my whole day, maybe my whole month. I'm recharged and ready to make more courses and make them even better.

Take a moment send some positive feedback to someone you work with; the difference it can make is invaluable.

LMS Saga Continues With an Unsuccessful Upgrade

My LMS received and upgrade last night and of course at first I was excited. The message in my inbox this morning read "...upgrade is now complete as we have moved the files to live site. Everything seems to be working fine but would you be able to do some testing on your end in the morning?" Sounds promising right. WRONG.

I found 13 issues for them that need to be fixed. After that my head started spinning and I wasn't sure what was right and what was wrong. I'm not even sure what was upgraded. There are a few tweaks here and there, but when I hear upgrade I am for some reason always expecting new things to WOW me. A label having it's colour changed is not going to make any difference to the system's performance.

Ah yes, another typical day at work.

Articulate Interaction - How to Navigate an Articulate Based Course

I've been working for months and months to get an LMS up and running for my organization (do a search for LMS on my blog and you'll see the overall journey) now the real fun begins. I now have so many people coming to me asking for this course to be created and that one. Seems as if everyone has something that has to be taught by the end of the year to all staff because the Ministry of Health says so. Regardless of that fact the LMS is now slowly being populated with courses and not just classroom based.

One of my concerns though is not everyone in our organization is familiar with taking an online course. Many would be able to just sit down at a computer and know immediately how to navigate though a course. Some who have never taken an online course would still be technically savvy enough to work their way through on their own. But, then there are all the others who are less technically inclined and perhaps even a little afraid of trying this "new" method of learning.

These are the staff that I need to consider when creating a course and need to include a "how to navigate" lesson or tutorial. I'm using Articulate to create courses for our learners. During the pilot of the LMS one of the courses created had many slides at the beginning (that could be skipped) that explained all the components that the learner would see or could see while taking the course. Once the pilot was over I discovered that this was probably not the best method for delivering the tutorial piece. Letting them skip over it was good, but it still muddled the over all look of the course. So what I have done now instead was to create the same interaction, but have included it instead as a help tab that can be accessed at any point during the course.

I've included a short Screenr video below that lets you see the interaction as it runs within a course. I have tried to make it "neutral" so it could be inserted into any course and that anyone could use it in their courses outside of our organization.

It's all about REUSE! So, if you'd like to use the interaction yourself please feel free to download and use it in your own courses.

Download: How to Navigate an Articulate Based Course Interaction.

LMS Launched with a Successful Whisper

Well I was pleasantly happy to finally get the LMS I've been working on for the last 2 years up and running for the organization. Unfortunately the organization did not seem to share my enthusiasm for the event.

My wonderful idea of having open drop in sessions all day long (30 minutes in length) for staff to stop by and see the system, brought in a huge crowd of 15 people. Not great when there is a staff of 2700+. My webinars the previous week had about 30 management staff sit in and view the demo. Also, not great when there are about 120 on the management team. Finally, my sitting in the main lobby and letting people use laptops to try out the system saw one person come by and ask why I was there. Hence my tweet yesterday about how no one cares what you are doing unless you are giving away food or a prize.

So what lessons have I learned so far. I believe that since I work in a health care environment, just in time is what we live for. People are not interested in what the "next" thing is until the absolutely need to know about it. We run Core Curriculum every January (WHMIS, ER Codes, etc) and everyone is tested on these topics. Everyone knows about them. Everyone will now have walk through the material and quizzes online through the system. This is when they will look to me asking what it is and how they use the system. So a secondary roll out will be needed then. I doubt it will take the form of a drop in session, but more so visits to dept meetings.

I am actually a little glad that it came in quietly as it allows me further time to perfect a few quirks that I still see in existence. I can complete my help videos, which feedback so far has indicated are really well done and actually allow for little extra explanation. All the extra months work into getting the system to be extremely user friendly seems to have paid of as well in that those that did see it agreed it was very easy to navigate through. Between the tutorials and the layout the need for training may be minimized.

I am disappointed that 2 years of me working diligently came to a close with little fan fare, but at least I am extremely proud at the overall end result. I have had many requests now to begin to put this course and that course online, so the next large challenge will be to start learning how to schedule and produce these in a timely manner.

I shall keep posting about the LMS journey over the next few months and as mentioned the next large hurdle will be to get everyone to access it in January for the large education blitz.

Cheers to everyone who has offered so many words of encouragement through this project. You kudos, warm thoughts, and offer to lend your expertise in my times of wonderment have been invaluable!!!

(photo credit: By OneTHilllove )

Learning Management Systems - Trends and Issues (Brandon Hall Research) Webinar

My notes taken during today's webinar.

Presented by Tom Werner & Richard Nantel

What do they do?

Automate the administration of training.

What do they contain?

Databases: learners, course offerings, content, progress.

Quick History:

1980 - paper age

• catalog, approvals, registrations, class info (all manually)
• attendance, evaluations, tests (all manually)
• count, charge-backs, reporting (all manually)
• process is dependent on people (admin staff)
• trainer dependent (collect and hand out materials)
• supervisor depended (boss had to tell you of courses available)
• measured by productivity or # of hours of training
• training very decentralized

1984 - Training Management Systems

1990 - Internet

1990s - Amazon, Yahoo, Ebay, Google

• online training started being just courses posted on line, then moved to tracking who was taking them

2001 - Learning Management Systems (term coined)

7 Trends

1. Still many different LMS vendors (Brandon Hall tracks 92 of them, adding appx 15-20 each year since 5 years ago when they began. To be in the Brandon Hall report systems do not pay to be in it, but do have to answer an extremely detailed questionnaire. Updated every 12 -18 months.)

• consolidate? No it does not appear to be occurring, but is a continuing rumour.
• why so many? Good customer service generally. Once they have a customer they often don't lose them. Continue to innovate. There has not been a "Microsoft" or "Google" type of enterprise to buy up smaller companies.

2. So many features

• 88% have built in test systems
• 80% offer more than just English
• 80% offer many portals
• 78% offer classroom management
• 74% track certificate deadlines
• 64% have built in authoring
• 60% have LCMS features
• 50% handle e-Commerce

3. Interoperability with content (how lms and content within talk to one another)

• early standards were AICC
• standard now is SCORM (military pushed), This is a collection of standards including AICC. This is important to look for in a system.
• 87% are compliant,
• 86% are SCORM 1.2 (look for this as a minimum)
• 48% SCORM 2004 compliant (most recent version of SCORM).
• Just because it is compliant does not mean it will definitely run perfectly in your LMS. LMSs will tell you if they have tested with interoperability. (eg. tested with a vitural classroom, or with a SkillSoft course)

4. Integration with other large systems

• 43% have connected with PeopleSoft
• 40% with SAP (both of these are large HR employee tracking systems)
• 34% with Oracle

5. Software Hosting (SaaS)

• 68% of vendors say that more then 50% of their implementations are hosted
• hosting used to seem as an unsecure way to go, but not so much now as more banks and governments have gone to hosted solutions.

6. Talent Management

• many systems call themselves "Talent Development Systems" now
• (paper age - people issues were in silos e.g. career path, separate from training, separate from goals, etc) Now these can all be melded together.
• 60% of LMS they are tracking ..... (item missed)
• 38% offer feedback
• 38% offer succession planning

7. Web 2.0

• 2 way training, not just the trainer creating content but learners are too (Facebook, blogs, twitter, etc)
• Need to understand that there is learning then as a designed activity and that there is just generally keeping up with subjects (newspaper, rss, tv, blogs, journals) keeping up with information sources
• People are now learning on Google - search, amazon - recommendations, cnn - snippets, youtube - sharing, facebook/twitter - belonging
• (debate is this learning or not continues)
• 42% of systems allow searches
• 40% ... slide 116 (item missed)
• 26% peer ratings
• 20% blogs
• 17% wikis

Three Current Issues

1. LMSs for small and medium businesses

• needed affordable, minimal IT, limited training staff

2. Open source systems

• most know - Moodle, Sakai, Claroline, dokeos, OLAT, ilias, eFront

3. LMS's place in the "ecosystem"

• LMS as a piece of a larger system or collaborative learning environment
• Does it contain all the stuf, or is it a piece of a bigger environment

Take a Test, Any Test...and PASS

Ready for tonight's rant..... (Are you sure? This is a good one...you'll laugh at my woes.)

I'm madly going through the LMS getting it ready for the pilot. Fixing and adding everything I can think of to launch the pilot tomorrow at 2:oo pm.

One of the tasks I had was to create a sample course and get it set up just right so that the pilot group could see the potential of the system and the courses we can develop. I could also can insight into how the system will report on staff taking the course. Sounds great right.....WRONG!!!!

First issue I came across was that I set the course up for 3 attempts at the quiz. So I took the quiz, failed, and exited the course. The course remained in my "active courses". This makes sense. I went back in and the system let me take the quiz 3 more times.....not 2 more. I failed 3 more times, exited the course. The course remained in my "active courses". I, essentially can go in as many times as I want and take the course.

So then....I took out the option of 3 attempts at the quiz. Still no change. I can take the test forever until I pass.

My next brainstorm was changing the tracking from PASS/INCOMPLETE to PASS/FAILED . Could it be that simple? That literal?

YES.

So then....I took the test. Failed. Low and behold the course moved from "active courses" to "completed courses".

NOW HERE IS THE KICKER.
When I looked at my course history it shows that I PASSED THE COURSE AND GOT WHOPPING 40%. Interesting since a pass is at least 80% - and that's being generous on this particular quiz.

Did I mention the pilot launches tomorrow afternoon? I now wonder if there is a high correlation between elearning and drinking. ARGGGG!

LMS has brought new stress; therefore new toys

(A few general ramblings below.)

My LMS is hopefully piloting on Tuesday of next week. I've got a couple of things I want tweaked before I send it out, but am getting very hopeful. Not to mention I can feel the fire of many dragons just at the nape of my neck to get it out.

All is very stressful when you have so many tasks before you to complete and your work computer is twice as slow as your home computer. That doesn't seem quite right, however, it may push me towards working in my pjs more often. I'm not sure that's a horrible idea. (It is hard not to picture anyone who says they work at home sitting in front of their computer in flannel pajamas, bunny slippers and coffee right?...mine aren't bunny shaped though).

It's also hard to keep motivated to come into work when the weather has taken a turn for the better. It's been a long, long, cold winter....this proves I'm getting old; I never use to complain about the snow. Seeing the sun com back was invigorating. The weather also then got warmer and many of us Ontario folks have been in shorts this week. This makes it all very hard to want to stay behind the computer instead of getting up and going.

I have for some bizarre reason decided to really get moving and have taken up running (I don't advise this....every time I go out I wonder what the heck I was thinking). I've also started walking every day there has been sun. So far that's been for a few weeks. I'm guessing on of my new toys to purchase is going to be a new umbrella and rubber boots for the rainy days.

Another sign I've been stressed is I went out and got an iPod Touch instead of buying things that I really need (like bunny slippers to work in). Hense the NikeWomen widget at the side of my blog. I'll leave it there for a bit - I know it stretches the blog and I apologize for that to those that need to scroll left/right now. Seems like a neat little workout tool, tracker, etc. gadget to add to my Touch and I'm happy to find/join anyone else who wants a "buddy" using this app. It looks like you can utilize this directly through your computer as well. Give me a shout through twitter and I'd be happy to link up with you and get moving together. Oh an it says NikeWomen, but you can make your avatar look boyish too.

This has been a strange rambling post, but to summarize I'm looking forward to (in no particular order):

• more sun
• more warm weather
• camping
• biking in the woods
• swimming
• campfires
• holidays
• LMS finally working so I can move on to something else

LMS Pilot is Looming Near

Oh this is getting scary. My LMS pilot is scheduled to occur in a few weeks and I'm getting very nervous. There is so much about the system I don't like that I'm now getting very discouraged about the entire thing. Having the fear that it's going to drastically fail is not a good feeling. It certainly is not one I can project to others.

I suppose I need to act as if I'm 100% behind the project, but what if I am not. How do you, on one hand, encourage others to use it and be excited that we now have an LMS, and on the other hand hate the whole thing and wish you could start it all over.

Oh my dilemma is drawing more and more near. I feel a bit like one of those screaming girls in a horror movie that's is running through the woods, in the dark, it's raining, I'm wearing 4 inch stilettos, a heel breaks, and the killer is behind the tree. You just kind of know how it's going to turn out don't you?

Well here's hoping it's actually Bambi behind the tree and not Jason.

(Thanks for listening to the rantings of a sick person implementing an LMS)

Proving My Worth & Explaining Why I Need Less Interuptions

It's been almost 3 weeks since I returned from my vacation and the 3 solid days of LMS work I had scheduled for myself still has not occurred. It's amazing how many "this is number one" priorities come up in a single day. I came back to having to create org. charts, produce yet another paper version of curriculum, general document creation, meetings, budget concerns, binder stuffing, a/v equipment malfunctions, coordinating of orientation, and it goes on and on and on.

I am finally (I think) at almost a point where I can get back to "the number one priority" (for the moment) of going through the LMS step-by-step looking for bugs, issues, and general strangeness. However, there is another priority that I believe for a change may actually be something I should concentrate on first and stop looking at as an annoyance; My Performance Development Plan. Makes me shiver just to say the words.

I've never had to do one before...ever. However, my department is responsible for creating the document and is requiring the entire management team have them completed. So, as a FINE EXAMPLE, our department has been "strongly recommended" to complete ours as well. I am not a list person by any sense of the imagination and having to list out my priorities and objectives for the year is very painful. Listing further all the implementation steps is driving me to pull my hair out and my eyes to cross.

However.....

I now realize that my supervisors seem to have little understanding in how much is needed to be done to get the LMS working and continue to have it function. I've been working on it in bits and pieces now for such a long time that it seems to be one of those things that will never get done and therefore is moving lower on their priority list. This isn't true of others in the organization that are asking me where it stands and will it be ready soon. Yes and no....depending on if I get to actually concentrate more then 10 minutes at a time on the tasks needed for it to succeed.

I'm beginning to understand myself that I need to make my Performance Plan my first priority. This is not only because I have a meeting about it next week, but also because it will allow me to show clearly everything that I have done up until this point. More importantly it will help me to demonstrate all the tasks that will be needed to get the system functioning. I'm expecting that once they see how much is truly involved they will perhaps back off the "this is number one priority now" mentality and maybe even help me to protect my time from others in the organization as well.

I'll certainly post the results of my plan and meeting after they occur next week and hope that they are greatly positive.

I Can't Believe I Have to Use Paper Again

This year my Core Curriculum learning packages are going to finally be online. Fully accessible by all staff. Automatically marked by the LMS. Easy to determine completion rates. Simple to distribute to every department.


AND THEN I WOKE UP!!!

I can't believe I'm being forced against my will to set up and print out 500 learning packages. 2700 tests with student names/numbers already entered. The very worse part of the entire process is the marking and recording of completion of 2700 test.

Now can you understand why I desperately want to get my learning system up and running.

Ever want to just escape it all? (Two LMS's? Are they trying to kill me?)

Ever just want to run away and escape from it all?

I just came from a meeting from our Emergency Planning dept. and have been so graciously informed that they are purchasing a system to ensure or emergency readiness. Great, sounds wonderful. I think we need that. The catch....it has an LMS built into it and they want to run it for just those courses. Ugg Why would we want 2 LMSs running in the organization?

One of the main reasons we even started on this journey was that our educators were getting concerned that they were each tracking the learning of their staff in a billion different ways. Know one knew what anyone was taking or had taken. This is especially a problem with several hundred transfers a month around the organization.

On that note...I don't know how some of my peers cope with more than 3000 staff and multiple facilities. They should be praised.

I'm now in need of a desperate talk with my CIO to see what we can do, what we should do, where we should proceed. I'm quite concerned that when staff see/use this new LMS (it will be their first LMS experience and is scheduled to be up in several weeks) and then need to use my original LMS (yes they have yet to actually see it) they will be very confused and will be drawn to the new system as it is (as my IT buddy calls it) a much "sexier" system.

I'm confused already and neither system has launched. I'm also quite concerned about the potential of having two areas of administration. Historically our department (or I should say me) has been responsible for the administration of our Core Curriculum (6 mandatory courses that must be sent out to all staff each year). This new system would be responsible for only 2-3 of those courses. That makes little sense as well and would only duplicate much of my work.

I now need to desperately have a meeting with my director and my CIO to get these concerns on the table asap as this new system seems to be a go whether I like it or not.

LMS Name & Logo Created, If I Could Just Get the LMS to Look as Nice

I think I've got it. With a little more brainstorming with a different colleague we decided we liked SOL. So we added an S on the end and now have SOLS, the Southlake Online Learning System. Ooooh sounds so fancy you say.

Then I played with some logo designs I'm sure Corporate Communications will never approve.

Well here's hoping they do. I think they're kind of neat and it was a nice distraction for the last 1/2 hour of my day. Now all I need is to get the LMS running and looking just as good.

I did get a new version of the system loaded up today. Some good new fixes were added. Some old bugs were removed. There are still a few things I'd love them to change, but I'm not sure how much further to press my luck. I've got 5 more working days to get some content loaded onto the silly thing. Then a week vacation - Yeah!!!! Then I'm suppose to being piloting it with users at the end of the month.

Where ever will I find the time to make cool t-shirts, hats, and any other swag I think will sell this to the masses.

Looking for a definition & explanation of the term LMS Roles

We, along with some colleagues implementing the same LMS at different organizations are having difficulty wrapping our heads around the term ROLES. We tried to no avail to get the term dropped or changed to something that makes more sense to our internal educational lingo.

I believe the term Roles is a common LMS term from some discussions I've had with various people, but it is not a common term within our hospital learning environment. I'm curious if someone can share a good definition or explanation that we could share with our learners, educators, and managers.

Our understanding of a Role is "a set of courses (that may include certificate(s) with one/many courses within them as well) that are required to be taken by the staff assigned the role".

Is that true? Is there a better way to explain this terminology? We use the role synonymously with job title and this is perhaps where we need to redesign our thoughts. (previous post)

Organization Structure? We need that?

Once again the LMS haunts me night and day. I should have bought stocks in Advil. Looking back at the implementation process and how poorly it has progressed is very much due to the fact that we do not have an HR system that properly or even semi-adequately has any organizational structure.

Each staff member is only linked by the department budget that pays for them. It is entirely a payroll system and now that we are finally moving forward with the LMS and looking forward to online performance systems and talent management systems; my little "wait did you guys think about...." is rearing its ugly head again and again. We have no system currently that displays which staff report to which manager, manager to director, director to VP. This can be tracked through many different systems, but this is completely impractical for any other usage.

The task has been placed onto the shoulders of one of our IT staff and a person in HR. I'm crossing my fingers very tightly that they can solve this issue quickly and simply as I don't want to have to map how our 2600 employees report.

My 300th post is a call for LMS Help

Yippee I'm at my 300th post, but yet again I'm shouting out for some help and of course it's about the LMS. I have the system we are using, and access to a second system that is on my wish list.

I'm having problems loading in classroom based classes. Both systems have features for in class teaching, however neither is meeting our needs. I'm curious to know how others have handled this as I can't believe we are the only organization that operates in such a manner.

We have many, many courses that run over consecutive days or even just over many different days. They also tend to occur in many different rooms around our organization. Neither system seems to be able to accommodate this style.

As an example: Intro to Project Management. Runs 8:30am - 12:30 pm on Wed. July 30 and then again Thurs. July 31 at the same time. In the same room. Students must go to both sessions.

Each LMS that I am trying only has a Start date and End Date for the over all program. One system does allow for recurring days of the event, but they must be the standard (one a week, ever day of the week, every other week, every other specific day of the week). On this system the first day is the start date, the end date needs to be the same date (to capture the 4 hour window of the course) and the recurring can go on for as many days as you need. But the over all screen users would see is cumbersome.

Another example is: Frontline Leaders, runs 8:00am - 4:00pm on this Thursday, 2 Thursdays from that date, then 2 Thursdays from that date, then 3 Thursdays from that, and back to 2 Thursdays from that. (not a consistent pattern). The course is held in the same room for 5 of the sessions but not for the sixth.

Again, neither system seems to allow for room changes, or many modules of a course, various instructors, various times.

I know LMS's are primarily for online learning and these typically are start date - end date, open 24/7 with no physical location to speak of. However, most LMS's I've heard of are "all about thier registration and tracking" and classroom based is usually a part of that.

I've tried on both system to set up the various "days" of the class as individual sessions. These look prettier in the systems, however when I register into the first module as a student....then I can't register into any of the other modules.

Even if this did work.....then ever occurrence of this course would have to be individual in the system course calendar.

i.e. Intro to Proj. Mgt June Mod 1 & Mod 2, then Intro to Proj. Mgt July Mod 1 & Mod 2.

I'm curious to know has no one else in the eLearning World had to deal with this?!? I'm sure you have, so how did you get around this issue of:

• 1 program
• various dates
• various times
• various locations
• (maybe various instructors)

As always I truly appreciate any feedback and help I can get. Learning as I go.

The Simple Features of an LMS Should be There, Right???

Warning - this is a rant. As previously mentioned I've been cursed with making our LMS work. One of my first tasks is to populate 10 courses that we will run here at the hospital. 3 hours later I still can't figure out how to get the first one set up. Seems odd right?

Here's some of my issues for Class A that has part 1 & part 2, reoccurring every month

1. Since when does a course only start on the hour?
2. Even though my login has admin privileges I can't do all of the admin tasks.
3. Creating an instructor - logout as self, login as grand-poo-ba of admin, create a user, go into manage a student, manage an instructor, now assign that person the label instructor
4. Cut off date for registering for a course has to be on or after the course start date? Wouldn't you normally want to know how many are registered for your class in advance of the start date. For CBT how would you know how much material to prepare? Better yet, why would you let people register for a class that has already started?
5. A course can have a prerequisite but a session can not
6. Why would they assume a classroom course would run the same as an online course? You have weeks to complete an online course, but a classroom course you (probably) go to once or several times over the course of a period of time

This is going to be a long long long implementation. I wonder if I can get sponsored by JD!!!

Make it Work! (LMS must go forward)

Well I really wish right now that I had Tim Gunn over my shoulder mentoring me and telling me his Project Runway catch phrase "Make it Work" over and over. At least then I might feel more keen about it all or at least laugh a bit more.

The LMS project that I have been working on since gosh knows when is now finally picking up speed. I am now at the forefront of the entire intranet/document management/LMS project. Having the other 2 systems up and running now for almost a month has put the LMS onto the top of the list.

Of course we are already having communication issues, but director and I are determined to stop this before it gets out of hand. I have been waiting for the company to call me and they were waiting for me to call them. Another issue is that they have one idea of where we want to start on the project (uploading all our online courses - which we have none yet) and we want to just start tracking employees and their education registrations. Clearly some discussion needs to be had so that we can get more in sync.

I'm not entirely keen on the system we have acquired and I've voiced my opinion about this very clearly. I did however, finally get a clear answer on Tuesday that this is what we have, this is all we are going to have (current budget constraints). If I can pull it off to get the system to function as I wish it would and more importantly that our users (educators and staff) can understand how to use the system then I'm going to look pretty good.

In other words I've been told "Make it Work".

Well I haven't been here in a while. (LMS, Intranet, New House, Oh my)

So much is going on right now I haven't been around here in quite some time. Work has me so frazzled that my moment, today I think will have to be a bit of a rant.

The small team I've been working on has been madly trying to find all the bugs, kinks and errors that are ever present in our new intranet and document management system. Of course just as we think we've identified one problem and sent it to the vendor to fix, we find another. We're really close though and have married ourselves to going live June 3rd. Matt, Sandra and I have our fingers very tightly crossed and a bottle of vodka near by just in case of an emergency.

I've been going crazy trying to populate not only my department's pages for the intranet, but also all the material for the education section. One day the education section will be the LMS, but until I get that sorted out I've been forced to put every education event I could get my hands on in as an individual page. I sent out a mass email to the organization asking them to fill out a spread sheet with information on the courses/training they provide. I want the intranet to be a one-stop shop for finding all education opportunities the hospital offers. However, I guess the spread sheet (driven directly from fields in the LMS) was too complicated. Go Figure!

I then set a second mass email telling staff to send me the flyers they've already created for training events. What do you know....a better response. So my education catalogue slightly resembles something that a staff member may search through to find a training event. I think it will take them a great deal of time to search through, but at least it is a start.

As for the LMS. Where do I start!?! I've had a meeting with the company that they want to start planning exactly how we are going to roll out the product, populate it with data, etc. etc. That was suppose to be last week. The intranet, not yet being live, has set me back a bit again with even starting the project. My supervisor flip-flops each day in support of ditching the LMS and finding another (my preferred choice, but now feel every choice is doomed).

I've started yet another college course. Back to the beginning of a certificate. I'm hoping this school doesn't drop the certificate before I finish as did the last institution.

Finally, life has been wonderful in giving me a new house in 10 more sleeps. It's about 20 minutes from where I currently live, but it's one of those "if you live in this town, you don't want to move to that town, it's not nearly as good" situations. I've been jaded since a teenager and need to get rid of the bias of the new town. Funny how these thoughts get implanted into us when we are young.

I'm sure there's much more since the last time I wrote however, all of this has kept me from writing here as I should and from sleeping at night.

We're Sticking With the LMS....So What Now?

I know a few have been following my LMS journey regarding trying to get it up and running and functioning. Last week I put a call out looking for any help I could in figuring out exactly what pieces I need to look for in an LMS as I wasn't sure mine has what I need. (Thanks again to all who helped).

Well, after a meeting on Monday (which I lost much sleep over) we've decided to continue down the current LMS road. I was really hoping to go with another system, but working in an Ontario Hospital we are limited, as most would be, to a certain amount of funding. If we decide to choose a different product 1) we'd have to find the funds somewhere in the budget [good luck], 2) we'd have to start the whole RFP process all over again [must follow politics], 3) it would take months to accomplish.

So, the vendor came in on Monday and demonstrated version 4 of the LMS....nice I've only been able to see version 1. There are some nice tweaks to the system, however there some significant reporting options that still need to be implemented. I'm happy that they are willing to run with any suggestions I put forward.

I think I've come to a comfortable place (or a delusional place - depends on your perspective) where I'm ready to push forward and make it work one way or another. At the least we have a fairly robust system, considering it's price, that the vendor is willing to work with us to make even better. The system may or may not meet our needs after a few years, but at least we have something that we can utilize, get our staff comfortable with the idea of an LMS, and see how well it is adopted by all before we go to something more expensive. It may actually work out to be the perfect solution and we never have to go to something else. (Wow did I just look at the cup half full????? That's a first).