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)

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!

Honoured by a reposting of "LMS Pitfalls" to Spanish site

I was honoured earlier this week by a fellow blogger requesting if he could re-post my post on LMS Pitfalls. Anthony Montalvo of Buenos Aires, Argentina pens the blog 34.35°S, 58.24°W - Navegando el aprendizaje 2.0.

I really agree with one the comments of his re-posted version and that is that many on the list should very much be part of our common sense when implementing an LMS. The reality though is that some of these we take for granted and just assume the system will work or function as we expect. What seems natural and second hand to you may not have crossed the LMS vendor's mind.

Anthony's blog includes other topics such as collaboration, implementation, Moodle, and answers to The Big Question among many other things. Take some time to stop by his blog to read and comment on a few posts. He does offer translation of his blog, so everyone is welcome.

My Breakfast Byte on LMS Pitfalls

I facilitated a Breakfast Byte session at the eLearing Guild Annual Gathering and wanted to capture the points I shared and those of the participants. It's a long list so be prepared and is not in any particular order. These are many of the questions I've had to answer as I've gone along trying to get my system up.

1. Get your hands on a demo or sandbox version. Make sure you get to play with the LMS before purchasing.
2. Don't be in a rush to find something and just get it implemented.
3. If possible check to see what system others in your industry are using.
4. Make sure your team of stakeholders knows what they are looking for and need prior to viewing the demo. Make sure they are as informed as you.
5. Set weekly progress meetings with your vendor.
6. Ensure each side of the implementation knows exactly what tasks are being accomplished by each side (you and your vendor)
7. Make sure your HR database of employees has all the data you really need to track and report on your staff. Older HR systems may not have everything you need.
8. Make sure your HR system can communicated with the LMS system.
9. Consider whether you need an LMS that can be accessed from home or is inside the company "walls" enough. Can the LMS handle external access?
10. Training, training, training. Make sure you as the Administrator get training from a Learner level, then an Instructor level, and finally the Administrator level. Know what each person will see and be able to access.
11. Don't get pressured by the vendor to launch before you are comfortable with the system and know it is up to your personal/dept standards of excellence. Credibility will be lost by you if you launch to early and have too many bugs.
12. Ensure the reporting is extremely robust, customizable, exportable.
13. Roles - most LMS seem to offer training broken into learning roles. Is this a method you can use to group training for staff? Is this something that fits with your corp's learning models.
14. How robust is the testing/quizzing of the system? Is it even built in? Does the LMS mark a pass/fail or can it track down to the question level?
15. Can you import courses that have been created elsewhere and track the results from participation?
16. How well does the vendor understand SCORM compliance? Can they explain it to you?
17. Can you import courses or does the vendor have to do this for you? Each course could cost more money.
18. How user friendly and easily navigational is the system for learners, instructors and administrators?
19. Can students be easily updated, added, maintained?
20. Can the system be changed easily to match your organization's needs/branding? Can you do this or does the vendor have to make these changes?
21. Can you group your courses into categories that make sense to your learners?
22. Do you have a checklist of all the components that you want to see in an LMS to match your vendor against?
23. Can the system create courses (some can and still call themselves an LMS and not an LCMS)? More importantly, if so how robust are they or do you need to think about looking into a 3rd party course creation tool.
24. What types of content can be imported? video, audio, ppt, doc, xls, pdf, swf, anything else?
25. Do you and your vendor have the same idea of how the system will initially roll out? 1 course or several, only registration or online courses as well? Make sure you are both clear on what "go live" means.
26. Do you have the most current version of the system or are updates being created as you are trying to implement your system?
27. How often will you get updates?
28. Do you offer classroom courses as well as online courses? If so how well does the system manage the classroom courses for you based on your current training methods.
29. Research lots of LMSs before even going to the RFP stage. You'll be able to eliminate those that don't meet your requirements before going to stakeholders for input.
30. Name your LMS - give it a name that will mean something to your employees and keep them coming back to the system to learn.
31. Take advice from the vendor on how to role out the pilot of the system, but stick to what you also know will work best for your organization. They may have the methodology, but you may know the sample size that works best for you.
32. Find an IT buddy. Someone that can help you out and translate the computer language talk that goes along with implementing a system and getting it to talk to your internal system.
33. Find an LMS mentor, someone that has implemented a system before. Even if they implemented a different product they'll be able to advise.
34. Not everything is going to work 100% from the very start, so take it easy on yourself. Don't expect it all to fall into place right away.
35. Figure out what LMS elements are most important to you and get them up and running for the pilot, then work from there on making it more and more robust.
36. Do you have a backup plan should another dept start thinking and shopping for their own LMS?
37. How responsive is the vendor to your inquiries, troubleshooting, etc
38. Is there a yearly licence or one time fee, or per user fee
39. How often are upgrades issued? Are they part of the fee?
40. How long does the pilot take? How long do they think it will be up and running based on past customers?
41. Does the system track external learning events?
42. Do other users have comments they can share from learners of the system? Learner feedback?
43. Can you send email notification to learners?
44. Can it be integrated with your particular online calendar system?
45. Can you assign course dates to learners or do they have to assign themselves?
46. Is there space on the dashboard for news, updates, info text, on homepage?****
47. Is it searchable? By course title or right into a course? Do you have to use it’s elearning building tool to make it searchable?
48. Can you administer hands-on practical tests?
49. Are evaluations for courses available?
50. Does it have discussion boards, wikis, etc? Are these important to you? Do you even need them?
51. Does it have other social networking tools?
52. What is built in and what has to be an add-in?
53. How robust is the support documentation for the user and for the learner?
54. Can you set up courses that online some staff can access and not others? - assigned to a role?
55. Go to the top if you have to? Maybe weekly conversation with your project lead, but monthly meeting with owner of company or sales rep to keep project on track.
56. Try to list all the steps you will need to cover to get the system going.
57. What for vendors/sales reps that bully and are they showing you the "real" system? Can you see a demo from an actual user with out the vendor present?
58. How secure is the data by the vendor - if hosted?
59. Be prepared to go over budget.
60. Find out one key contact (from the provider) for your implementation project so that you can maintain constant communication.
61. Can you get ROI reporting from the system?
62. Can you produce performance appraisals, career paths, development paths? Is this something you need as an organization?
63. You can "turn off" the elements of the LMS you don't need or won't use.

Communication with your provider is the key

I called a meeting with our LMS provider on Friday. It felt as if we had come to a stand still again with the entire project. Some of that was on our part some on the part of the vendor.

Year end is never great time in any organization for true productivity. Top that off with our organization going through the Accreditation process. "Participating in accreditation demonstrates an organizations commitment to quality health care to its staff, patients, clients, and community. In the pursuit of excellence, thousands of health organizations voluntarily participate in Accreditation Canada's accreditation program each year." Getting down to serious LMS work really didn't fall high on my list of priority to-dos.

Once I had finished the majority of my accreditation tasks I got back into the fine details of the LMS. For a week (at least when I could) I looked at as many components of the system as I could. Looking for items I wanted changed, items I needed change, and components that just weren't functioning. Compiling a long list of these into a table, I sent them off to the vendor, our project lead, and our purchasing contract negotiator.

Our negotiator called a meeting with the vendor and to my surprise (and I use that loosely) I began to get a few more emails. Responded to my email queries were more timely. What had happened? We called. That's it.

Wrapping this little episode up....what I want to highlight again is the truly important need of communication from you to the vendor and from the vendor back to you. Both need to know where the other is in the the implementation process. I was being side tracked by other priorities, they were as well, but in doing so they have created some upgrades that I didn't know about and would have solved many sleepless nights and countless meetings I was having with my users. More regular discussions and open communication could bring your project to a conclusion much more quickly, with less complications and head aches.

Listing the Steps of the LMS is Difficult

I'm working on my performance plan of the last year and I'm finding it surprising that the area that has occupied the most of my work life, the LMS implementation, is proving to be the most difficult to map out.

I'm having little difficulty in listing all the steps for issuing our core training packages. I very quickly mapped out the process I followed to host our annual spring gathering for all staff. I even was able to list a few other major projects, but the LMS.....wow that is much more difficult.

Now I must find out why that is proving so hard. My best guess is that is has been a real trial and error from day one. There has been gains and set backs since the beginning and set backs seem to last so long that you forget where you last left off. I'm at that point currently. I last had a meeting with one of my end users in November. Once we met again last week we had a difficult time in trying to remember what we had first discussed and agreed upon. Basically we had to start over. Relook at the issues we "thought" we had previously, were they still the same, and did we have new ideas which with to rectify.

Now that I'm being forced (almost against my will) to list out the steps I'v currently followed and those that I plan to follow I'm having some trouble working through them. For the most part I believe it is avoidance, but I would suggest at this point to others to document your steps as you meet/pass them. I have an email trail, but if I could do things differently this would be one item I would have done much more in depth from the start.

When is the content enough? LMS Pilot has become too intense

I'm working on a school project where I get to use Blackboard as a teacher. I have an assignment worth 30% of my overall class mark, but the actual content of the course material I put into the system is only worth 1/3rd of the mark. I've been working at it and working at it creating this in depth learning course on using myUdutu.com to create online courses. I'm at the fifth page (.doc) of my course material and I haven't even gotten past the templates that are available to you as an author.

I'm now mulling over where do I "stop" the course so that it ends at an appropriate place (end of topic). When can I say I've done enough that's about 1/3rd's worth. I think I may be creating the supreme version of the course as opposed to the first chapter.

I've realized today that I'm doing the same thing with my LMS pilot or preparation for the pilot. I've been killing myself mentally and physically (okay only my fingers are cramping up, but it does hurt). I've been working endlessly to get all my physical course catalogue inputted into the LMS catalogue. I've been trying to create 2 elearning courses for the learners to try. I've also been trying to make sure the system works flawlessly from a student perspective, author, manager, and administrator.

A friend was kind enough to slap some reality into me today and allowed me to step back and look at it for what it is....a pilot. Not everything is going to work right away and it probably should not work perfectly. It should be expected that there will be things you'll want to tweak and fix so that it better matches your learners expectations. It doesn't need to have the entire course catalogue created. It just needs a sampling of classroom courses and online courses for them to register for and take. I have 2 SCORM courses from the Ontario Health Association that will make good test courses. One has sound and video. I would love to have one or two of our own courses in there, but it's not a necessity.

My LMS Tips for today is to take it easy on yourself, remember your pilot is only a pilot. It is simply there for you to test out the functionality of your system for you as an administrator and for your learners for ease and simplicity. Can they navigate their way around the system easily? Step back, simplify it for yourself, get the main components in that you require, it does not have to be at the 100% GO LIVE stage. Another really big big tip I got today as well is....you don't have to turn every part of the system on. Our system has the ability for the manager to approve a staff member taking a course. I've been going nuts trying to make sure this works....but why? Mangers don't do this right now in our learning environment, why do they need to do it online. Myself and my colleague aren't convinced it works the way we would want to any way. So we'll leave it be for now. Pretend it doesn't exist and deal with it later if we see it as a necessary tool.

Hope this too helps you sleep a little better my LMS friends.

Big Changes in My LMS World Today

A couple of key things have begun to happen today. One I attended a meeting with my key IT people and the HR manager. Our HR system is a little old (okay very old) and has not really been updated for the size of staff we have currently. It was a great little system 10-15 years ago, but now that we have tripled in size it doesn't really meet our needs. One of them being who reports to whom. We have been existing with who is paid by which budget line. Not great for accountability, performance support, or my LMS.

The good news today is that the HR system is now approximately 10% away from being complete to function the way we need it to for the current situation. We of course have larger, grander schemes in mind, but it will (should) suffice for now.

Secondly, I began to panic this afternoon as simple procedures within the LMS as an administrator seemed to have disappeared. So I fired off an email to the vendor, stated they must be up to something as everything was crashing on my end and I went to lunch.

To my surprise upon my return; nothing was fixed. I then decided forget it I'll work around the errors and keep doing what I'm doing. A bit more typing, a few more screens and suddenly I have new fields available to me for creating courses. My biggest excitement is they may have, just may have, found a way for me to input courses that run over multiple days. Yippee!!!!

My LMS tip for the day: create really strong communication connections with your vendor. Make sure that you each know what the other is doing, when, and for how long. We have run into several issues like this where suddenly nothing is working. We panic on our end, only to find out that they are fixing bugs that we requested be fixed. Unless you each know what the other is working on ill relationships and understanding develop very quickly.

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!!!

LMS Project....A Little More Progress

Well, where to start. Nothing has been happening since our last meeting in August, or so we thought. The LMS vendor has been working on there part but not quite according to the time lines we had initially set out upon. After a brief meeting today we set up weekly phone conferences between our LMS provider and the 3 project leaders (and some of their support members) here at work.

TIP 1-3 See (LMS - I don't want to be Little Miss Should've and Tony Karrer's LMS Gotchas)
TIP 4 - make sure you set up these meetings right from the beginning. Don't assume they are going to happen. This is the first way to ensure the LMS vendor is doing what they promised and that your team is doing what is expected of them to move the project forward.

We are now going to attempt to move a little more quickly then initially planned out. What does this mean? We are having several meetings (by phone) over the next few days to hammer out details of server preparation, staff database transfers and some remote training. We are going 0 to 60 without trying to go too fast. We are also aborting the idea of setting up the intranet first, then the CMS and then the LMS. We have decided to push at least the intranet and LMS forward at the same time. Amazingly enough though they (the vendor) is still convinced they can stick to the November go live date even with the several weeks of silence we've just gone through.

LMS - I don't want to be Little Miss Should've

"Okay, okay, okay...it's not all my fault Tony." --- I'd rather be Little Miss Splendid

Tony Karrer (eLearning Technology) posted today on his blog, 10 Gotcha's when implementing an LMS into your organization. Apparently after sharing my frustration yesterday, Tony helpped to point out that I may be experiencing #1 - Starting With an Unrealistic Expectation of What You Need, #4 - Failing to Identify Key Differentiating Use Cases, and #6 - Not Testing a LMS.

We've (my org.) have been trying to step into the LMS world since....uggg, my calendar says....2003. I'll start with Tony's #6 Gotcha. Yes, I'll admit to this one. No we didn't get hands on testing of anything and I think the reason we never asked was, we just wanted something anything, just give us the darn thing. 2003-2004 we had an IT Director that was keen on the whole project, got all the stake holders together and looked at one demo after another after another. He left, the project went stale, the money got filtered elsewhere and we lost the momentum. 2005 the new IT Director gets more push about an intranet....no...sorry....no funding, figure something else out. So, our make shift intranet is born. It's used. More and more department want a page/section on the site. Ah-ha, now he has some leverage to find funding and begin the ball rolling again. However, we are going to make sure we get an all in one package from someone that includes and intranet, doc management and LMS. After a billion more demos, some the same from the first round, we narrow it down to two vendors. I will share here as well that during one point of all this searching around there were issues with trying to make sure we were doing what other hospitals in the area/affiliates were doing. It would have helped with pricing, sharing, hosting, etc., but again we were sick of waiting and went and begun our own project. With the two vendors chosen, we invited every stakeholder we could think of (maybe too many) and armed with a series of must-haves we evaluated them again through demos (and referenced other hospitals using the products) and put it to a vote. Again, I'll add here.... we finally had the funding approved, we just wanted one, any one, get it going. So....no there was no hands on testing. (FAIL - perhaps, time will tell regarding our product and our satisfaction, but this was definitely an oversight.)

Gotcha #1...Unrealistic Expectation....okay maybe, this is a definite we'll see. I don't think we are aiming too high here. We know it's going to be a real challenge to get our staff to start using and embracing the system. I really would just love something that is going to track our staff education (outside the organization), something to help with booking the internal courses, and something to launch and better yet marked the annoying core curriculum (still marking the paper ones from June). (PASS - but barely, I think are expectations are okay, but listening and believing the implementation time line was very, very silly.)

Gotcha #4 - Failing to Identify Key Differentiating Use Cases...I'm going to admit here....I'm not sure what this one means. I'm going to need some help clarifying this mistake.

I will be very interested to see if any of the other Gotchas show up during this project. I'm keeping track now.