Our LMS....Don't Get Me Wrong About it.

So this was interesting.  Today someone at a partner organization contacted me to get my impressions of Moodle verses the system I am currently using.  Apparently some of my posts from months and actually years past may have given the impression that I completely dislike my LMS.  That is not true.  Who doesn't dislike there LMS a little.  However, overall it's not that bad.  Sure there are some things I would like to see differently on it.  An upgrade next week may do just that.  The meeting I have with the CEO of the company may bring along even greater changes.  I'm excited that he likes to get together at least once a year to discuss potential changes that we can make to the system.  How many LMS CEO's come to you, in person and ask "So what can we do better?"

So just to clarify some of my earlier postings, please ensure if you refer back to them, that you take the date of the posting into context.  This was a long journey for us and that was mostly because we started from the bare minimum to the elabourite system it is now.  Also, if anyone every wants more clarification about any point I've made about our LMS implementation, feel free to contact me directly and I will give you the honest truth.  I'll hold nothing back and let you know the good, bad and ugly of implementing an LMS and going from a paper world to an electronic one.

Here are some thoughts on my old postings (a letter to my CIO):
The blog indeed has been a place for me, personally, to capture, vent and share my experiences with an LMS and its implementation in general. A great deal of the items mentioned stem from the initial implementation of the system. As you know, when we first got on board with the system it was not even close to the system we have now.

The close working relationship I have had with the vendor, my tech support there and even the CEO is one of the strongest points for the system.  As for my blog, if one is to put in “LMS” to search for items that I have posted I am happy to make some clarifications.

• October 21, 2010 – is a about how I would have started implement the system and in fact start the entire project differently. This was a lessons learned post that other’s might find interesting if they were starting from where we started. This was more about getting staff on board and not the system itself.
• September 16, 2010 – Is about our core curriculum roll out and some of the issues regarding staff completion.
• August 31, 2010 – similar to above, including “After some time with the system now live and working more with the vendor most of these issues have now been resolved and any further issues seem to be more user error than anything.”

The next one is from 2009

• Dec. 10, 2009 – upgrade was install and some issues were present. My tech support and I have a perfect reporting system for this and I have actually shared this document with several other elearning professionals around North America. It is an Excel document, but the process works perfectly and any issues like these do get repaired quickly.
• Sept. 28, 2009 – about creating tutorials online (an info posting only)
• Sept. 23, 2009 – the launch of the LMS – this is more of a complaint by me that not as many people were as excited about the launch as I was….hence the later posting in Oct. 2010 of lessons learned.

Anything prior to this would be during the initial implementation where we were I was in fact working for months with the vendor to create the system that is seen today. A very different system then from back in 2007 when we first started this project.

If there are any other points within the blog that anyone would like clarification about, I am more than happy to expand on them and give a personal account.

Comments, feedback and discussions that I have had with other elearning professionals, using other LMS have enlightened me to know that no one system is perfect. Neither is any one vendor. My issues of the past, present and future with the system are not uncommon. The fact that I have a support team that will fix any issue in a timely manner, is willing to and implements suggestions for improvements virtually every time I give them, is a company and LMS that I am happy to back up.

A Few Lessons Learned from an LMS Implementation (or what I would do differently)

Well it's been a few months now since I rolled out our LMS at our organization and FORCED (at least that's what the staff think) the staff to complete 6 mandatory course.  I humbly admit that I failed in a few aspects of this roll out.  I wouldn't say my initial plan was at fault, more so my follow up when the masses did finally start to use the system.

One step I would do in another was would be to send more progress reports out weekly (for this initial launch) to the management team on how users are completing the mandatory course task.  [The system was live for 6 months with basic classroom registration, then 6 mandatory courses were launched hospital wide.]  Had they known more frequently the progress we may have had more compliance early on.  I think this would have eliminated some of the confusion and "broken-telephone" conversations about the material that spread throughout the organization.  I think it may have also eliminated much of the trouble shooting I had to do as everyone tried to login at once, however this did find some fatal flaws the system had as well.

I would also increase tutoring sessions (what we call "lunch and learns") to assist those new to this format of learning and would spread them out not only to occur at the start of the launch, but also in the middle of the "mandatory package" time frame.  Even more importantly having a few sessions at the end when everyone was scrambling to complete the courses.  It seems to completely slip my mind that the late adopters that would login and try to do the courses were also those that needed the most help in learning how to use and navigate the system.  

This was our first true year of having staff use the LMS for mandatory training.  The management team didn't start to make sure their staff had done the courses until after the 4 month deadline and once staff did start going in more frustrations from those that are less computer savvy emerged.  I had, at this point, moved on from the "implementation/orientation" phase of the LMS and had lost my own interest and sympathy in training staff that didn't bother to "come out" to learn about the new system during the initial rollout.  I'd advise others that are starting out in implementing their systems to prepare themselves that when they are keen to rollout the new system, it may be months before the staff of your organization is ready to listen to you.  Finding that enthusiasm in yourself (again) to go out there and be as energized, enthusiastic, and willing to show it off the system are as key the first day for the early adopters as it is when the others come to you knowing they too must figure out how to use the system.

LMS Update and How My Organization Has Adapted to Online Learning

Our LMS implementation has been painful. Our nurse educators are keen to get everything they have been doing in classes or have access to in PowerPoint up onto the system. Not the best idea. So I'm slowly taking a topic at a time (mostly what is being driven by Ministry mandatory training first) and creating courses. We rolled out the system with registrations to classroom based courses and are biggest promoter is our Health and Wellness classes (pilates, yoga, etc). That got many people use to using the system, learning how to find and register for a course. It also got me to learn new ways to manipulate the system to "advertise" or list the courses in a more attractive manner than the default settings allow.

The next large push that met much resistance happened this past summer. We rolled out our Core Curriculum modules. 6 modules that are time consuming and painfully detailed. With little time to create them, the online versions are not entirely better than the paper versions of these courses. However, some of the feedback regarding the new online courses has been very positive.

Having to do training online has been a large change for many of our staff. There have been complaints of computer to staff ratios. There is, and always seems to be the argument, do staff train on work time or on their own time. If it is mandatory it should be on work time, but budgets are tight and no one has money to do this arrangement. So time is an issue even when it is online and they can go in and out as often as they want. However, the more I spread this message the more staff like that idea.

Management was very keen on the idea that staff could no longer do one paper test and pass it to all their colleagues to copy and hand in. The fact that online training is individual, increased the accountability factor tenfold and that is an extremely positive thing.

We are only just looking into integrating some blended courses into our curriculum, but this will most likely come with leadership courses that we offer and perhaps unit orientations. We have not quite got to that stage although I have presented many ideas.

The stats that my LMS put out aren't the best at this point in time. An upgrade that as been promised from the vendor for quite some time. I'm crossing my fingers it comes soon. I do know that since we launched the annual mandatory 6 courses (WHMIS, Occupational Health and Safety, Infection Prevention and Control, Incident Reporting, Accessibility, Emergency Codes) that 1000 people have registered for at least 1 of the 6 courses and 700+ have completed them. Not super stats based on the paper version, but on the other hand I do know that all of these people that passed actually looked at the material this year and didn't just fill in the bubbles on the answer sheet.

Some problems that we had come up were that even though I had 3 or 4 sets of eyes look at the courses, some errors were still found. These were spelling, grammatical and the occasional wrong answer to a multiple choice question. When these errors were corrected and uploaded as new versions into the LMS, learners that had registered prior to the new upload seemed to have error messages occur.

Staff that needed to take a course more than once to make grade often didn't have a certificate of completion issued to them.

Some courses didn't track completion. Some frozen and after multiple attempts learners got too frustrated to continue.

Some courses wouldn't relaunch and resume where a learner left off.

After some time with the system now live and working more with the vendor most of these issues have now been resolved and any further issues seem to be more user error than anything. I was really hoping the launch would be more seamless and less painful for my users, but that was a bit of a dream looking back now. I should have known how it might roll out considering the implementation struggles I had.

I'm happy to see that people are using, most are keen too, and that their hasn't been a lot of negative feedback. I'm most excited when I have a late-career nurse call me, frustrated that they can't figure it out, and after a few minutes on the phone with them walking step-by-step through registration and course launch that they exclaim "wow, I really can do this."

LMS Launch Happens in 11 More Sleeps

Wow, I really can't believe that the day has finally come. It's been delayed countless times since Fall 2007 for one reason or another and now in 7 short business days (including today) it will be here in all it's glory.





(image retrieved from: Nasa http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts121/launch/index.html, Sept 10, 2009)

I speak of our (MY) LMS. It's mine now. I've lost much of my sight peering deeply into my computer monitors over the last many months tweaking the system, finding faults, fixing and testing. I'm alone on my side of the project, but the overall launch has much to do with the great help I eventually received through the vendor to get the system just right. Once I had one true contact on the vendor's side things really begin rolling and we come to where we are now. A system that I think will suit our needs very well as we boldly step into the new Millennium. (Oh right we've been here for a while.)

I know it won't meet all our needs. Health care training is complicated. I'm finding that staffing alone is complicated and knowing who is responsible for which nurse is not as easy as you might think. However, it will do what we need it to do for an initial system. It will test our staff to see how willing they are to train using this method, it will push some of our more seasoned staff to try new things, it will force us to look at this entire need in a much different light and perspective.

My launch plan currently is to continue to test over the next few days (there are some minor glitches still occurring). I'm conducting 10 webinars for the management team members all next week so that they may get a look at the system. They have not yet seen any piece of the tool. Flyers will be distributed electronically and posted on our message boards for staff to see. I will be hosting 30 minute drop-in sessions on the launch day all day for staff to come and see what it looks like. Finally, I'll be in our main lobby the days following the launch over the lunch time shifts with several laptops so that staff may demo the system as I sit there.

Future plans will be some greater hands on training with educators and trainers that will need to create courses, track students, etc. I'm also anticipating that there will be a need to do some hands on training with staff to get them comfortable with using the system. I may deploy this as after hours webinars so that staff may look at it from their own homes. The only issue here is that we don't yet have a home access solution yet, but I talked to the right people on the right day and have the powers-that-be (IT Dept) looking at an extranet solution.

So I haven't written much in a while here, but I think you may see why now. I've been scrambling madly to get everything working, populated, piloted and ready to go. I'll continue to post on my experiences over the next few weeks as my "years' work" begins to come to a close and a new phase begins.

LMS Pilot Launch is Official

Well it took forever to get my LMS launched and the pilot finally happened last Friday. Once I had an actual launch date I was completely consumed trying to get the system ready to show my pilot team.

I'll add this tip to my list of things of things to think about when implementing an LMS....pick a date any date and stick to it. It took a long time to get to the point that I felt 75% comfortable with the product I had, but once I was there I finally (got the nerve) chose a date and shared it with the vendor and pilot participants. This put great pressure on the vendor and myself to MAKE SURE that it was ready to go and was actually launched. There was no holding back and perhaps I should have done this step sooner to push the vendor and even myself into completion.

I've had great feedback so far from about half of the group, which is great. There are many issues that they are coming across which I knew about but weren't sure how they would play out live. There are also many that they are sharing back to me that I did know about but have no idea how to "fix". Then, there are the several interesting ideas about tracking and managing the learners through the system that I never even considered.

I'm quite excited to be at this stage to actually see if the system is actually going to launch live in the hospital. There is a chance it won't measure up to my educators' needs, but there's a chance as well that it will meet what we need for this point in time.

The pilot runs for the next 3 weeks and it will be interesting to see if the big issues to me are big issues to the pilot group or if perhaps I'm being to critical. I'll continue to post regarding this latest process of the LMS implementation.

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!

Too Busy To Keep In Touch

I haven't posted much lately because I've been swamped with so many tasks at my office. The entire department seems very overwhelmed lately. For those curious, I am madly working away at my pilot launch. I'm convinced that it will be a go for next Monday. Whether it is at 100% ready to go or not. Those items not working should be noted by my pilot group and their extra input should hopefully reinforce the necessity of these items to work before the go live date to the organization.

I sent a list into the vendor of what needed to be "corrected" and that contained well over 30 items. I've yet to see many of them fixed yet. Again, I'm going into a slight panic mode. I'm very unsure of why they say "Sure, Yes, We'll concentrate on you and get this going in a few weeks." What actually happens is you don't hear from them for a few weeks wondering all the while what is going on and where your project stands.

It's sad that I'm already wishing for the next LMS before this one has even launched. (Dan: you'll be the first one I call as soon as I ever get a budget... :)

We'll this all being said has left me with the urge to write a nasty email to the vendor...again. I get to wishy-washy on the phone and less demanding as I need to be with them.

Wish me luck!

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.

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.

Back to the grind stone, almost!

Well my first day back from vacation did not disappoint. I tried extremely hard while away to never think of work; I think I succeeded about 98% of the trip. I had planned to come back and even had blocked off 3 solid days to just click through every single screen of my LMS.

I'm now at the MAKE IT HAPPEN OR ELSE stage of the implementation project. Now realizing I have little choice (economically) for any change to a new system and now need to focus in on every detailed aspect of the system from both a user perspective and an administrative perspective. My goal is to create a list of everything I want to change and prioritize the changes needed with respect to being able to launch the LMS. Is the change a must have, nice to have, can make do with out if necessary? This list of changes will then be presented to the vendor along with my posse (the initial project lead, representative from purchasing - we're still in RPF, and perhaps my director) for discussion on whether any of the requests are possible.

At first I was getting responses from my vendor rep. "yes we can look into that", then it turned to "I'll see what the IT guy suggests", to finally "no". I didn't like the no's and so the new strategy of a list and meeting with the CEO of the company will be our next step. I believe most of my ideas won't require too much change, but I know this is the way every end user thinks.

So my first day back, as I said, was to be the launch of the great little new plan. Of course the "work gods" had different ideas for me and of course our Organization Chart needed to be produced instead. I'm not sure why suddenly so many people want this particular document. I'm also not sure why I'm the one creating it....oh yes, let's thank my former boss for that one (she's lucky I like her so much or I would track her down). One full day of work was all it took me to produce half of the chart. Yes one full day = half an org. chart. I'm hoping a have system down now and the second half will come more quickly so that I can move forward with my LMS must haves.

Great to be back.

Potential Questions to Ask When Having an LMS Demo'd

I've been having other LMS vendors contact me wanting me to see demonstrations of their systems several times over the last year. A situation arose recently that made my department seriously question the system we had in place and should we switch to another vendor. I made arrangements to visit a colleague at another hospital to see their system first hand from a user's perspective rather than the sales pitch that provided by vendor demos.

I can not begin to tell you how invaluable this visit turned out to be for my learning. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I actually had some features that she didn't have offered on her system. I was able to ask what the best features were from her perspective and which ones she never bothered to use. This was such a great comparison and was quite relevant as we both work in health care, I with 2700 employees, her with 10,000 employees and 4 sites.

I thought I'd share some of the questions I took with me on my visit as they might come in handy for you should you be on the LMS shopping journey. I highly recommend seeking out someone else in a similar industry to you and seeing first hand how the user is using the product. If you can do it with out the vendor's assistance I believe you'll get an even greater unbiased opinion from the user. The questions are in a particular order and some may seem like they have obvious answers, but I've learned that you can't be so sure of what is exactly included in a system.

1. How does the system import user ID information? (Active Directory, or what every system your HR team uses)


2. How responsive is the vendor to your inquiries, troubleshooting, etc.


3. Can users access the system from home? (Is this important to your organization? - probably)


4. Is there a yearly licence or a one time fee, per user or for the whole system?


5. How often are upgrades issued? Are they part of the fee?


6. How long did the user take to pilot the system? How did they run their pilot?


7. Does the system track external credits?


8. What kind of comments have you heard from learners using the system?


9. How intuitive is the system for learners and users(admin)?


10. Does the system allow for email notification to learners?


11. How many years has the person being using the system? How much longer do they plan to continue using the system?


12. Does it integrate with Outlook or what ever mail/calendar system you use?


13. Can you display course thumbnails or other images?


14. Can course due dates be assigned or does a learner have to manually adjust?


15. Is there space for News, Updates, Info text to be displayed on homepage of system?


16. Is it searchable? How so? Might you need to purchase a mini-search engine?


17. Can you administer practical, hands-on tests/assignments to users?


18. Are evaluations attached or part of courses?


19. Does it have discussion boards, wikis, etc? Are these important to your org.?


20. What kind of reporting does it allow? Can it be exported? In what kind of formats? Is it customizable - can you report on anything/everything?


21. Is it SCORM compliant? What version?


22. How robust is the support documentation for the user? For the learners?


23. Can you set up course/info that online one particular set of learners can access?

I'm sure there are a million other questions that could be asked, but I hope these at least arm you with the option to seek out greater knowledge of a system before you commit to purchasing. Please feel free to respond with additional questions someone buying a system might want to have answered.

LMS Is Not Managing Classroom Based Training

My days and nights are still consumed with the issue that our LMS does not manage classroom based courses well at all. I can not find a work around for our courses that run over many different days. The vendor gave me a solution if they are all in the same week, but that doesn't solve it.

• I tried making session 2 a whole new course and that session 1 is a prerequisite, but they can't register for number 2 until they pass number 1.
• I tried about putting all the sessions under one certificate, but they can't register for a certificate only an individual course.
• I tired making one course and just putting all the dates in the details, but that doesn't help the instructor keep track of everyone showing up for all sessions.
• I tried letting the learner registering for the first session and the instructor registering them for all the other sessions (hidden from public view). Nice idea however the instructor is never notified if a new student registers, they would have to go into the course, see who is new, go the the learner management screen add the other sessions (of which they can't see entirely because the window is too small), and then go back and look up the next new learner. Too much for an instructor that may have 6 sessions and 30 learners.

I'm at a brain freeze trying to work around this issue and about 60% of our in class teachings are like this. I'm ready to scrap the whole think and become a shepperd.

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.

LMS Big Dreaming...Darn

I was so close to being happy....they almost had it. Update to my earlier post (moments ago). Further investigation by me is they haven't quite got it yet. They have grasped the concept that a course may take place over many days with in a week and that each day the time may be different, but what if it is over several months. Giving me the option to enter in a class that happens Monday at 2:00 and Wednesday at 3:00 doesn't quite solve my problem.

Mine is I have 1 course that runs twice a year (2 sessions). Each session has 6 modules (full days). Due to the lack of rooms available to us they are not always every other Thursday or follow any pattern for that matter. I have one schedule Feb. 12, Feb. 26, Mar. 19, Mar. 26, Apr. 9, Apr. 30 2009. Take a look at a calendar and see how scattered these are, at least they are all Thursdays. Luckily they are all in the same room, but this is a fluke.

My vendor is close to solving it, but not quite there yet. I've taken their screen shots and with some graphic editing resent back to them what I was hoping for instead. Fingers crossed I'm not dreaming to large.

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.

Latest LMS Implementation Issue - External Access

So one (of the many) things to keep me awake at night right now, in regards to my LMS implementation is the whole issue around access. Currently our intranet is not accessible externally. Our LMS portal runs through our intranet.

Management and physicians have access to the network from home or external offices. The issue now is the 2600 other staff that don't. The several issues I have with this are how do we expect staff do complete mandatory education that will be provided as elearning packages if we 1) don't have enough computer stations for them to use, and 2) have limited amount of free time we can give them on the job to do the packages. The logical choice then appears to let them work on it at home through the elearning system.

Hense my dilemma.....that does not exist. Please tell me these issue begin to dwindle at some point.

eLearning & LMS Implementation Mentor Needed

Driving for 3 days at 8 hours at a shot gave me lots of time to think, ponder, and worry more and more about the LMS implementation that is a few weeks away. I reach out to my peers quite often through this and am so grateful for all the help I continue to receive. I know now I really need your assistance again or even a mentor that I can ask questions of and bounce ideas off as I move forward over the next few months.

I am a department of one and I am only a subsection of our Organization Development department. My project is of course then not the priority of the department, but one of several priorities (yes, an oxy-moron for sure). I made the mistake of looking a my email the last night of my vacation and that threw lots of questions and worry my way.

Please assist/answer any of these if you can either through this blog or through my direct email. Any advice is sincerely appreciated.

1) I have many depts in my organization that are all wanting to develop self-learning packages (everyone is sick of doing training for 2600 people 10 students at a time).

• Do I let them each develop their own training and leave it at that?
• Do I let them do the developing and then assist with giving suggestions where it can be improved?
• Do I develop guidelines/procedures that they have to follow when creating their own training packages? (Does anyone have an example?)
• I've had recent questions about getting Articulate. I know Articulate and Captivate each have their own merits. Wondering if someone that has used both can give me some background on their preference?
• Do I let them produce their packages in PowerPoint and then have them give the material to me to convert into elearning courses?

Any suggestions.......(whew)....I'm ready for vacation again and haven't even stepped foot back in the office yet.

Careful what you name your LMS

I was just brainstorming with a friend from our Corp. Communications on a name for our LMS. I've been looking into this for a bit, but it slipped my mind and now I need to come up with something.

So we threw around the words "university", "college", "academy", "elearning", "online", "intranet". Finally we came up with Southlake Online Learning. Sounds plain. Sounds simple. SOL is catchy. It's "brightening our Stars for tomorrow.

Oh ya, in case you missed it the acronym is S. O. L. If you don't know what else that stands for....give me an email.

Back I go to brainstorming.

Feeling behind, overwhelmed, leading to discouragement - LMS blues

So I guess I have the LMS blues. I'm coming to what should be the final stretch of getting the LMS functioning. I should have access to a new version of the system. I should have several courses on it for users to try out. I should have our HR system talking to our Active Directory system, talking to the LMS and functioning. I should have a pilot group all set ready to give it all a try. I should feel like things are coming together.

BUT I DON'T.

I, like most of you, feel completely swamped by the every day tasks that come my way. The barrage of emails, the phone calls, and the drop-ins. They are all taking their toll and time away from me being able to concentrate on the tasks at hand. Getting the LMS running.

I'm in a bit of a panic there in that I'm not convinced the people that can (IT) have been able to get the HR system to have all the fields populated that should be populated so that we know who reports to whom instead of who gets paid by whom. Even if that is completed, I'm not sure our Active Directory is picking it up yet. However, as B.J. Schone has told me many times....always have an IT buddy and I think Ryan is mine. I gave him some blank discs today...he said he can get the AD up to speed in no time. So I hope it works, I just have no control or authority to say "make it happen".

As I said the drop-ins have been a bit overwhelming so I don't know if the new system is ready for me to try out or not. When I say new I mean a few tweaks here and there. But the vendor's idea of a pilot group and my idea are off by about 60 people. I don't want to test the system and see if it works and functions. It should upon purchase. I do want to have a small representation of various users give it a go and tell me if they can easily navigate and find what they need, register, take a course. If they can't then perhaps some tweaks, but more likely change the training to address the gap.

Finally the time line. According to the vendor I should have everything in place, oh let me see, yesterday. Doesn't work like that. Most of the elearning people I have connected with are departments of one. How many of us have time to concentrate on one thing either? Don't get me started if you are in health care. My colleagues here in Ontario would definitely know that most of us wear 2, 3, and sometimes 4 different hats. Each of those have their own priorities as well and let's not talk about where our bosses think our priorities should start.

Okay. I feel better, well at least feel it's off my chest. Thanks for the rant. I think I've covered a few concerns I hope you'll concern if you go through an implementation.