eLearning Content Development Guidelines
Content development can be defined as the process of creating content for a website/organization from start to finish. Web content can be anything from blog posts and audios to videos. Some agencies and online content creators only handle one or two aspects of the content development process. For instance, they’ll deal with the writing, but will not strategize or publish or promote. However, an effective eLearning content development strategy is much more than just writing or publishing. Thus, in this article we are going to talk about corporate eLearning content development guidelines.
Guidelines for Effective eLearning Content Development
The below mentioned seven-steps can be summarized as eLearning content development guidelines –
- Analysis – Analysis is usually the first step when it comes to eLearning development process. After creating the content, at this stage, you should be able to analyze the effectiveness of the learning content, profiles of the audience you are targeting, and the objectives of learning. Once the course is ready, pay attention to the objectives we have to accomplish.
- Creating the Instructional Design Document (IDD) – The IDD is a high-quality outline of the whole instructional approach of the course. Some of the most common steps at this stage include solving any problems, avatars and scenarios. At this stage, we decide how will we break down the content into various elements—whether it will be into courses, screens, or even modules. In a case where several courses are supposed to be created, each course needs to be created using a unique Instructional Design strategy.
- Scripting – One of the many eLearning content development guidelines is scripting. At this stage, we divide and finalize the content of each course. Then, we finalize the content on each screen. The document required for scripting is usually a word document, but a PowerPoint presentation also works equally well.
- Prototype Development – At this stage, you are presenting the entire course using a few slides. We finalize the content displayed on screen and audio. We decide about the final presentation of the content on the screen, interactivities, colors, animations and images. During this stage, there is a lot of writing, rewriting, and revisions that take place.
More Points to Consider:
- Developing The Course Without Including Audio – At this stage, we submit a practical course, but without audio, to the stakeholders. The stakeholders can make changes to the course content and narration. Once this is final, the next step of creating the audio begins. It is very costly to create an audio file and then recreate it with any iterations. Therefore, we create the audio file only when the audio script is final, to avoid additional expenses.
- Developing the Course with Audio – When the audio script is final, we send the final course to the stakeholders for another approval. The quality of the audio clips and the pronunciation are very important and have to be perfect. The audio developed has to be in sync with onscreen text, images and content.
- Creating the Learning Management System Version – The first six stages of eLearning content development are mainly creative. The final stage, that involves the creation of the Learning Management System version, is more mechanical and technical. The stakeholders have the responsibility of checking if the course is compliant or not. Once it is compliant, it is ready to be online and go live. The technical team has the duty of doing that.
Good content can only get a business so far – without the right strategy, or with the wrong advertising methods, no one is going to see the webpage one spent months developing. It’s hard work, but the benefits of content development are undeniable. At the end of the entire process, learners get an online course that helps them get quality and learn easily.
Contact us if you are interested in a eLearning training program that is tailored to the needs of your organization or team.
