New Interfaces With a Preloaded Image

Use the 20 new interfaces with a preloaded image when you want to create a course quickly. You will no longer need to load images or clip-art and still have great graphic design results.

These interfaces are different from the ones that are already in Shift as most of them display icons instead of characters.

Click here to see an example of these new interfaces.

Automatic Saving of Interfaces - This new feature allows you to save the content inside one of your course’s interfaces automatically by simply clicking on the preview button This will allow you to see how your screen looks and save it at the same time.

IMPORTANT: Make sure you click on the Save button before you attempt leaving an interface and going on to another, or to the course’s main screen. If you fail to do this, the last modifications made to the interface will be lost. 

Interface Instructions

You won’t have to worry about placing the instructions for the student in the Drill Down and Exercise interfaces anymore.

All of these screens now have instructions which will be placed by default reducing time in editing and typing.

It also ensures standardization of all instructions inside a course which should have a clear message displayed to the student.

Icons on the Text Only Interfaces

Choose the icons on these interfaces faster by simply looking at the newest thumbnail in real time on each interface.

Pick a code from the drop down list and you will immediately see the thumbnail change to display the icon chosen.

Navigation Bars

Customizing your course’s navigation bars has never been easier. You can include your company’s logo just by loading a file with the following characteristics into Shift:

• Name: logo_nav.swf
• Size: 70×25 pxls

Remember to load the navigation bar you want prior to loading your logo, this will allow the navigation bar to add the logo properly.

Other Updates

Images

Obtain high graphic quality courses in no time! Shift’s newest image editing improvements allow you to vary the image’s original size without losing quality.

Click here to see a video sample.

Maximizing the Wizard

Shift’s Wizard will now be displayed in a pop-up window that can be maximized. This will allow you to read all the training handbooks without having to scroll horizontally.

Correction on the Game “The Hare and the Tortoise”

Whenever this game was used, you would see the Spanish word “Meta”. This graphic material has been corrected so that text is no longer displayed in the image.

Correction on p47’s Script

The course’s or screen’s script was missing a file called “instructionsini.mp3″, this error has been corrected.

Reduction of the Text Allowed Inside p25’s Title and p41’s Instructions

The text space included in the interfaces mentioned above previously allowed for an unlimited number of text characters. Now each space will have a maximum number of characters allowed.  Whenever the amount of text placed in the screen exceeds the number of characters permitted, you will see a horizontal bar which indicates that the text inside that specific field has gone over the limit.

Most experienced project managers follow the same 5 steps when making decisions in order to keep their projects on track, under budget and deliver successful results. These 5 steps apply to any kind of projects but how do they relate to eLearning development projects? Let’s try to find out.

Step 1: Research the problem

When a problem comes up during a project’s execution, take the first step by spending the time needed to identify its root cause and also to ensure it’s not just a symptom of another underlying problem. Project problems are usually related to people, processes, equipment or materials. Find out when, why and how it occurred and the impact it may have on your project.

If you want to identify the root cause of the problem, you should probably ask yourself the following questions:

-       Is the problem related to content handling?

-       Is the problem related to graphics?

-       Is the problem related to the functionality of a particular screen?

-       Is the problem related to the implementation of the final results of your eLearning project? For instance, are you running your course locally or on a LMS?

Step 2: Prioritize the issue

Projects tend to have a common characteristic amongst them that problems occur all the time and in order for you to handle all of them efficiently, you will need to determine whether each problem needs your urgent attention or not, based on the impact it may have on the development process of your eLearning course. If its impact is high, for example: it will cause a delay on the due date or it has a negative impact on the project’s costs) then you have a “high priority issue” and you need to stop whatever you’re working on and get it solved as quickly as possible.

Sometimes, adding extra content (more than the one originally provided by your end customer) to an eLearning course will have an impact on the delivery dates or could increase the overall cost of the project. Issues such as those are no doubt high priority issues that require your immediate attention as a project manager.

Remember that being clear and concise about the scope of your eLearning project is a key important issue in achieving successful outcomes. In order to do so, you must be aware of the nature of the content provided by your end client as well as the expectations they might have on the end result, but most importantly, you need to be in sync on the learning objectives associated to it. Always ask yourself if the issue threatens in any way the learning objectives of your course’s development and rely on your lead instructional designer to double check this.

Step 3: Identify the solutions

With a clear understanding of the problem and its priority level, you need to identify several ways to address it. After doing so you can review each alternative according to the following check list in order to determine whether it would actually be the best choice possible:

-       Does it solve the root cause of the problem?

-       Is easy and practical to implement?

-       Will prevent the problem from re-occurring?

Keep in mind that the learning objectives of the course you are developing are the most important elements of your decision making process. Therefore, gather your team and together try to find solutions that will help you achieve those objectives. Even better, motivate your team to come up with solutions that will improve those objectives somehow or that will contribute in a positive way of the project’s timeline or your client’s pocket. They say that two brains think better than one, so imagine what a whole bunch of brains would do!

Step 4: Make your decision

Now that you have gathered all of the information you need to make your decision, be careful not to make your decisions too hastily. Take time out of your day to cautiously consider all of the pros and cons. If it’s necessary, go for a walk to clear your head, but always remember to take a little more time when making critical decisions that will directly impact your project’s success.

Simple decisions such as deciding what you’re going to have for lunch can be easily done in a heartbeat, but when the making choices that will directly impact the timeline, cost or learning objectives of the eLearning course you are helping to build need a research process and clear mind thinking that can’t be rushed or taken for granted.

If the issue you’re dealing with involves functionality, keep in mind that SH!FT offers a whole set of templates and options that could help you come up with a solution. Remember that even if your subject matter experts or sponsors are asking for changes or new functionalities, you can always rely on SH!FT’s Support System in order to make it happen.

Step 5: Act on it

Once you have thought it through, taken a long walk and finally made the decision you think it’s best, you need to be fully committed on implementing it. Act on it immediately by informing your team about it and then scheduling all the necessary tasks to make it happen. You can keep track of your decisions by using SH!FT’s documentation repository, specifically in the Project Management folder associated to your eLearning course.

All problems, no matter how small they are, will affect your project in some way or another, so you will need to act quickly once a decision on how to handle it has been made.

If you follow these steps for every decision you might have to make through the process of your eLearning course, I can assure you you’ll make more concise, faster decisions.

No doubt you’ll feel good about it!

Author: Juan Carlos Vidal, Production Manager

Planning your eLearning projects ahead of time allows you to execute it properly regarding quality, costs and time.  In the production process, the little details count as much or more than big aspects if you want to control the variations that might occur in your outcomes.

It is common for a lot of people to take part in the planning process and in the project’s general aspects; nevertheless, the fewer people involved the better, because tuning in the basic aspects that make an eLearning project successful is what sometimes gets harder to do when there are a lot of people pitching in ideas. These variables are harder to measure because they require technical, specific knowledge to understand them.

Variables, such as the ones mentioned above, that take a part in an animation’s design process are: number of drawing lines, amount of steps, quantity of text per image, quantity of text per step, amount of images per step, number and level of difficulty of the programmed actions, amount of characters or new scenarios, etc.

When there is no control or knowledge over the effect of the variables that make up each task, they’re process is usually called “black box” because its results (cost, time and quality) are really hard to control or they present a variation range wider than expected.

Another important aspect is controlling the sequencing of these variables. If you’re aware of the possible sequencing and its effects, you’ll be able to gain control over the process and adapt it to obtain the desired results. For example: if you want to reduce its delivery time, you can subdivide and overlay the micro execution of tasks in order to achieve minimum production time.

A way to compensate for the lack of control in the process is by clearances. The inconvenient of doing this is that they absorb a lot of inefficiencies that don’t give an added value and that make the process slower, more expensive and more prompt to mistakes. 

So, the more entry variables you know the better control you’ll have over the results. This control becomes more important as the flexibility of the process increases. This means that any increase in the variety of your products or the answers they demand from the process, will require more control over it to satisfy the demands.

A less flexible process, that isn’t controlled properly, has a tendency of establishing a satisfaction point, which is harder to change as time passes by.

If your process isn’t handled properly, there’s a good chance that frustration, wearing out, breaching of goals, blockage, etc might occur, that’s why it is important to have at least one person in charge of the productive process of your eLearning courses.

How can SH!FT help you control your eLearning development process?

SH!FT is a powerful tool that allows you to control every step of your eLearning development process because it automates most repetitive tasks associated with eLearning development. 

Through a single login screen, based on profile, the user will have access to only the courses and the roles within those courses assigned to him.  No room for unauthorized people or unskilled people to change things.

By integrating all users, administrative work and especially document traffic (among team members) is eliminated. The development process is parallel among team members and Shift is responsible for managing the complexity.

Shift’s win was announced on Thursday, April 29. The winners are listed at www.brandon-hall.com.

“We are very enthusiastic about the win because it recognizes the power and uniqueness of the Shift tool. I think this technology will be truly disruptive for Instructional Designers and corporate budget holders everywhere,” said Rick Beaudry, Co-CEO of MindMuze.

Shift is a completely new approach to eLearning. It is a rapid eLearning tool, a workflow management tool and a collaboration tool.  Shift is offered in a software-as-service (SaaS) model, so instructional designers can collaborate with others, no matter where they are. All processes are managed within the tool, including managing graphics, interactive elements and even requesting quotes from external third party partners. Shift’s database driven architecture also makes localization and subsequent changes simple. All this, combined with MindMuze’s best of breed mentoring and training, makes Shift the best choice for Learning Professionals.

“Shift is truly revolutionizing how eLearning is built,” said Randolf Kissling, CEO of Aura Interactiva. “From the early days we could see that the industry needed a tool like this – and now it is getting the recognition it deserves.”

The Brandon Hall Excellence in Learning Technology Awards are presented by Brandon Hall Research, one of the leading research firms in training and development. The Learning Technology Awards program showcases innovations in the products in the marketplace for creating and managing learning, talent, and performance.

“These outstanding tools and systems propel the learning profession forward,” said Brandon Hall, Ph.D., chairman of the Awards program. “These innovative products let customers make learning faster, better, and easier.”

The entries were evaluated by independent judges around the world.

About Shift

Shift is disruptive.   It s the result of international cooperation between Costa Rica, the United States and Canada. It all started with highly successful Costa Rica-based eLearning developers Aura Interactiva. They had created an eLearning tool to help them more efficiently create courses for their high volume global clients. In 2009, Aura Interactiva formed a North American distribution partnership with MindMuze, one of the most innovative eLearning companies in the world. MindMuze used its own unique training processes developed with its sister company, B Virtual to create the best of breed mentoring and training for Shift users. Learn more about Shift at www.shiftelearning.com.

About Brandon Hall Research

Brandon Hall, Ph.D. is the CEO of Brandon Hall Research and author of the ground-breaking “Web-Based Training Cookbook.” Since 1992, Brandon Hall Research (www.brandon-hall.com) has been providing independent research reports and expert advice on using technology in learning. Brandon Hall Research conducts Awards programs each year to recognize the best in innovative learning.

Publicist: Stefanie Sigurdson
E-Mail: stefanie@convertinc.com
Phone: 416-642-8470 x 200

But what’s interesting about this tool is not that it’s web-based, but in the commercial model:

• Purchasers have completely free access to the tool to develop content.
• MindMuze (North American Distributors) are proactive in providing support and advice to help you both creatively and technically in coming up with effective content.
• You pay only when you publish content, on the basis of the number of ‘pages’ in the content.

This is an output-oriented model, so MindMuze has every incentive to help you make productive use of the tool. Why? Because they make money from what you produce rather than from the product sitting on the shelf. In adopting this model, MindMuze are taking on a lot more of the commercial risk. They are also demonstrating a great deal of confidence in their product.

With our new Brandon Hall Awards, we are definitely confident about Shift – more details coming soon!

Some of the activities we suggest for a successful eLearning strategy implementation include:

1. Corporate objective training: the implementation should have clear objectives, but they should be aligned with corporate objectives. Otherwise, the eLearning project could become an isolated effort, and achieving expected results would be impossible. This could even wipe out the project in the early stages

2. Corporate culture training: the organizational culture should be considered because it can be modified as a result of change, and employees could miss benefits and care provided by traditional methods. It is important to keep users posted on the new benefits resulting from eLearning and develop a contingency plan in case of change resistance.

3. Management or department levels in charge of user training: getting management involved in the training makes it easy to achieve greater employee commitment. Moreover, it is part of an overall planning that if it maintains a good communication with organizational objectives, it will become a more difficult chain to be broken.

4. Start training with firm leaders: (remember that leaders are not necessarily linked to positions but to their personality and characteristics since they are natural leaders followed by their colleagues). Preferably, these leaders should not belong to the training department.

5. Easy training access: occasionally, technological investment is needed to provide the organization with adequate training infrastructure and offer the best access to students.

6. Policies and Procedures: defining project boundaries, guidelines, and scope is related to the definition of policies and procedures used in training development.

7. Training on competencies and partner personal development: using eLearning training for the benefit of employee competencies and real needs helps the user enjoy the use of a new method,

8. eLearning internal marketing: depending on the organization, it is necessary to use different ways of marketing the methodology, especially when it is something new. eLearning marketing helps to create expectations about the training, motivate, and provide information on the topic.

9. Follow-up: Methodology use and acceptance should be evaluated. Moreover, there should be an assessment to determine whether users are transferring the knowledge resulting from the training to their jobs.

10. Recognition: it can be part of the methodology marketing, but it is important for the employee to feel motivated and be recognized as a result of the training. The recognition could be group-based, i.e., departmental, as to create healthy competition within the organization.

Narrated by celebrated environmentalist Dr. Suzuki, this complimentary fully interactive guide can be accessed from the comfort of your laptop or desktop. It’s packed with a wealth of content and tools, as well as an avatar of Dr. Suzuki to help you navigate through the program. The eLearning module can help employers and employees:

• See to the benefits of going green at work and learn how to influence behaviour within the organization

• Create a roadmap for a green action plan including sections on transportation, waste, energy use, a healthy workplace and water conservation

• Action green initiatives with a plan on how to make green ideas into reality

There are Two Easy Ways to Access the Tool

• Access it through a simple HTML link
• Add it to your Learning Management System for deployment to your organization (we could even custom brand it below at no cost, see our offer)

See a sample now.
Access this free tool now.

This Tool Was Powered by Shift

This 90 minute course was built in 30 development hours by the MindMuze team utilizing the new disruptive eLearning platform – Shift. To learn more about Shift, please go to www.shiftelearning.com. To contact us on how you can use Shift in your organization, contact info@mindmuze.com.

See a sample now.
Access this free tool now.

When managing a project, you need to document both the customer’s expectations as well as the project’s history, based on important decisions that will be made along the way. To do so, you can use the process groups that are suggested and globally accepted as best practices in project management and then develop templates that you can use during the project’s lifecycle.

You can choose which documents to use depending on the project’s characteristics, but here’s a list of the most common templates you should consider:

Initiation

Business Case: To justify the financial investment in your project, you need to write a Business Case. It lists the costs and benefits, so everyone knows what the return on investment (ROI) will be.

Feasibility Study: Before you kick-off your project, you will need to determine whether your project is feasible, using a Feasibility Study.

Project Charter: You will then need to document the objectives, scope, team, timeframes and deliverables in a Project Charter.

Planning

Project Plan: Create a Project Plan listing all of the tasks required to undertake your project from start to finish. Every task must be scheduled, so you know what needs to be done and when.

Resource Plan: Next, you will need to plan your resources by documenting the money, equipment and materials needed for your project.

Quality Plan: Set quality targets, so that the project deliverables meet your customer’s expectations.

Risk Plan: All of the risks need to be documented as well as their likelihood and impact on the project.

Communication Plan: Plan your communications, so that you send the right messages to the right people, at the right time.

Execution

Time Management: use Timesheets to track time spent on your project. Then update your Project’s Plan with your Timesheet data to see whether your project is still within schedule.

Cost Management: Track your costs using Expense Forms. Every expense is formally logged and approved, so that you can confirm at any time that you are currently under budget.

Change Management: Document each change on the project scope, using Change Forms. So you are able to control change ensuring that your project is always on track.

Risk Management: Use Risk Forms to document each risk associated with the project. You can then manage project risk carefully to guarantee that nothing will affect the project’s schedule or budget.

Issue Management: As you move further along the project’s schedule, you will see that issues tend to come up along the way, that’s why you will need to research its impact on the project and then write it down on an Issue Form. You can then begin performing the necessary tasks to solve it quickly.

Closure

Project Closure Report: When your project is complete, document all of the actions needed for a proper closure. This includes releasing teams and suppliers, equipment and materials.

Post Project Review: After your project has been closed, you can review its success and document the results for your sponsor. That way, you can show that all of the objectives were met and that the project was delivered on time and within budget.

SHIFT and your project’s documentation

SHIFT allows you to store in a single location all the documents that, as a project manager, you are going to develop for you eLearning project. Keeping your PM documents in a single spot is a great way to control access and versioning of those documents.

To do this, simply go to the Course Documentation section and then choose the “Project Management Documents” category. After doing so, you will be able to upload into the system as many documents as you need, considering the recommendations we have provided in this article to plan and keep control of your project.

By completing each of the documents suggested here, you can boost your eLearning project’s chain of success. Take advantage of SHIFT’s functionality as a document repository, this will allow you to store important documents in one place and also to keep your team and customers informed at all times.

ELearning products, such as SHIFT, are well structured tools that provide the end user with an interactive form of knowledge transfer.  

In order to assure your eLearning project’s success, you must combine a powerful, collaborative authoring tool with an ideal strategy for its implementation.

Experience and theory lead us to the same conclusion: implementing eLearning requires a series of essential activities and organizational changes which are considered “success factors” in your company’s eLearning strategy.

Planning is the starting point in the process of embracing the eLearning methodology, and it should begin by analyzing your company’s business environment, which will help you decide whether or not you will need to be prepared and make changes in case there is any resistance or lack of motivation from your staff.  

There are several “key success factors” for the implementation resulting from proper planning:

• Corporate objective training
• Corporate culture training
• Management or department levels in charge of user training
• Start training with firm leaders
• Easy training access
• Policies and procedures
• Training on competencies and partner personal development
• e-Learning internal marketing
• Follow-up
• Recognition

Proper planning can go a long way when it comes to implementation, but remember that not all companies undergo the same situations, that’s why whenever you are thinking of taking the leap towards eLearning be sure to have all your team on board advocating for organization’s new training methodology and all the changes that might come with it.

The first step towards managing your eLearning project’s finances is to define its budget and the budget’s control process. It can be summarized as follows:

 Step 1: List the project´s financial expenses

The first step when defining a financial plan and setting a project’s budget, is to identify all of the different expenses that are likely to be incurred throughout its lifecycle. Typically, most eLearning projects spend the majority of their budget on labor but may also include purchasing, leasing, renting or contracting resources.  Word of advice:  take into account the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership).  This TCO takes into account not only the initial development cost, but also maintenance and updates through the useful life of the project.

Step 2: Quantify the financial expenses

Once you have identified a detailed list of the project’s expenses throughout its life cycle, the next step is to forecast the unit cost of each expense type listed. The unit cost is the rate of a single unit of a particular item. For instance, the unit cost for labor may be calculated as the price per hour supplied.

Now that you have gone through steps 1 and 2 listed above and you have forecasted the total amount of people, materials and other expenses needed to develop the eLearning project, you have defined the its budget. A best practice will be to find back up funding. This is additional funding that, if needed, can be used to deliver the project.

Step 3: Develop schedule of expenditures

The expenses’ schedule enables the project manager to calculate the total cost of undertaking the project on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. You can calculate it, based on your project’s particular needs. This step consists on figuring out when the expenses will take place during the project´s timeline. By doing so, you can get an overview of your project´s cash flow, which tells you the amount of money you need at a given period of time during the its length.

Step 4: Define the financial tracking process

Now that you have an expenses’ schedule, you will need to define a process for monitoring and controlling it. This step is oriented to develop the mechanism that will track every expense, hopefully, on a periodic basis. If you can get your team to wait until an expense is approved before incurring in it, then you can control each expense more easily. In order to track the team´s operating cost, you will need to assign an hourly rate for each team member. The total amount charged for the hours undertaken by those resources must be shown in your schedule.

Step 5: Track and manage

Track, in real time (highly desirable) work effort accomplished versus your schedule.  If you find that you are starting to spend more than you have budgeted, analyze the options you have to stay within budget:

1. Re-forecast your expenses and present a new budget for approval.
2. Start reducing costs immediately. This means spending less to get the same job done. Or alternatively, see if your sponsors will agree to a reduced scope for the project, so that you have less to produce.
3. Start using your backup funding to get you through the project’s crux.

Cash flow management requires you to always have enough funds available to cover your spending over the months ahead and track your spending at least every week.

SHIFT and your eLearning project’s budget

How can SHIFT help you manage your eLearning project’s budget?   At first, as a project manager you might think SHIFT is devoted to help instructional designers do their jobs better. However, SHIFT includes tools that will help you keep your project under budget:

-       SHIFT will give you visibility for the whole development process.

-       SHIFT will dramatically reduce your TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), driving down the variability in maintenance and update costs to manageable and predictable level:  no hidden maintenance costs.

-       SHIFT allows you to assign tasks to different team members of your project and keep track of their progress within development environment.  You will also keep track of the status of each task (really helpful in closing up all pending items before publishing a course). 

-       SHIFT will give you real time status on each piece of work to be done in order to finish your project on time and on budget.