Add Web 2.0 to Your LMS
Studies indicate that building professional social capital is one of the biggest causal factors of high-performing channel partners. Today’s social media and Web 2.0 tools, give organizations the means they need to help channel partners build their social capital.
By incorporating Content Management and Web 2.0 capabilities with Learning Management System (LMS) functionality, you can support targeted learning and performance support objectives:
- Streamlining access to LMS courses and resources tied to ongoing training and certification activities – Tailored to the individual, providing at-a-glance status and next steps information.
- Increasing visibility and ease of access to additional performance support content – Both resources tied to training and certification requirements, as well as those in support of day-to-day job activities.
- Centralizing and streamlining access to disparate resources – Focusing on enhancing access and availability, not redundancy of information where possible.
- Incorporating new ways to deliver knowledge and best practices within, and across, learner communities.
- Employing tools and technologies to aid in content presentation and administration while engaging end-users through personalization of content and updated look and feel.
- Expanding inbound contribution of knowledge and best practices by increasing collaboration and cross-pollination within, and across, learner communities.
By adding Web 2.0, users have access to a range of training and performance support information, made possible through intuitive, taxonomy-driven navigation. The user can also leverage the robust search features spanning several key knowledge areas, including news and announcements, product and technology information, as well as targeted skill-building resources and training aids. Additionally, ‘spotlight’ content (i.e. hand-picked articles, videos and lessons from various knowledge areas) are made available on the user’s home tab to aid in overall knowledge sharing across functions.
How You Can Leverage Web 2.0
Here’s an example of how you can leverage a Web 2.0 LMS to improve organizational performance.
Personalization and application extensions helping to tailor content:
- Product and role-specific resources:
- Product materials including Web-based courses and self-contained web-based learning objects, videos, MP3, and content available in various document types (PDF, Word, Excel)
- Function-specific best practice documents, job aids and real-time postings – this includes blog postings (currently one-way dissemination due to legal constraints) for prominent service and warranty issues.
- Integration with other applications, enabling deep-dive product review, as well as real-time inventory and pricing for pre-order vehicle configuration with customers.
- Personalized ‘widgets’ for operational managers integrated with the LMS, providing windows into employee training and development activities.
- Extensions – examples of new integrated functionality (‘widgets’) to aid in the presentation of personalized training and performance information include:
- My Training Status – Providing student-users with current certification status and upcoming training requirements, as well as real-time pending approvals information for managers.
- My Rewards Status – Presenting sales users with the latest incentive payment information.
- My Sales Status – Providing sales user with up-to-date sales performance data and personalized ranking across several targeted organizational levels.
RSS news feeds and audio/video casts
- Real-time RSS feed to access existing internal and external news feeds, which includes administrative tools and work,flow to review, refine and apply metadata tags (for search and distribution) prior to publishing.
- Audio and video casts, both internal and from preferred training partners and service providers
Blogs
- Two-way blog targeted at sales populations – This capability includes work,flow checkpoints for mediated approval and refinement of content as needed.
- One-way blog postings implemented for service and warranty-related topics.
Polls and surveys
- Survey all sales, service-technical and corporate user communities. Weekly polls on a range of business-focused topics, tailored and deployed based on department or position group as defined within the LMS.
- Ad-hoc surveys for deep-dive exploration of training-related topics. Leveraging metadata definitions allow for distribution of online surveys by department or position group.