Scotiabank

Profile
Scotiabank is one of North America’s leading financial institutions, and Canada’s most international bank. Through its team of 68,000 employees, Scotiabank Group and its affiliates offer a diverse range of products and services, including personal, commercial, corporate and investment banking, to almost 14.6 million customers in some 50 countries around the world.

Challenge
With such a distributed workforce, Scotiabank quickly recognized the need for consistent training and began creating eLearning in 1995. Initially, eLearning was delivered via CD-ROMs, but in 2002, during the implementation of their Learning Management System (LMS), Scotiabank discovered Lectora authoring software. Using Lectora enabled Scotiabank to evolve their online training into cutting-edge, easily accessible eLearning.

Solution
John Brisbin, Senior Manager, Training Technology at Scotiabank, knew that Lectora was the right tool for the organization because it’s AICC and SCORM compliant, integrates seamlessly with their LMS, and provides several 508 compliance accessibility features.

“In just a few days, anyone can learn how to create eLearning with Lectora.”

Brisbin was thrilled with the ease of use of Lectora. “In just a few days, anyone can learn how to create eLearning with Lectora. Once you learn the basics of Lectora, your possibilities for creating engaging eLearning are endless.”

Scotiabank found that Lectora is sophisticated enough for advanced developers, yet simple enough for those that are new to eLearning development. Creating templates in Lectora has enabled Scotiabank to have new developers create even more robust content. “Our novice developers can open up a template and have the majority of the layout and design completed. Then, all they have to do is plug in the content and add some engaging elements,” added Brisbin. This has helped Scotiabank to create eLearning both quickly and efficiently.

“The translation tool in Lectora is great! We were able to reduce costs with external vendors because of this time-saving feature.”

In addition, Brisbin also notes that creating courses in other languages with Lectora is simple. “The translation tool in Lectora is great! We were able to reduce costs with external vendors because of this time-saving feature.” Currently, Scotiabank delivers courses in English, French and Spanish.

Scotiabank has multiple departments that are involved in training within the organization. There is a centralized learning group for all eLearning standards, best practices and bank-wide learning, as well as many other departments which specialize in particular business-line learning functions.

In addition to the in-house learning development teams at Scotiabank, the company also utilizes external vendors to create training. “We make it a standard for our external vendors to create our courses in Lectora because we know it’s standard’s-based (AICC & SCORM), can have an easy upgrade path for content, and we can easily update or make changes in-house,” said Brisbin. “As a result of working with us, many of our vendors are now using Lectora as their tool of choice.”

Results

Due to the satisfaction with Lectora, it’s now the principle authoring tool at Scotiabank. To date, the company has developed more than 800 courses – 99% of which were developed in Lectora. With an unbelievable 95% completion rate, all 68,000 Scotiabank employees have taken at least 1-2 Lectora courses. Training is available on almost every type of topic you can think of – from regulatory training to sales knowledge, product knowledge, systems training, and more.

“To date, Scotiabank has developed more than 800 courses – 99% of which were developed in Lectora”

Scotiabank has a plan to create many more courses with Lectora over the next few years. “Lectora will continue to be a mainstay and core piece of our eLearning plans for the future,” said Brisbin.

For more information, contact Trivantis toll-free (877) 929-0188

Best Western

Profile
Best Western International Inc. is The World’s Largest Hotel Chain®, with 4,200 independently owned and operated franchise hotels. Based in Phoenix, Arizona, Best Western supports more than 316,095 quality guest rooms located in 80 countries and territories throughout the world.

Best Western’s team provides support and training services to tens of thousands of employees of its franchise hotels. With worldwide locations and a limited number of trainers, an elearning solution was essential to leverage Best Western’s management expertise and knowledge across all of the member owned hotels.

Challenge
Developing online courses that could be accessed by associates presented a challenge for Best Western because computer technology varied widely across all hotels.

“In the beginning, we thought we’d simply publish the courses on CDs or possibly have a third party host courses on the Web,” said Julie Metelski, Best Western hospitality and management trainer, “but we really needed to track who had signed up for courses, who completed the courses, who passed, and more. To manage the courses and the data, we began looking at learning management systems (LMS). Our prior success with Lectora and Trivantis led us to consider CourseMill LMS Services.”

Solution
Best Western’s first LMS decision was to select either an installed software or a hosting service solution. “Our IT group wasn’t keen on supporting and maintaining an in-house LMS,” said Metelski, “so Trivantis’ CourseMill —a hosted learning management system—was a perfect selection for us. We’re able to track and monitor our learners’ performances without adding additional IT support or equipment,” added Metelski.

“We’ve come to utilize Trivantis as a partner in our elearning program, said Metelski. In addition to implementing Lectora and CourseMill, we’ve also engaged Trivantis’ Custom Development Services (CDS) team.”

The CDS team built a series of courses for Best Western hotel owners and their staff on the efficient, profitable management of reservations. “The Trivantis team kept the course development on schedule, which was important to us. The resulting courses were professionally done and well-received when we rolled them out. Regardless of their level of computer skills, our associates are finding the courses to be easy-to-use and beneficial,” said Metelski.
 

“We currently have thousands of users accessing Best Western’s Continuing Education Center and taking the first required training courses. We could not have accomplished this without Trivantis’ help and great products.”

Results

In just over two months, Best Western completed the development of its first training module, brought the CourseMill learning management system online and launched its first phase of elearning to its North American hotels. Within the first six weeks of the rollout, the online training proved easily accessible by associate hotels with nearly 4,000 associates’ employees taking the courses. Phase two of the online training will be to Best Western’s international members. “We currently have thousands of users accessing Best Western’s Continuing Education Center and taking the first required training courses. We could not have accomplished this without Trivantis’ help and great products,” said Metelski.

BioSoteria

Profile
BioSoteria is a drug safety consulting and training company that provides high quality, innovative drug safety consultant services and educational programs to the biopharmaceutical and healthcare community.

BioSoteria offers a wide range of drug safety and pharmacovigilance consultative services throughout the product lifecycle, including premarketing safety surveillance, postmarketing pharmacovigilance, and therapeutic risk management.

Challenge
Dr. Sally Van Doren, the CEO and founder of BioSoteria, recognized through her years of biopharmaceutical experience that there was a lack of convenient, comprehensive training on drug safety and pharmacovigilance.

There are limited options for individuals that want to study drug safety. Many drug safety experts either learned on the job or started off in the medical field and fell into the position by chance. To date, there are no colleges or universities that offer a drug safety degree or full suite of courses.

Dr. Van Doren founded BioSoteria in 2007, and quickly wanted to develop online courses for the biopharmaceutical and healthcare community in the content areas of pharmacovigilance and drug safety.  To begin the eLearning process, Dr. Van Doran hired Michele Flewell, VP, eLearning & Informatics.

Flewell used eLearning in past positions, but was primarily familiar with outsourcing the eLearning production/programming to expensive vendors.  “I would have a course storyboard ready for the hired programmer, but somehow, my vision would always get lost in translation and I would end up with a course I did not like and that I could not alter,” said Flewell. “Without the ability to update or alter courses, we would have to go back to the programmer and have them make the changes for us, which was time consuming and expensive.”

Because the pharmacovigilance field is always changing, Flewell knew BioSoteria needed their own authoring tool so that their eLearning team could update and change their eLearning courses and content without having to rely on expensive outsourced programmers.

Solution
With the help from Flewell, BioSoteria began their search for the perfect eLearning authoring tool.  Flewell went through many demos of different authoring tools and reviewed a well-known market research report before she finally chose Trivantis’ Lectora. “I liked Lectora for its ease-of-use and its robust features.  I love how I can update any of the courses or content within minutes without having to call a HTML expert or a programmer,” Flewell said.

BioSoteria’s eLearning team also loves the fact that they can integrate just about any type of file into Lectora. They incorporate flash, illustrations, audio, and animations into courses to add interactivity and engage learners. They even record their own audio in a studio and bring it into Lectora. “Lectora acts as a ‘spine’ to pull together many different engaging elements,” said Flewell.

BioSoteria also uses Lectora Integrator, which enables them to convert Microsoft PowerPoint slides into Lectora. “Our Subject Matter Experts use PowerPoint to add in all of their content and we easily convert the slides into Lectora.  This makes our content development and storyboard process effortless,” said Flewell.

To speed up the course creation process, Flewell relied on Trivantis’ Custom Development Services department (CDS) to create a graphic user interface that was branded specifically for BioSoteria. Because the GUI was developed within Lectora, everything was easy to update by BioSoteria if they chose to do so.

Dr. Van Doren’s dream of drug safety courses was finally coming true. With the ability to create eLearning in-house, BioSoteria’s courses were being created quickly and efficiently with minimal programming costs, which allowed them to allocate precious resources to technical content experts, instructional system designers, and media assets.  Now all BioSoteria needed was a Learning Management System (LMS) that could host the courses for the public to access.

Since Flewell was now familiar with Lectora, she decided to go with Trivantis’ CourseMill LMS.  According to Flewell, “I chose CourseMill for its low cost and its scalability.  It is a LMS that will grow with us as a company and that I can rely on.”

Results
By using Lectora at BioSoteria, creating online courses became easier and faster, Flewell shares. “Lectora empowers us because we now all have the ability to go into Lectora and make any changes that may come along due to regulatory requirements—a must in regulated industry training.”

“Our courses were built from scratch with limited resources and funds - Lectora and CourseMill made it all possible,” added Flewell.

Since January 2009, with the use of Lectora and CourseMill, BioSoteria was able to launch two engaging courses, containing Flash, audio, graphics, and interactive application exercises.  BioSoteria is expecting to roll out their newest course this June.  Twelve courses in a comprehensive curriculum called eLadder Safety are planned—all developed in Lectora and offered via CourseMill.

BioSoteria is currently using Lectora and CourseMill together in three different ways.
 

• If a company currently has their own LMS, they can purchase the drug safety courses and publish them to their LMS.
• If a company does not have an accessible LMS, they can purchase the courses and have them hosted by BioSoteria on CourseMill, providing the customer with an online training solution that is easily accessed via the Internet.
• Those looking to go into the drug safety field can purchase any of BioSoteria’s courses on their website and access them via CourseMill.

Not only does BioSoteria save money with Lectora, but so do their clients. According to Flewell, “We customize assessments to fit each of our customer’s requirements. This is easy and painless with Lectora because we can easily turn certain functionality on or off at little to no cost to the client.  Previously, we would have had to pay a programmer to modify the course which would have cost our client more money.  Without Lectora, not only would we be spending more money, but so would our clients.”

Moving forward, BioSoteria would like to use CourseMill to offer courses that will provide learners with a certificate of completion and Continuing Education Credits (CEU).  CourseMill has many ecommerce and scalable features that will allow BioSoteria to grow and strengthen as it provides eLearning drug safety courses to more and more of the healthcare community.

Profile
Canadian Fitness Education Services Ltd (CFES) is a program publishing house, fitness education and leadership training company – providing educators and students fitness leadership program resources for more than 25 years. CFES Fitness Leadership Program modules are designed to take students through the steps in fitness instructor and personal trainer registration/certification under the National Fitness Leadership Alliance (NFLA), a Canadian partnership of provincial not-for-profit fitness certification/registration agencies. The NFLA sets standards for fitness leadership registration/certification, allowing fitness leaders transferable accreditation across Canada.

CFES aims to enhance the activity effectiveness of Canadians through quality educational programs, products and services. The company provides programs and publications that are academically credible, highly practical and thoroughly enjoyable.

Challenge
As a publishing house and fitness educator, CFES provides training and education resources to those who want to become certified fitness instructors as well as to teachers, coaches, athletes, and other professionals in the health and wellness fields. In 1989 the company developed a traditional distant education version of their CFES Fitness Knowledge Course classroom student resources, recognizing that not everyone interested in fitness leadership had the ability or time to attend classroom courses. Then in 2004, in order to provide students interested in learning at home with more tools for credible and engaging learning, they began developing online components for the program. At this time, they decided to use Authorware to create online program supplemental learning courseware. While they thought it was an okay tool, they weren’t thrilled with the ease of use and as the tool became more and more obsolete, they ran out of resources. Soon enough, Authorware exited the market and CFES was in search of another easy-to-use authoring tool.

Solution
Morrie Zaitlin, the Manager of IT and Media at CFES, investigated four other tools to create the online training program and decided upon Lectora by Trivantis. “Lectora beat out all the other tools by far,” said Zaitlin. “Lectora has an unbelievably low learning curve and is so easy to use.”

“Lectora beat out all the other tools by far. Lectora has an unbelievably low learning curve and is so easy to use.”

With just two in-house developers, Zaitlin and his team member began hammering away at the development of their online program. Because Lectora was so fast and easy, they were able to focus some time on developing very interactive and engaging elements into the course. For instance, they shot several videos and voiceovers in house to ensure that explaining certain exercises was clear to the learner. As Zaitlin says, “If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a million.”

Zaitlin and his team believed that developing a course with videos, audio, animations, and illustrations was key to having a successful program. After all, you can’t just teach an exercise by having someone read how to do it --- they need to see it, hear it, and practice it. Lectora was the perfect solution for this need.

CheckFree

Profile
CheckFree Corporation is a provider of financial electronic commerce services and products. From powering electronic billing and payment to automating financial transactions and streamlining regulatory reporting tasks, CheckFree’s broad range of solutions continue to set new standards for quality. CheckFree employs more than 4,000 associates worldwide and has excelled in its industry for more than 25 years.

Challenge
CheckFree trains and educates its thousands of associates and partners via elearning courses in order to save time and money. In creating these courses, the elearning group experienced several problems with the two different authoring packages they were using for development.

Sighle Brackman, Training Staff Consultant at CheckFree stated, “The most significant issues with the competing authoring packages included:
 

•   User interaction in the authoring tool was too complex
•   Steep learning curve with too much technical expertise required for trainers
•   Technical and distribution issues resulting from plug-in requirements for running courses from a browser or LMS

Solution
Due to these issues, they began investigating Lectora authoring software, which they learned about through several contacts and colleagues. After a thorough evaluation by Brackman and five other associates at CheckFree, they chose Lectora for their elearning authoring solution. “I remember seeing my first demo on Lectora and being blown away,” said Brackman. “I was simply amazed at what I saw and was thinking ‘Yes! This is exactly what we need.’”

The CheckFree team cited Lectora’s ease of use, reasonable learning curve, plug-in free functionality, and easy PowerPoint® integration as key factors in their decision.

Most importantly, Lectora could easily integrate with any LMS allowing CheckFree to track associates’ assessments and ensure compliance within the banking industry.
 

“The benefits of Lectora have extended ‘beyond the basics’ for CheckFree and provide the company with a full elearning solution.”

-Sighle Brackman, Training Staff Consultant

With Lectora, CheckFree can quickly and easily develop compelling training, efficiently administer elearning courses, and effectively assess associate knowledge.

Benefits
Because Lectora was so easy to learn, CheckFree was able to streamline its elearning development giving the training team the freedom to create all types of elearning courses.

"With Lectora, we can easily collaborate and share elearning projects, effortlessly incorporate tests and animation, and seamlessly integrate with our learning management system," said Brackman. The benefits of Lectora have extended ‘beyond the basics’ for CheckFree and provide the company with a full elearning solution." said Brackman.

CUE

Profile
Corporate University Enterprise, Inc. (CUE) is an educational consulting firm that brings a strategic approach to workforce education in both private and public organizations. The company was formed in 1998 and serves clients throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. CUE focuses on strategy, evaluation/metrics, operations/management, and curriculum/design within the strategic learning arena.

Challenge
A large federal government agency contracted CUE to design and deliver 24 hours of online training. This agency told CUE that the course must be completed in six weeks and they would need to find their own method of developing the courses. Linda Hawk, a consultant in the curriculum services division at CUE, was the project manager on this task. The client contacted her on a Friday afternoon and wanted her to present a project plan to them by Monday.

“The time frame to deliver not only the courses, but also my proposal was extremely tight,” said Hawk. “The problem, however, was that I had never developed an online training course since my expertise is in instructor-led design. This meant that I needed to find a tool to create and deploy the content both quickly and easily.”

Since Hawk and her team had minimal HTML or programming skills, they were in need of an easy-to-use authoring tool that gave them the ability to instantly publish to HTML, make quick changes on the fly, and easily import a range of file types.

Solution
On that late Friday afternoon, Hawk began her search for authoring tools on the Internet. After comparing several authoring tools, CUE chose Lectora by Trivantis not only because of the prompt customer service and friendly sales team, but also because it met all of CUE’s needs. “Since we were creating courses for the federal government, we needed to make sure that we had an authoring tool that was up to regulatory standards,” Hawk said. “Therefore, Lectora was perfect for our needs because it is AICC and SCORM compliant and also meets 508 compliance standards.”
 

“Lectora was perfect for our needs because it is AICC and SCORM compliant and also meets 508 compliance standards.”

Hawk also chose Lectora because it is easy to learn and use, yet provides all the robust features that CUE needed. Lectora provides the flexibility of publishing to multiple platforms, thus eliminating the need for programming skills.

Benefits
Hawk and her team learned Lectora in one night! More importantly, they were able to develop all of the government agency’s online courses within 35 days. In addition, the courses seamlessly integrated with Plateau, the government agency’s learning management system.

CUE has been using Lectora for other projects in the private and public sectors. For example, Hawk and her team were contracted for another project in which they were given 42 slides to convert into an online training module. With Lectora, they were able to finish the project in just one weekend!

Hawk noted that CUE will be using Lectora even more in the future due to the success of the product. “Lectora has helped CUE to develop just about anything,” said Hawk. “Not only did it help us to complete our large government project, but we have also used it to complete other assignments here at CUE. Lectora made it possible for us to create elearning content faster and easier than we ever thought possible!”

Chrysler

Profile
Chrysler, a worldwide automotive company with more than 380,000 employees, produces a range of vehicles, including small cars, sports cars, luxury sedans, vans, heavy duty trucks and coaches.

Chrysler Academy (formerly DaimlerChrysler Academy) is Chrysler’s retail training organization. It provides training and performance support to over 100,000 employees at 3,600 Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge dealerships across the United States. BBDO Detroit’s Retail Performance Solutions (RPS) group partners with Chrysler Academy to produce and deploy multiple training solutions including interactive courseware.

Challenge
Chrysler Academy (CA) and RPS needed an authoring tool that would work well with their LMS and LCMS, was easy to use, and had the ability to output SCORM 1.2 conformant manifests. They also faced the challenge of working with more than ten, CA-approved, outside vendors to create elearning content. This meant that they would need a tool that could create easily shared templates for the vendors to use. In the search for a tool that met its requirements, Chrysler Group investigated Lectora, Producer, SynchroWare, FireFly, and Macromedia Breeze.

Solution
The investigation and comparison of these authoring tools found that Lectora was the best tool to suit DCA’s specific needs. “We chose Lectora for its ease of use and the manifest output options,” said David Hooten, Technology Implementation Manager at Chrysler Academy. “Lectora is a rapid content development tool that our vendors can learn easily and use readily.”

Benefits
CA, RPS and many of their vendors quickly realized several benefits from using Lectora. In the Chrysler Academy’s first application with Lectora, they put it to the test. Chrysler Academy’s School of Technical Training wanted to convert their 12-disc CD library, Fundamentals of Automotive Service Technology, to the Web. Time was tight and budgets lean. It would require three vendors working simultaneously to meet the schedule, but the end product would need to look and feel like a cohesive library. Lectora came shining through. One vendor built the templates for all vendors to use. Not only did this save time and money, it provided the cohesive look Chrysler Academy wanted.
 

Overall, Chrysler Academy found that development time was cut considerably, in some instances by as much as half, by using templates created in Lectora.

In addition, The Chrysler Academy also realized further savings because, with Lectora, Chrysler Academy could reduce the number of skill sets required to develop selected courses. Before CA and RPS purchased Lectora, they needed seven experts in different areas to create a course. However, on the quick-to-market courses, “Lectora enabled Chrysler Group to cut out the Production Manager, Flash Expert, Programmer, and System Designer from the course development process,” reported CA and its partner RPS.

Chrysler Academy continues to strive for the right blend of web vs. live, knowing that their audience, the retail dealers, prefers web to avoid travel costs and time out of the dealership. Chrysler Academy estimates that developing and deploying targeted Web-based training creates savings as high as 35% both for dealers and the Corporation over traditional live classroom training.
 

Developing and deploying Web-based training creates savings as high as 35% for Chrysler Group and its dealers over traditional classroom training..

All company names, brand names, trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners.

Great-West Life

Profile
Great-West Life & Annuity Assurance Company serves millions of Americans with its full range of health care, life and disability insurance, annuities, and retirement savings products and services. It is an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Great-West Lifeco Inc. and a member of the Power Financial Corporation group of companies.

Challenge
Great-West originally began creating computer-based training (CBT) programs with Outstart’s TrainerSoft authoring tool. However, they soon found that the tool couldn’t meet their needs. “Trainersoft wasn’t as robust as we hoped,” said Dave Iglicki, Trainer at Great-West. “We experienced several customer service issues and were not satisfied with the results.”

When technical issues occurred, Outstart was never available to help Great-West work through the problem. In fact, Iglicki often could not get in touch with a live support person at Outstart.

Solution
Due to the low satisfaction with Outstart’s Trainersoft authoring software, Great-West began investigating other authoring tools. Iglicki and his colleagues then narrowed their search down to three products: SkillSoft, Macromedia Authorware 7, and Trivantis’ Lectora.
 

“We chose Lectora for its ease of use, rapid development features, and robust capabilities.”

-Dave Iglicki, Great West Trainer

After thorough evaluation, Great-West concluded that Lectora by Trivantis was the best authoring tool to meet their needs. “We chose Lectora for its ease of use, rapid development features, and robust capabilities,” said Iglicki. “Lectora has advanced features that provide the flexibility for our technical employees to create high-end content, yet its ease of use enables our non-technical SMEs to create robust courses as well.”

Benefits
Great-West found Lectora to be an ideal tool for its organization. Currently, Great-West utilizes Lectora to create a range of training programs, including technical training, product training, employee training, and policy compliance and acceptance.
 

Great-West found that Lectora by Trivantis was 75% faster than Macromedia Authorware 7 in creating Computer-Based Training programs.

In developing these training courses, Great-West has found that Lectora provides many benefits. For instance, in an initial eight hour test conducted by Iglicki, he found that Lectora was 75% faster at developing content compared to Macromedia Authorware 7. In addition, “Lectora provides a variety of templates for faster development and has the ability to integrate different authoring systems,” said Iglicki.

Healthlink, Inc.

Profile
Healthlink, an IBM company, is focused on providing IT consulting services exclusively for healthcare provider organizations. Healthlink has worked with the nation's leading academic medical centers, integrated delivery networks, and public health organizations.

Healthlink has more than 600 consultants serving clients throughout the nation. The company’s teams of healthcare operational experts have completed more than 2,400 client engagements exclusively for healthcare provider organizations.

Challenge
Healthlink trains hundreds of its consultants on its proprietary methodologies and tools each year. Many of the topics are complex and advanced. Prior to adopting an elearning component, Healthlink consultants received training in a traditional classroom setting.

Healthlink recognized that much of the classroom time was spent teaching foundational concepts, leaving less time for advanced topics. In an effort to make the training process more efficient, Healthlink adopted a blended-learning strategy, whereby foundational concepts would be taught using an online Web-Based Training (WBT) format and advanced topics would remain in the traditional classroom format.

Solution
In order to accomplish this, Healthlink embarked on an elearning initiative. Prerequisite content was identified and determined to be ideal for WBT deployment.  Healthlink then set out to find an elearning authoring tool. Healthlink’s requirements included finding an easy-to-use authoring tool capable of creating fully interactive, self-paced, media rich courseware.

In addition, the tool had to be SCORM compliant and reasonably priced. Healthlink created a tools matrix against which several leading authoring tools were evaluated. Among the tools evaluated were XStream RapidBuilder®, Trivantis' Lectora®, Global Knowledge On Demand®, Macromedia Captivate®, and Enlight, Inc® software.
 
Benefits
"Our matrix helped us to determine that Lectora provided all the features and functionality that we required," said Paul Gonzales, Training Specialist at Healthlink. "We found that Lectora eliminated the need for a programmer and enabled us to create WBT courses quickly and efficiently."

In addition, Lectora integrated seamlessly with SOLO Learning’s SCORM compliant Learning Management System.  The blended learning approach, which Lectora made possible, has been well received by Healthlink’s consultants. The WBT courses greatly complement the instructor-led training.
 

"We get all of the functionality that we need from Lectora without the added cost and effort of a programmer’s time."

-Paul Gonzales, Training Specialist

In fact, due to the overwhelming success of the courses, Healthlink has adopted Lectora as their authoring tool of choice and will continue to create engaging content with Lectora.  Finally, Gonzales said, "the best thing about Lectora is that it is so easy to use that our instructional designers have become WBT developers themselves.

Due to Lectora’s built-in functionality, ease-of-use and cost savings, we have been able to eliminate the need for a programmer. Because Lectora eliminated this need, we have been able to adopt a rapid development process. We get all of the functionality that we need from Lectora without the added cost and effort of a programmer’s time. Our instructional designers have been able to be as imaginative as they like and Lectora has been able to accommodate their creativity."

KY Dept. of Health

Profile
The Kentucky Department of Public Health/Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (KDPH/CDC) selected Trivantis Corporation’s Custom Development Services (CDS) team to develop several interactive online training courses. "The expertise and knowledge of Trivantis’ skilled graphic designers, multimedia experts, and instructional designers, led us to choose Trivantis as our custom development vendor," said Jeff Brock, Immunization Registry Coordinator at Kentucky Department of Health.
 

"In order to accomplish all of our elearning initiatives, we would need a skilled team of course developers who could quickly meet our needs...we called Trivantis."

-Jeff Brock, Immunization Registry Coordinator

Challenge
The Kentucky Department of Public Health/Centers for Disease Control & Prevention will soon begin implementing an electronic Public Health Records System (ePHRS). In order to successfully launch this new software system to healthcare agencies and practices statewide, KDPH/CDC needed to develop elearning modules to teach users the step-by-step process of login, patient record lookup, patient record creation and update, ad hoc reporting, and access to online help. "We knew that in order to accomplish all of these elearning initiatives, we would need a skilled team of course developers who could quickly meet our needs,” said Brock. “Therefore, we called upon Trivantis."

Solution
In order to help KDPH/CDC meet the challenge of training healthcare officials across the state on the new online system, Trivantis’ focus lies in three main components of the project, which include creating engaging online training modules, a help module, and a Graphical User Interface (GUI) gallery.

Trivantis has already begun to develop two interactive online training modules that will help to teach the ePHRS system in a fun and engaging environment. Filled with images, text, interactivity and software simulations, the online modules will walk users through the basics of the two components of the ePHRS system—the Disease Surveillance Module and the Immunization Registry Module.

Trivantis was also called upon to develop an online help module that will be accessed by users directly through the ePHRS system. This help module will provide instant help to users while working in the software. Users may type in key words or topics of interests to search for helpful hints and topics on how to perform functions in the new system.

Trivantis’ CDS team is also developing a Graphical User Interface (GUI) gallery that will include intuitive GUI designs that meet pre-established branding specifications. As avid Lectora users, KDPH/CDC will use the pre-made GUIs to aid them in creating future courses of their own to be used for healthcare training throughout the State of Kentucky.

"The progress to date just proves to Kentucky Department of Health that we made the right choice in selecting Trivantis,” said Brock. “I am confident that the finished product will be more than we could have asked for."

Lakota Local Schools

Profile
Lakota Local Schools, the eighth largest school district in Ohio, is comprised of 19 schools. Lakota is home to five National Blue Ribbon Schools and has earned "Excellent" status by the state of Ohio four consecutive years. Lakota Local Schools serves more than 17,000 students and 1,500 teachers and staff and continues to grow rapidly each year.

Challenge
Lakota typically hires 40 new teachers each year, all of which require special district-specific training before each new school year. Lakota wanted to successfully train their new employees, but also needed low training costs and more time for teachers to prepare for the upcoming school year.

In order to meet these goals, Lakota concluded that it needed a complete elearning solution that included an authoring tool to develop training for its new employees and a Learning Management System (LMS) to manage and track the courses.

Solution
With the goal of saving both time and money, Lakota began investigating several elearning providers. Experts at Lakota first started by looking at learning management systems, such as Blackboard, WebCT, Angel, and CourseMill by Trivantis. They also investigated several open source solutions.

During this investigation, Lakota realized that Blackboard and WebCT were too expensive for the Lakota School System to purchase and maintain. In addition, the district found that open source solutions involved too much maintenance and technical expertise. For instance, in order to utilize an open source solution, Lakota would need an additional staff member to build and manage its own interface and write custom HTML content.

Through the investigation of several LMSs, Lakota Local Schools decided on CourseMill by Trivantis. "We quickly noticed that CourseMill was the right solution for our needs," said John Laws, Director of Technology at Lakota Local Schools. "We were thoroughly impressed with the easy implementation and low maintenance of CourseMill coupled with the ongoing support that Trivantis provides. Best of all, CourseMill provided all this at an affordable cost!"

After selecting CourseMill by Trivantis as its LMS, Lakota then began to search for an authoring tool that would enable the rapid creation of online courses. Lakota investigated Lectora by Trivantis, Macromedia Dreamweaver, and other authoring tools. Lakota noticed, however, that the learning curve for Dreamweaver and several other authoring tools was extremely high and maintenance and training would make the creation of content long and tedious.
 

"Lectora’s drag-and-drop technology makes content development faster and more efficient than any other authoring tool we came across."

-John Laws, Director of Technology

On the other hand, Laws found that Lectora provided the perfect blend between ease of use and expandability. The combination of Trivantis’ authoring tool and LMS was just what Laws had been looking for. "Lectora’s drag-and-drop technology makes content development faster and more efficient than any other authoring tool we came across," said Laws.

Benefits
“As a complete elearning solution, Lectora and CourseMill enable us to save costs on training by rapidly creating and hosting online content without the need for full-time staff members," said Laws. "I know that as Lakota Local Schools expands, both Lectora and CourseMill can grow with us." Laws also noted that by delivering online courses in CourseMill, Lakota can allow teachers to concentrate on preparing for students for an additional eight hours, which is a "tremendous savings to Lakota."
 

"As a complete elearning solution, Lectora and CourseMill enable us to save costs on training by rapidly creating and hosting online content without the need for full-time staff members."

Since implementing Lectora and CourseMill in the 2004-2005 academic school year, Lakota Local Schools has created eleven online courses. Each module took only two weeks or less for one developer to create.

The most recent courses provide complete operating details for teachers on how to manage attendance, enter grades, complete progress reports, and review student demographics. "This has allowed the Technology Department to reach more people without increasing our investment in traditional staff training time," said Laws.

eLearning Tools Integrate with Other Departments
In addition to teachers at Lakota utilizing Trivantis’ complete elearning solution, the district recently began integrating CourseMill and courses created in Lectora into the Human Resources Department. "Although we are still in the early stages of this process, we feel this will significantly reduce telephone and email correspondences related to HR operations," said Laws.

Lakota has been so pleased with the success of Lectora and CourseMill that the District Office now plans to integrate CourseMill into the classroom at the Junior and Senior buildings.

Lakota will utilize CourseMill at the student level by taking advantage of beneficial features such as instant messaging between students and homework attachments. "Interactivity is extremely important in education and the instant messaging in CourseMill will drive collaboration and learning to new levels for our students in a controlled learning environment," said Laws.

Meijer

Profile
Meijer is a retail supercenter offering a full line supermarket plus over 40 other departments including fashion, automotive, home decor, health and beauty care, pharmacy, electronics, pets and more. Meijer stores are open 24 hours a day, 364 days a year.

Currently, Meijer has 181 stores and nearly 60,000 team members in five states.

Challenge
Meijer caught on to the elearning boom early and has been creating online courses on a variety of topics for a number of years. Initially, they outsourced most of their course development. They then obtained a basic course development tool and started building some of their own courses. After using the tool for a few years, the Meijer team was looking to expand their capabilities. “The tool was good, but it wasn’t meeting all our needs, particularly from an interactivity perspective. We knew we needed to step it up a notch,” said Bob Klooster, Technology Development Specialist at Meijer.

Klooster and his team began researching alternative authoring tools. “We didn’t have the luxury of time. We needed something that had a reasonable learning curve to allow us to begin creating new courses and converting older courses immediately.”

In addition, Meijer also had several legacy courses which they created in a tool set that was originally designed to develop CD-ROM’s. “The product is essentially obsolete and the courses are difficult to update. We needed a tool that could carry us forward and that offered a simple conversion path”, said Klooster.

Solution
After reading about Lectora by Trivantis in trade magazines and talking with a Trivantis sales representative, Klooster decided that Lectora was just the tool that Meijer needed. “We did our homework on authoring tools and the name ‘Lectora’ just kept popping up everywhere,” said Klooster. “It was apparent that Trivantis clients were satisfied with Lectora.”

He noted that he especially likes the book and chapter structure in Lectora. “It’s easy to navigate and makes everything within a course more organized.”

While Klooster and his team have not yet utilized all of the advanced features in Lectora, they are discovering new and different features each time they create a course. “We love the fact that each time we create something new, we learn a new trick or find a new feature. It makes using the tool fun and interesting,” said Klooster.
 

The Meijer training department has only been using Lectora for four months and already more than 40,000 Meijer employees are being tested and trained on courses that were created in Lectora.

Results
Within just two to three weeks, Meijer created and published two courses to its learning management system known as Pathlore. “We were able to create courses quickly because the tool was easy to learn and easy to use.”

Currently, the Meijer training department has been using Lectora for only four months and already more than 40,000 Meijer employees are being tested and trained on courses that were created in Lectora.

Meijer is currently converting a large number of courses to Lectora. Klooster noted that he is aware of other large companies who are doing the same and hopes to have the conversions completed soon.

Micro Center

Profile
Micro Center®, a unique, upscale retail chain that operates 21 retail stores in major markets nationwide, is a division of the Micro Electronics, Inc. family of businesses, all leading providers of computer products, accessories and services, headquartered in Columbus, OH.

Micro Center is a destination retailer designed to satisfy the dedicated computer user by offering more computers and computer-related products than any other retailer. Micro Center pioneered a unique approach to selling personal computers and their stores boast the largest square footage devoted exclusively to computers and computer-related items. A key component of Micro Center’s success is its Sales Associates, recognized by customers and industry observers alike as the most knowledgeable in the business.

Challenge
Several years ago, Micro Center began creating elearning content to train its associates across the nation. The problem, however, was that its courses seemed more like “page-turners” that merely stated what the users needed to learn rather than teaching them by example how to handle specific scenarios and follow certain procedures. It was apparent that they needed more interactive courses to keep the learners engaged.

While Micro Center purchased Lectora authoring software in 2004, it wasn’t until their training team and development skills grew that they discovered all the features the product has to offer. In 2007, Micro Center re-evaluated the tool and realized that they could indeed create courses that its users would be excited to see.

Solution
The Training team at Micro Center firmly believes in “learning by doing.” After looking at Lectora, the design team knew that the tool would enable them to create branched simulations for adaptive elearning that would achieve just what they had in mind. The team then set out to create Micro Center’s new Management 101 Training Program by using Lectora to create engaging simulations and to throw out the "page-turner" approach.

“By simply using Lectora, the design team was able to create learning scenarios that took learners to a specific question or page just based on their actions and answers to previous questions.”

During the simulation, learners are then given the opportunity to Get Advice, receive Expert Coaching, or access background learning material. These three options provide learners with an interactive way to receive hints and advice on each scenario. Users can also review the lecture content at any time in order to better understand and reinforce concepts as they arise during the simulation. Expert Coaching is a coaching overview applicable to the entire simulation, which provides general tips and advice from noted authors about the problems addressed in the branching simulation. Finally, Get Advice permits users to obtain context sensitive advice for the specific problem and choices that are on the screen at the time. 

Results

“The real benefit of Lectora is that it saved development time, while also taking courses more dynamic and sophisticated.”

The team designed a prototype which utilized variables in Lectora to create the back-end logic that was needed to develop branched learning scenarios. The design team soon discovered that after creating one prototype, they could develop a template that would carry this logic into other courses, thus saving time in creating future courses.

When the design team first began developing branched simulation courses with Lectora, they thought they would need to use other tools in conjunction with Lectora to create a sophisticated level of interactivity. To their surprise, however, the assumption was wrong. By simply using Lectora the design team was able to create learning scenarios that took learners to a specific question or page just based on their actions and answers to previous questions.

All of the Management 101 courses include audio, video, multiple choice questions, and more. For instance, one of the courses in this curriculum is called Managerial Behavior and is meant to teach new managers or supervisors how to deal with certain situations that they may encounter. In each question, the learner walks through a simulation of a scenario and must decide how they would handle the situation.

By utilizing Lectora to create branched simulations, the Training Department was able to dramatically cut development time, while at the same time improving course interactivity. After the team developed the logic behind the first course, each additional course took only significantly less time to develop. “The real benefit of Lectora is that it saved development time, while also making courses more dynamic and sophisticated,” said John Zurovchak, an instructional designer in the Training Department.

John also noted that other course developers on the team were able to replicate the new course approach using the template. “The most amazing thing about this tool is that it isn’t hard to use,” said John. “It has everything you need to make a course that learners will not only enjoy, but also learn from, yet it’s still easy to use.”

Since Lectora was the only authoring tool Micro Center used to create courses, they were able to cut down on costs as well. “By using Lectora, we eliminated the need to hire Flash experts to create courses,” said John. “Training Departments can spend significant amounts of money for Flash designers because they think it’s the only way to make a course engaging, but our results have proved that Lectora can do it all.”

By simply using Lectora, Micro Center created the type of courses its team had dreamed of since it first began its journey into elearning a number of years ago.  “The flexibility and power of Lectora has helped us to evolve from page-turner courses to engaging learning simulations that our users enjoy taking and that improve learning and performance in the long run,” added John.

“...our results have proved that Lectora can do it all.”

Midwest Energy Association

Profile
Midwest Energy Association (MEA), since 1905, provides training to those who bring electricity and natural gas to American homes and businesses. MEA’s not-for-profit fee structure delivers to members and subscribers the best possible training at the lowest possible cost in the areas of natural gas, liquids, OSHA, electric, and leadership training. The organization works in concert with their members to collaborate in the development of training programs.

Challenge
MEA has been training gas and electric personnel for years and has seen equipment for training change with each new technological advance. Since all natural gas workers must be highly qualified and uphold the highest level of safety, training employees thoroughly has become not only important, but also challenging.

MEA previously provided training on video tapes that integrated with workbooks to their members. Members of MEA would purchase new workbooks for each new employee and update their video collection when new content was created. This was an ongoing expense for user companies and created distribution overhead for MEA. Soon after, MEA began offering training material on CDs. Though this was more effective than sending hundreds of workbooks out each year, MEA members still needed a more cost effective solution and MEA wanted a product that was easier to maintain and update.

MEA knew that online delivery was the best option and wanted to develop courseware using a variety of media. They also needed a more sophisticated way of updating and distributing their content at a faster rate.

MEA purchased a Learning Content Management System (LCMS) to track their members’ course completions and run reports. The LCMS also included a basic authoring tool which MEA used to create online courses and then host on their LCMS or their members’ LMSs. Though this was a positive step in eLearning, MEA was constantly running into issues with SCORM compliance. According to Don Szambelan, Senior Vice President and CLO of MEA, “Some of our members were having trouble using the training that they purchased from us because their LMSs were not integrating well with the courses. We had to tediously upload courses to a SCORM package, and even then the courses wouldn’t always fit the specific SCORM packaging required by user LMSs. We found ourselves having to go back and modify each course for our customers, which was expensive and time consuming.

Solution
Szambelan quickly realized that the course creation tool within their LCMS just wasn’t doing the trick. They needed a more robust tool that could seamlessly integrate with their LCMS as well as their members’ LMSs.

Szambelan purchased Lectora for its ease of use, robust publishing features, and student engaging abilities. Immediately, Szambelan noticed how user friendly Lectora was compared to the authoring tool within their LCMS. “Our members could publish Lectora courses to their LMSs with seamless integration. For those clients without internet access, we could even publish courses to single file executable,” said Szambelan. “With Lectora we have been able to develop one standard template with selectable variables for all delivery options. This saves us significant time and facilitates consistency.

In addition to SCORM compliance, Szambelan noticed many other cost and time saving benefits of using Lectora. MEA members often want customized content for their employees. Customizing content with MEA’s old authoring tool was sometimes limited in capability. With Lectora, MEA could easily customize each course to match their client’s needs. This process became faster and easier than ever before.

“Lectora offers our authors the ability to generate excellent courseware from a basic level to very sophisticated implementations,” said Szambelan. “Authors really enjoy the robustness available in Lectora for course creation. More importantly, our users, which are very technical, tactile and problem-solving oriented, are offered engaging interactive experiences that better simulate their real world."

Now, courses in Lectora are created by internal MEA employees as well as contractors. MEA often uses external vendors to create their courses and Lectora has made this process even more efficient. “It’s easy to find contractors in any city that know how to use Lectora,” said Szambelan. “Lectora is almost a universal standard in eLearning."

Results
In just one year, MEA has created over 85 courses with Lectora that feature all kinds of interactive media, including audio, Flash, and 3D simulations. “We can make much more powerful courses with Lectora,” said Szambelan. “Our users love the online simulations because it really gives them a chance to participate in their training in ways that videos and workbooks never offered.

MEA’s courses can now be delivered to their members in a variety of ways. Members can purchase courses individually or become Level II MEA members and view all the courses on a part of the MEA website called EnergyU. Members can provide their clients with access to courses through their own LMS or they can direct their employees to EnergyU where they can access and take courses.

Szambelan noted that Lectora has saved the non-profit organization ample time and money. “Previously, we were spending so much time and energy trying to fix courses that had SCORM issues or that just weren’t functioning properly due to the limitations of our old tool. With Lectora, we have significantly reduced the amount of time it takes to create and update courses and we are no longer wasting time going back and fixing issues."

Due to the satisfaction with Lectora, MEA plans to continue adding more and more Lectora courses to EnergyU. The organization also intends to convert its old legacy courses into Lectora to make them more engaging.

Pitney Bowes

Profile
Pitney Bowes is the world’s leading provider of mailstream solutions. Founded in 1920, today the company’s software, hardware, services, and innovations help organizations manage the flow of information, mail, documents, and packages. Pitney Bowes’ 35,000 employees empower over two million customers worldwide to turn the mailstream into a profit engine - from the largest global enterprise to the smallest home office.

Challenge
Pitney Bowes’ Employee Development and Performance (ED&P) organization began creating and using elearning courses several years ago by utilizing a combination of outside vendors and internal developers. The organization, however, soon realized that it needed to find a faster, more efficient, and more cost-effective way to train its employees. With employees across the United States, Pitney Bowes ED&P needed an authoring tool that was easy for internal developers to quickly create elearning content.

Several ED&P employees at Pitney Bowes began investigating elearning authoring tools. They noticed that most tools didn’t provide the flexibility they needed. According to their Instructional Design Team, “Of critical importance was the ability for participants to be able to navigate freely to areas of a course that met their immediate, just-in-time learning needs while still requiring certain elements to be completed.” Many of the authoring tools that ED&P employees reviewed limited this ability for open navigation.

When the ED&P Instructional Design Team came across Lectora by Trivantis, they were “impressed with the creative latitude of Lectora and the ability to integrate an array of multimedia files, such as Flash.” They also noticed that Lectora provided them with the open navigation they were looking for in an authoring tool. After seeing a demonstration of the product, the ED&P Team immediately purchased several licenses of Lectora to begin creating elearning content.
 

"Lectora is amazing!"

Solution
Pitney Bowes utilizes Lectora to create courses on topics such as sales, industry, management and product training, most of which are published directly to its Cornerstone LMS.

The ED&P Team feels that Lectora is amazing. They especially like that Lectora makes it so easy to develop quality, engaging elearning courses. “The product has so many helpful features and benefits. The ability to share files among geographically dispersed developers promotes collaboration throughout our organization,” noted the ED&P Team. “We can easily create online courses with Lectora and then repurpose that content as sales tools because the files can be published to CD-ROM and single file executables.

Benefits
In addition to online courses, the ED&P Team also wanted to create kiosks where their thousand plus sales representatives could take engaging training courses that compared competitive products to the Pitney Bowes product line. They realized, however, that this would mean they would have to set up the products, add postage, purchase a maintenance agreement, and give competitors the right to inspect their products due to federal regulations. Obviously, this plan wasn’t going to work.

As an alternative to their original plan, the ED&P Team decided to use Lectora in an innovative way to achieve the type of training they desired. With Lectora, the ED&P Team was able to build multiple touch screen training stations, which enable sales representatives to go through “museum-like” training by simply touching a screen that walks them through a competitor’s product.

“Once we developed the first touch screen station in Lectora, it was simple to create the rest.”

“The touch screen training stations bridge the gap between elearning and classroom-based training,” said the ED&P Team. “Sales representatives now have the ability to learn at their own pace and it eliminates the need for a facilitator at every station.”

Results

“Lectora has provided us with a very cost effective way to create an array of training programs. We’ve seen a decrease in the amount of development time and a reduction in costs.”

What was originally purchased to create online training has now become much more. Lectora is used by Pitney Bowes to develop online training courses, sales tools, touch screen training, instructor-led training guides, and more.

Through the numerous types of training, the ED&P Team believes Pitney Bowes is now an innovative leader in creating effective elearning. “By migrating prerequisite learning to the elearning environment, we have leveraged the value of our field training managers and enhanced the development of participants across the enterprise,” said the ED&P Team.

Most importantly, Pitney Bowes has achieved greater ROI by utilizing Lectora. “Lectora has provided us with a very cost effective way to create an array of training programs. We’ve seen a decrease in the amount of development time and a reduction in costs,” said the ED&P Team. “With Lectora, we have reduced the mean delivery cost of elearning from $53 per hour to only $33 per hour.”

Currently, approximately 40-60 sales reps per month complete the touch screen training and more than 30,000 Pitney Bowes employees receive training from online courses created with Lectora. The ED&P Team notes that both the online courseware and the touch screen training are receiving rave reviews from sales representatives and managers.

Procter & Gamble

Profile
Procter & Gamble is a renowned multi-national manufacturer of family, personal and household care products. The company markets approximately 250 brands to nearly five billion consumers in over 130 countries.

Challenge
Procter & Gamble employs more than 100,000 people worldwide. Each year, P&G trains its employees about their hundreds of different brands, policies, and more. Paying for employees to travel to take part in training sessions is highly expensive and forces employees to be out of the office and factories for days or weeks at a time.

Procter & Gamble knew that providing online courses would save P&G hundreds of thousands of dollars in both travel and lost time. With this thought in mind, P&G set out to find an authoring tool that was powerful, yet easy to use, and that integrated with Saba, P&G’s Learning Management System.

Solution
eLearning experts at P&G compared Lectora, Trivantis’ flagship authoring tool, with other tools. When comparing Lectora with Dreamweaver®, for example, they found that Dreamweaver® has a steep learning curve and requires sophisticated coding in order to communicate via AICC to score assessments. This presented a significant barrier to self sufficient authoring for average people. After evaluating all their options, P&G selected Lectora.

“Lectora is simple, easy to use, publishes to SCORM and AICC requirements, and integrates seamlessly with our Learning Management System. Lectora was the first tool to demonstrate it scored with our LMS,” said a P&G representative. “Choosing Lectora was a smart decision for ease of use, rapid development, and many other reasons.”
 

Procter & Gamble saved millions of dollars in training costs by utilizing Lectora to develop and deliver courses.

Benefits
P&G’s Virtual University has used Lectora and Trivantis’ Custom Development Services team for three years. P&G noted that Lectora has saved the company millions in training and knows that it will continue to do so. “Because Lectora is fast and easy to use, P&G is able to educate our employees at the speed of business and the rate of change,” said a P&G representative.
 

The company saves more than $75.00 per person and is 30% more efficient at delivering training because of Lectora.

In fact, P&G has successfully trained more than 150,000 students with courses created in Lectora. The company saves more than $75.00 per person and is 30% more efficient at delivering training because of Lectora. In addition, Trivantis’ Custom Development Services team has created more than 60 custom training courses for P&G, which has played a major role in the success of its elearning initiatives.

T-Mobile

Profile
T-Mobile provides wireless voice, messaging, and data services capable of reaching over 268 million Americans where they live, work, and play. T-Mobile USA is the US operating entity of T-Mobile International AG, the mobile communications subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT). Deutsche Telekom is one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world, with nearly 120 million customers worldwide.

Challenge
During these tight economic times, paying vendors to develop elearning isn’t very realistic. On the flip side, however, using tools like Microsoft PowerPoint and Adobe Breeze can result in page-turner courses with little interactivity.

The Instructional Design Team at T-Mobile began creating elearning courses a few years ago by using Adobe Breeze and Microsoft PowerPoint. They realized that their courses weren’t very engaging or robust due to the limitations of the tools.

In instances where they needed more interactive courses, they hired the services of costly external custom development vendors. At times, they paid custom development shops up to $50,000 per course, but then were left with an end product that they couldn’t maintain and update on their own.

During these tight economic times, paying vendors to develop elearning isn’t very realistic. On the flip side, however, using tools like Microsoft PowerPoint and Adobe Breeze can result in page-turner courses with little interactivity. To create affordable robust elearning quickly, T-Mobile needed a new elearning strategy.

Solution
T-Mobile hired Jeff Tillett, a Senior Instructional Designer, onto their elearning team. Tillett had extensive experience working with Flash, HTML, and other coding programs and T-Mobile knew he could help bring their elearning up to speed.

Prior to working at T-Mobile, Tillett produced elearning courses with Lectora authoring software at a major food services company. Tillett immediately noticed that the T-Mobile team was missing a rapid elearning authoring tool – which is one of the keys to a successful elearning program. He knew how easy-to-use, flexible, and affordable Lectora is so he immediately asked T-Mobile to bring it on board.

The Instructional Design team at T-Mobile was very supportive of the decision to purchase Lectora, but had some hesitation due to Tillett’s technical background. They were worried that the tool would be too advanced for them.

Tillett developed templates in Lectora and provided them to his team. Almost instantly the original concern they had about Lectora’s ease of use vanished. With a little coaching from Tillett, other instructional designers quickly began creating their own online courses.

“The best thing about Lectora is that it is so flexible. The flexibility within the templates has been a huge help in cutting development time down and allows for easy access to maintenance and updating,” said Tillett.

A great example of Lectora’s quick learning curve was when a new Lectora user had a very short deadline to create an entire course on his own. “He was able to plug in his content and add in media and within a week he developed a complete course with Lectora,” noted Tillett. With the flexibility of Lectora’s templates, everyone on the T-Mobile Instruction Design team was able to create amazing online courses quickly and easily.

Results

“We were paying external vendors as much as $50,000 per course and now that expense has been completely eliminated.”

By using Lectora as their authoring tool, T-Mobile has completed over 30 courses on topics from soft skills training to systems training that contain engaging features such as video and flash.

In addition to finding a tool that everyone at T-Mobile could use despite their technical background, they also noticed cost savings. By using Lectora for all of their training needs, T-Mobile was able to bring their design in house and eliminate the need for costly external vendors.

“I know we’ve saved a lot of money with Lectora, said Tillett. We were paying external vendors as much as $50,000 per course and now that expense has been completely eliminated. We now have a solid economic strategy which is more important than ever in today’s environment.”

By simply using Lectora, Micro Center created the type of courses its team had dreamed of since it first began its journey into elearning a number of years ago.  “The flexibility and power of Lectora has helped us to evolve from page-turner courses to engaging learning simulations that our users enjoy taking and that improve learning and performance in the long run,” added John.
 

“We now have a solid economic strategy which is more important than ever in today’s environment.”

United States Federal Agency

Challenge
After utilizing several custom development shops to create eLearning content which cost $100,000 or more per course, a well known federal agency realized that moving course creation in-house was a better, more cost effective solution. Not only were courses developed by contractors costly, but the federal agency was experiencing several technology issues such as AICC and SCORM compliance roadblocks and courses with little interactivity. With the advent of a new initiative known as HR Academy, the federal agency made the move to in-house eLearning development.

To support this move, they would need an experienced project manager (PM) to lay the groundwork and an easy-to-use authoring tool.

“Captivate is used for software simulations and is very limited in eLearning functionality. We needed true
authoring software that could create a broad range of eLearning geared toward various learning styles.”

The federal agency’s PM had experience developing online courses and mainly utilized Adobe Captivate for simulations at his previous position. He considered using the same tool to develop content at the federal agency, but quickly realized that it wasn’t the tool for the job. “Captivate is used for software simulations and is very limited in eLearning functionality,” said the federal agency’s PM. “We needed true authoring software that could create a broad range of eLearning geared toward various learning styles.”

Solution
The federal agency was then introduced to Lectora through a live demonstration and they were quite im- pressed. It did not take them long to realize that Lectora was the well-rounded authoring tool that they were looking for to create courses for their new HR Academy. To begin, they tapped into Trivantis to create a template with a standard look and feel. This template enables the federal agency to easily plug in necessary content and get a head start on course development.

Next, the federal agency devoted time upfront to setting up an internal eLearning development process so they could get the most out of Lectora. The project manager and his team created the framework for each course in Lectora and then developed PDF documents out of the course layout in which Subject Matter Experts (SME) could easily add in the necessary content. They would then import the content from the SME into Lectora and quickly and easily develop a final version of the course. “We spent our initial time laying out the framework and then enabled our SMEs to easily add content. From there, it was a simple and fast process to develop our courses” added the federal agency’s PM.

Results
The federal agency soon realized that there were many benefits to using Lectora. They cut out the cost of external vendors and were able to create interactive eLearning all in-house with a small team of 2 1⁄2 people. Lectora’s features allowed the federal agency to create engaging and fun courses while still teaching the basic information.

“We enjoy using the Flash and Games Library in Lectora Version 9. By utilizing Lectora’s many features, we are able to produce courses that offer different types of learning scenarios, whether it’s through playing games or watching a video clip,” said the federal agency’s PM. “We can bring in our own audio, video, and other content or use the library of images and media directly within Lectora.”

By choosing Lectora over the previous tool, Adobe Captivate, the federal agency was able to create more ad- vanced eLearning that adhered to all learning styles. “I found that Lectora could do so much more than Adobe Captivate,” said the federal agency’s PM. “Lectora’s flexibility and ability to neatly package all elements of a course into one is amazing.”

“With contractors, we were only completing 2 courses a year and paying more than $100,000
per course. Now we’ve saved thousands and have over 27 courses finished in less than a year.”

The federal agency creates 2-3 courses a month on such subjects as policy information, procedures, and Judiciary information that are published to Blackboard. According to the Chief of Training Staff at the federal agency, the switch to Lectora saved both time and money. “With contractors, we were only completing two courses a year and paying more than $100,000 per course. Now we’ve saved thousands and have over 27 courses finished in a year.”

The Training Analyst at the federal agency believes the launch of HR Academy has been a huge success. “Our employees and constituents used to fear web-based learning. Now, they’re looking forward to the release of more courses.”
To learn more about Trivantis or to speak with the federal agency represented in this case study, please contact Trivantis at 877.929.0188.

Alzheimer's Society

Alzheimer's Society

Training Co-ordinator Ed Shrager is responsible for the training of 1600 staff and 5000 volunteers for the Alzheimer's Society, a charity which is on the front line in the fight against dementia. Dementia affects almost 700,000 people in the UK, and the Society has 260 national, regional and branch centres providing education and support around England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The Society started to implement eLearning in 2005 and selected Lectora from Trivantis as its main authoring tool. Ed explains that "As well as our internal staff and our volunteers, we have a network of 30 trainers which educates care workers, outreach workers, care homes and beyond. Reaching such a complex and diverse audience is difficult. We knew that doing this electronically would not only be easier but help to reduce costs."

"We chose Lectora and since then we haven't been interested in any other product, as Lectora provides us with all we need."

The first phase would focus on external education, so finding a tool which was not only cost-effective but easy to use was important "We chose Lectora and since then we haven't been interested in any other product, as Lectora provides us with all we need."

Lectora was initially used to create "Introduction to the Society" material for new staff and volunteers. It incorporates quizzes, audio clips and video clips and has saved significant time for trainers, who formerly had to spend time in each branch with each new group of volunteers.

The focus is now moving towards internal education. The team has delivered 1600 days of training in the past 8 months alone – normally using lots of paper including handouts and leaflets. This meant a lot of photocopies and postage, even though many would remain unread or be thrown away by delegates. Using Lectora, Ed has created new CD-ROM-based delegate packs. "We are also able to complement the basic feedback sheet with a proper assessment based on 20 multiple-choice questions that actually test how much learners have taken in, which is not only more environmentally friendly but much more valuable to us."

"It has added another dimension to our training. Not only has it helped us save time and costs, but it helps us reach everyone and be more environmentally friendly."

Ed is pleased with Lectora's ability to create user-friendly training material. "You can take learners on a journey by using simple tools like buttons to help make the path through the course really obvious. One of our trainers who isn't very computer-confident called me just to say how delighted she was with it."

Looking towards the future, the Society sees opportunities to use Lectora to enhance the income it earns from selling specialist courses. It has already transferred its existing "Yesterday, Tomorrow, Today" programme into electronic format. Care homes use this to train and NVQ-certify staff in dementia care, and ordinarily would require a trainer to administer a paper examination. Now, learners will be able to take exams online or at a nearby branch office.

Ed believes that the benefits have been considerable. "I think people learn more," he says. "It has added another dimension to our training. Not only has it helped us save time and costs, but it helps us reach everyone and be more environmentally friendly. By next year every person in every branch should have access to the Internet, then we will be able to do even more."

Boehringer-Ingelheim

Boehringer-Ingelheim

Boehringer-Ingelheim is one of the top 20 leading pharmaceutical firms in the world. It aims to drive value through innovation, and has applied that innovative thinking within its training and development activities by adopting a proactive eLearning programme.

Andrew Young is Learning and Development Consultant for the Prescription Medicine Division. He works with a team of consultants who use Lectora from Trivantis to create training courses which are distributed via a learning management system (LMS) to around 500 divisional employees ranging from medics to sales representatives, most of whom work in the field.

"Having a single tool means we can exchange and share materials much more easily."

Two years ago, the UK and Spanish arms of the division started investigating eLearning. They piloted an LMS and have since commissioned consultants to create complex clinical courses. However, they knew that they would also need to create and distribute certain courses themselves "We needed an in-house content development tool because each team-member has particular brand responsibilities and knowledge, and so wanted to develop content specifically for their own brands."

They chose Lectora in part because the American arm of the company had already started to use it. However, this was not the only reason: "Here in the UK we wanted something that was easy to use, intuitive and quick to learn. With Lectora it is easy to create something basic while we are still learning, but it also has capabilities of producing something of very high quality if you have the knowledge. Also, having a single tool means we can exchange and share materials much more easily."

The courses are often converted from existing presentations using the Lectora Integrator for Microsoft PowerPoint, making Lectora an ideal rapid development tool for the brand teams. "At the moment we often take what used to be PowerPoint courses and simply make them a bit more engaging and interactive. Because we have the material, we can do that really fast." They are finding that even simple enhancements can add impact to courses "One colleague put a voiceover to explain a highly technical piece of learning around clinical papers. The result was something that could be sent out but was as good as a face-to-face presentation."

"We can now provide much more learning for the community both in terms of instructor-led and online training."

The learning community seems quite happy with the shift to online learning. "We did a survey a few months ago which showed a high level of satisfaction. With eLearning we can help the learner to take more responsibility and have more control over their own development by providing self-select courses that can be done in their own time, as well as mandatory training."

Perhaps most importantly, management is more than satisfied with the return on the investment in this first year of eLearning implementation. Andrew explains "We told our management early on that our aim was not necessarily to save money, but to be able to do more for the same budget. We can now provide much more learning for the community both in terms of instructor-led and online training."

In-house authoring looks set to continue to gather pace within Boehringer-Ingelheim's eLearning programme. Andrew concludes: "We now recommend Lectora within our division, and other countries are coming on board as we speak."

Grant Thornton UK LLP

Grant Thornton UK LLP

Leading financial advisory firm Grant Thornton has over 40 offices around the UK and provides accounting and business advisory services to thousands of clients. It is a priority to ensure that its 4600-strong staff is inducted to use its core IT resources effectively.

IS Training Manager Alan Port is responsible for creating the training material to achieve this task. From his base in Southampton, he uses Lectora Publisher from Trivantis to create eLearning materials for a variety of IS training purposes ranging from basic IS induction to in-depth application training.

"Compared to older packages the graphics show particularly clearly on Lectora, and I find that a real benefit"

Like many firms in its sector, Grant Thornton takes in significant numbers of graduate and trainee staff each year in addition to normal recruitment. Alan's challenge is to ensure that local office and departmental training managers are able to induct over 1000 new entrants each year. Alan explains: "First we must provide an introduction to IT security and teach new staff about the office network. Then we have to cover Microsoft applications, but where many companies can buy training courses off the shelf for things like Word, we can't. As a financial firm we have our own specific templates and we can't simply buy off-the-shelf tools to show people how to use them."

Lectora enables Alan to create screen simulations that are really effective at immersing the learner in the application "We are able to run learners through an animated series of screenshots that show them exactly what they will be doing on their PC. These are backed up by pop up text instructions as they progress through the module." He adds that "compared to older packages the graphics show particularly clearly on Lectora, and I find that a real benefit."

Creating standard eLearning modules that can be implemented flexibly across the offices and departments enables induction trainers to train effectively at each office and within departments such as audit, tax or financial planning. Alan says "You can't cater for the needs of every individual or every department. Providing core modules lets the trainers pass on the information consistently, but supplement it verbally using manual training."

"What I've been able to produce with Lectora is far superior to what we had before"

Maintaining a consistent and corporate standard look and feel is important. "When I first started using Lectora, I developed a template using all the different tools, which I can re-use to ensure an identical appearance for all training screens." The need to maintain the corporate look and feel is clear, although Alan admits to slight wistfulness "I know that there are a lot of extra features, and I would dearly like to use some of the really fancy bits!"

Now that he has standardised on Lectora as his authoring tool and proved its effectiveness, other challenges have inevitably presented themselves. "We are now in the process of introducing a new time management system and have developed most of the eLearning on Lectora. Again, because it is bespoke it is tailored to our needs, so you can't buy it or training for it off-the-shelf. The only choices are to get a consultant to develop eLearning tools, or do it in house."

Introducing Lectora Publisher as a tool has helped Alan to show the value of investing in eLearning: "What I've been able to produce with Lectora is far superior to what we had before, and my boss was delighted with the results."

Hampshire County Council

Hampshire County Council

Nick Lee works for Hampshire Learning Centre which provides training and development support to about 13,000 staff working for Hampshire County Council (HCC). Hampshire Learning Centre designs, builds and delivers electronic resources and interactive eLearning courses which help this busy council to bring new staff up to speed quickly and provide essential legislative and performance management training consistently.

Hampshire Learning Centre has been using Lectora from Trivantis to create and deliver learning across the council intranet and via CD-ROM to staff based at remote locations. The council carefully measures its impact: "Between 600 and 1200 people complete one of our courses each month. The courses we create with Lectora allow us to provide learning to an audience much wider than just the intranet community."

"We recently reviewed all the alternatives, but in the end we simply upgraded to the newest version of Lectora."

The organisation uses Lectora to create learning materials because of its interactive capabilities. He explains "There is simply no other authoring tool that matches our requirements. We recently reviewed all the alternatives, but in the end we simply upgraded to the newest version of Lectora."

The tool's flexibility is one of its strengths for this organisation "Lectora is flexible enough to let us create what we need. For instance, we recently used Lectora to create a new fire safety training course and trained 500 people in just the first week. However, it is equally able to provide performance management information or an education piece on new legislation." Lectora’s ability to integrate material from third-party applications is used extensively. "As an ex-web-developer I tend to create and integrate a lot of Flash graphics, whereas other departments write IT courses in Captivate. We have found you can combine both easily."

Nick had not used Lectora prior to his role at the Council, but is a convert. He is not the only one "One of the key things is that it's really easy to use; even as a technical novice you can create basic courses within half a day."

"We are nowhere near pushing the boundaries of what Lectora can offer us!"

Cost efficiencies are a constant pressure within local government and using Lectora within a blended learning environment really delivers. "The most obvious saving was on the cost of the product, which is far lower than other tools – as it doesn’t require a yearly payment plan! Courses that people can take at their convenience mean huge savings on training venues, travel and time out of office."

Council learners agree that this approach works. The council gathers feedback as part of its continuous improvement process, and gathers a standard evaluation at the end of each course. "The percentage of feedback returns is increasing, and the feedback itself is brilliant!"

Interactive eLearning looks set to stay a feature of organisational development at HCC. "People have realised that creating courses this way adds a useful tool to our learning delivery. Users find it non-intrusive and flexible, and are happily taking it on board." On Lectora itself he is equally confident "We are nowhere near pushing the boundaries of what Lectora can offer us!"

Kirklees Council

Kirklees Council has an 18,000 strong workforce responsible for council operations for Huddersfield and surrounding areas including Holmfirth, famously the home of TV's "Last of the Summer Wine." Senior Learning and Development Officer Chris Allan and his colleagues are responsible for developing and delivering eLearning to a large and geographically distributed workforce, 8000 of which are PC users.

In November 2007, Chris received recognition that his team was making an impact when he collected the accolade for 'Best Example of Supporting Learners Online' at the 2007 eLearning Awards. The winning training programme was developed in-house, using Lectora from Trivantis alongside Adobe Captivate, to train users in new email applications. Now delivered online, such training would have been largely classroom-led prior to the council's move towards blended learning.

"We found that Lectora was really simple to learn."

The council had begun using Lectora 18 months ago after commissioning a local company to develop an online induction course. They specified that the course must be easy to update as personnel changes and policy evolves. The developer chose Lectora from Trivantis and Chris says "We found that Lectora was really simple to learn. We had used another authoring tool to create small learning pieces online, but it was not as sophisticated as what we are able to do with Lectora."

Kirklees has since used Lectora to create a plethora of online learning tools including a vital training and testing process for those involved in the recruitment process. "It is really important that anybody involved in recruitment understands how to conduct interviews within the guidelines. This used to be a classroom course where day one was virtually absorbed by simply reading the policies. Now we have made it easier to read, and can ensure that nobody progresses to more in-depth training until they pass."

"We use everything we can, including video, flash, pictures and quizzes. We always get very positive feedback."

Gaining an eLearning award is just one indication that Kirklees is becoming a leading local government eLearning practitioner. Demonstrating effectiveness and cost efficiency is always vital, so the team is currently auditing the success of its eLearning and blended learning efforts. "The early results from the audit are very good indeed, and where we have replaced the classroom with online training in areas such as Email tuition, which is needed by all PC users, we have clearly made significant financial savings."

The team has clearly been successful in engaging learners by using all of Lectora's tools. "We use everything we can, including video, flash, pictures and quizzes. We always get very positive feedback, from both the basic evaluation that is built in and from ringing round and talking to learners."

The investment in eLearning is set to continue at Kirklees. Chris continues. "We have a lot more ideas and projects to action. Currently we have about 50 learning packages online with 8 more to complete with Lectora before the end of the year and at least a dozen on the starting blocks for next year. Every time we sit down we try to find new ways to engage learners, and to get away from questions and answers, texts and multiple-choice questionnaires. We are currently turning what we have learned about induction training towards management inductions, to help new managers or those who are promoted to understand how things work." Lectora will continue to be the tool that makes eLearning a critical part of Kirklees’ winning training strategy.

Norwich Union / Aviva

Sally is a Design Consultant for Norwich Union – a company of AVIVA, which is the world's fifth-largest insurance group and the largest insurance services provider in the United Kingdom. Sally, as part of a small team, designs and delivers eLearning courses for the whole of Aviva, incorporating about 30 thousand members of staff dispersed all over the UK.

Norwich Union has been using Lectora from Trivantis as its preferred eLearning tool since 2004. It is used for product knowledge training, system simulation, regulatory training and soft skills training. The team is soon to be rolling out a staff induction programme which is being developed using Lectora.

"The use of Lectora has cut production time down to two-thirds of what it was; it's so much more cost-effective to train up staff."

As a small team providing the whole of AVIVA's insurance training requirements Sally and her colleagues were finding it difficult to produce courses quickly enough to meet the business needs. "When I first started in this role we used Macromedia Flash which required 6 months lead time for people to become productive. We tried out other tools which proved to be fine for very basic design: but Lectora allowed interactivity; and people can be up and running within a month. The use of Lectora has cut production time down to two-thirds of what it was; it's so much more cost-effective to train up staff."

Lectora is the main authoring tool for all eLearning for the whole company; in fact it has proved to be so beneficial that the company now prefers that any third-party organisation producing courses for them also use Lectora. "It's so flexible" says Sally. "It allows people with programming experience to flex their muscles and allows those who are new to eLearning design to produce an interactive course with little knowledge of the tool and no frustration."

"Transferring the material into an eLearning course using Lectora was quick and easy and well received."

The adoption of an eLearning authoring tool caused a huge learning culture shift within AVIVA. Originally only mandatory and regulatory courses were on offer and staff were obliged to go through these in a classroom-based manner according to their managers' timescales. Sally's team worked hard with the Learning Managers to engage everyone in eLearning and show them that it could be fun. "Trainees find they want to learn more" says Sally "it has made life easier for everyone and has helped shorten productivity times. We have a lot of tight deadlines but they are much easier to meet."

The impact on business has been tremendous. When a new web-based policy system was introduced the team knew that face-to-face training would be an endless if not impossible task."Transferring the material into an eLearning course using Lectora was quick and easy and well received. We managed to train 12 thousand people all at the same time." The return on investment has been excellent. "We have made huge cost savings from transferring classroom courses into electronic ones. We have managed to save the company £50,000 over one year."

SITA

The South African Government is its country's largest employer and consumer of IT products and services. It set up an organisation to consolidate and coordinate the State’s information technology resources. The State Information Technology Agency (Pty) Ltd (SITA) is committed to leveraging information and communications technology (ICT) as a strategic resource for government and enhancing cost-effective public service delivery.

The eLearning team is headed by Moira Blom, "We are a small team of programmers," she says, "but we are delivering to a wide audience both internally and externally. The company consists of about 3000 employees."

"With Lectora and CourseMill we were up and running within two months, and the tailoring time was minimal."

"We needed a midrange product with great performance but ease of use, one that would allow us to import our existing content and deliver quickly in volume: but all at the right price. Many products met our requirements. SITA and the Department of Defence trialed several products and came to the same conclusion: Lectora and CourseMill fitted the bill the best."

The teams looked at a range of larger solutions too, but discovered that they all took a long time to implement, some as long as five years. "With Lectora and CourseMill we were up and running within two months, and the tailoring time was minimal."

Moira's team has been using Lectora for about two years. Because eLearning is still in its infancy in South Africa, the team has been carrying out 'awareness' sessions and teaching how eLearning fits into SITA’s wider education picture. "We have been creating 'pilots' for our clients," explains Moira. "These allow us to give them something they can see, something that demonstrates how we can create sessions that are specifically tailored to their needs.

"The greatest value of these products lies in their ease of use."

We have been experimenting with CourseMill for about a year, and we are just about to use it in our new assessment as part of the ERP project Service Projects."

Most recently, the team has been developing a course that assesses project managers: by asking and responding to a series of questions, it determines a candidate's competency for a task before they embarked upon it. "The greatest value of these products lies in their ease of use. They have proved to be versatile and very well integrated. It has been easy to load from Lectora into CourseMill and then to pull in other material. You just know CourseMill will take care of it."

"We are on the brink of a learning revolution with these products. We are testing their strengths in delivering quality and volume." Employing Lectora and CourseMill is helping the Government to achieve one of its key visions: to become a global leader in Public Sector ICT.

Swedish Armed Forces

The Swedish Armed Forces, with 17,000 personnel, is one of the country’s largest public organisations. Although it is the government-funded defence organisation for Sweden, it also has units based abroad. Sweden has national service for men and so the training scope covers a range of needs from recruits to regular training and further development of permanent staff. Training has always been very important to the Swedish Armed Forces so when it reorganised three years ago to create a more modern organisation with smaller units spread across the country, the need for a learning strategy alongside coherent use of modern tools for creating eLearning came even more into focus. A new unit called ADL (Advanced Distributed Learning) was created and the group is now responsible for creating learning guidelines for the entire organisation, assessing and implementing learning tools and assisting units in their day-to-day learning work. One of the group’s first tasks was to find an authoring tool that could be used across the organisation.

"One of our objectives therefore was to ensure we had one authoring tool that could easily integrate with our LMS"

Before deciding on which tool to use Kristina and her colleagues scanned the market, met suppliers, took part in demonstrations and eventually, a year ago, they decided on Lectora from Trivantis. “Prior to using Lectora we had a large number of different production tools in the organisation,” explains Kristina Sonemyr-Wollentz, Production Coordinator in the ADL unit. “This created an incoherent look and feel and was very difficult to manage on a day-to-day basis, especially as the need for eLearning was increasing. One of our objectives therefore was to ensure we had one authoring tool that could easily integrate with our LMS.”

“What impressed us most with Lectora compared with other solutions was how it could easily be used by both novices and more advanced users,” says Kristina. “The threshold for the organisation to get started using Lectora was really low. The menus are easily recognisable and handling objects through drag and drop is simple. We also liked the ability to integrate PowerPoint into the modules.”

Since starting to use Lectora approximately ten learning modules have been produced and another ten are under creation. Some have been produced externally, still in the Lectora format, so they can be easily accessible and updatable via the Learning Management System (LMS). There are several in-house productions under way aimed at increasing delegate knowledge before they attend face-to-face courses. Ensuring all participants are starting from the same place means that the face-to-face training becomes much more effective. One example is the online module ‘The science of war.’

Storyboarding, scriptwriting and production are handled by ADL representatives embedded locally in the various units across the country, with support from the central unit. The advantage is that most of the content experts are based locally so this makes for effective and accurate content production. At the same time, thanks to Lectora, this decentralised organisation has unified online learning which is easily accessible via the LMS.

"They have been very fast and responsive"

Kristina is also very positive about the support they have received from the Trivantis support team: “Every time we have been in touch with Trivantis they have been very fast and responsive, and this means a lot to us.”

eLearning is increasing in the Swedish Armed Forces. Kristina can see Lectora being used for a number of training needs, for example in technical areas, where, she believes, animation in Flash and other multimedia tools would be useful ways of getting knowledge across.

Telfort B.V.

As an expanding Dutch mobile communications company, frequently rolling out new products and services for its consumer and business customers, Telfort B.V. needed to find a time-efficient and cost-effective means of updating and training staff on new product offerings. By choosing Lectora from Trivantis as its authoring tool, Telfort was able to create online training courses and reduce the time of bringing customer-facing staff up to speed on a new product from five weeks to one week.

"This reduction in training time has significantly reduced our costs"

Mariëtte Braaf is one of six trainers at Telfort in charge of training staff on its products and services. She is impressed with how much time the company is saving by using Lectora. “Thanks to Lectora we can now complete training across the company within a week and without needing to take employees away from their desks. This reduction in training time has significantly reduced our costs. The focus now is mostly on time efficiency.”

Telfort started using Lectora in September 2006. The company has now implemented a blended solution, using eLearning for almost all product training, while still undertaking more traditional methods when needed. Along with updating current staff about new products, eLearning is used for the induction of new staff. The company, which is a subsidiary of Royal KPN, is expanding to form a new Internet brand that will bring total headcount up from 500 to 700. Hence, the ability to train new staff quickly is essential. “You can train bigger groups of people in less time, and use the time you save to do more coaching or monitoring or individual sales training,” she says.

"What would take three hours to teach in the classroom, can be taught via Lectora within 30 minutes"

Mariëtte finds the eLearning model that Lectora offers much quicker than classroom training. “What would take three hours to teach in the classroom, can be taught via Lectora within 30 minutes, since it allows employees to learn in their own space and time, accelerating their ability to learn.”

Telfort looked at five different training solutions before deciding to implement Lectora. It chose Trivantis’ authoring software because it is easy to use, allows staff to use their own creativity and because it was a proven name in the field. Trivantis also offered excellent support in setting the system up and learning to use it.

Lectora now plays a very important role at Telfort in training and keeping staff up to date. “Not only are staff across the company trained more regularly, but the training they do is much more engaging and meaningful.”

"We are on the brink of a learning revolution with these products. We are testing their strengths in delivering quality and volume." Employing Lectora and CourseMill is helping the Government to achieve one of its key visions: to become a global leader in Public Sector ICT.

TranslateMedia

When TranslateMedia, an award-winning global translation agency, were asked by a client to translate a training course developed in Trivantis' Lectora, they had to get up and running quickly. With a network of over 1000 translators covering more than 55 languages, it is clear that their specialism is language and not IT – so they were delighted to discover that Lectora was easy to learn.

"A few clicks, a few tries and we soon picked it up and could get moving on our first project"

Matt Train is one of a team of three linguists chosen to learn the programme, in order to respond to that first client's need. He says "Lectora was pretty easy to learn, and quick because it is quite intuitive. A few clicks, a few tries and we soon picked it up and could get moving on our first project, which were courses to train staff on anti money-laundering and other financial regulations, which vary in different territories."

The first brief was to translate courses from English into French and German. The team found that Lectora was flexible enough to cope with their unique needs. "Translating into certain languages creates design challenges to overcome. For example, translating from English into German can grow the amount of text by around 50% so you can have problems fitting it onto the original page, or find it gets too cluttered, and we have to work with it to fit everything in while maintaining the style that the client was aiming for.

Eighteen months on, translation of eLearning courses has become a valuable revenue stream which TranslateMedia believes has good growth potential as companies increasingly seek to use these tools to educate employees and clients around the world. Lectora is the standard for eLearning authoring for many global brands. One global leader in international express delivery and air freight approached TranslateMedia with eight substantial internal training courses developed in Lectora in English, for translation into German.

"The latest version of Lectora is even easier to use. The translation tool within it has been improved and now works really well and makes it much easier for us to do our job."

TranslateMedia sees that eLearning translation and adaptation for different markets will continue to be a part of its business with Lectora as a key component. "Client choose us because of our experience with Lectora, and we believe we are one of very few agencies with this capability. We are also interested to see what opportunities might be opened up by using the new multiple language versions."

As its eLearning translation business grows, TranslateMedia believes it is important to keep pace with Lectora's development, and has recently upgraded to the 2008 version. "The latest version of Lectora is even easier to use. The translation tool within it has been improved and now works really well and makes it much easier for us to do our job."

luci Interactive inc.

Profile
luci Interactive bridges the gap between proven business principles and elearning by creating off-the-shelf online courses which tap into the knowledge of well-known authors, speakers, and gurus. Their first off-the-shelf course is titled Think Like the Customer. The course includes customer service scenario-based training that taps into the knowledge of Robert Spector, a bestselling author and international speaker.

Challenge
Monica McAtee and David Sneider who are both partners at luci Interactive, previously worked together at a consulting company that developed custom elearning courses for companies such as Helzberg Diamonds and Applebee’s. At that time, there were very little tools on the market that could easily develop robust elearning. To create top of the line courses, they had a team of developers and programmers. As you can imagine, it took ample funds to have a team of this caliber and courses ended up being very hard to maintain and update. While the end results were pleasing, the time and resources it took ended up being very labor intensive.

After several years at the consulting company, McAtee and Sneider formed their own company known as luci Interactive. Their goal in forming luci Interactive was to provide off-the-shelf online courses that tapped into the knowledge of well-known authors and speakers and make this content available online and via CD. They knew that in order to create these courses, however, they needed an easy-to-use authoring tool and someone to help them get started.

While at the consulting company, McAtee came across Lectora, one of the most widely used authoring tools on the market. She was blown away by not only the ease of use, but also the flexibility of the tool. After further investigating, she knew Lectora was just the tool they needed to create engaging and interactive elearning courses.

Solution
In addition to purchasing Lectora, McAtee also realized that she needed some extra help in getting the first luci Interactive course off the ground. With her tight deadline and minimal Lectora knowledge, she sought out help to get the first project rolling. Due to the satisfaction with Lectora, it was a simple choice for McAtee to tap into Trivantis’ Custom Development Services (CDS) team which are Lectora and course development experts.

“Trivantis CDS created a robust and engaging elearning course with
a very quick turn-around. They definitely exceeded our expectations.”

luci Interactive’s first online course is a customer service training program that pulled from the knowledge of Robert Spector, a well-known author. McAtee and Sneider were thrilled with the end result developed by Trivantis CDS. “Trivantis CDS created a robust and engaging elearning course with a very quick turnaround,” said McAtee. “They definitely exceeded our expectations.”

To start production of the course, luci Interactive hired professional actors to go through real-life scenarios that one would encounter in customer service roles. They then handed over more than 300 videos that they had professionally shot at a studio. They also provided Trivantis CDS with storyboards. CDS then added the functionality required to develop scenario-based training and created additional interactions along with a pre-test and post-test.

Results

“The course was developed even quicker than we had envisioned. Without Lectora and
the help of Trivantis CDS, it would have taken over six months to produce.” said McAtee.

Utilizing Trivantis CDS enabled luci Interactive to have their course completed in less than three months, which even includes the time it took to shoot the actors and produce the 300 videos.

Now that luci Interactive has their first course created due to the help of Trivantis CDS, they are able to easily update and maintain the course with their Lectora licenses. “Lectora is easy-to-use and very user friendly,” said McAtee. “We can quickly and easily make changes and modifications within Lectora in a matter of minutes.”

luci Interactive is already noticing time and cost savings with the use of Lectora. “At our previous consulting firm we would have needed a team of ten or more experienced developers and designers to create this dynamic and engaging course,” said McAtee. “With Lectora, we only need two people with novice to moderate skill sets, which has helped us cut costs and save time.”

For those interested in seeing the power of Lectora and viewing the first luci interactive course, please visit www.thinklikethecustomer.com.

Michigan Virtual University

Profile
Michigan Virtual University® (MVU) was established by the State of Michigan to serve as a champion for online learning. MVU is a private non-profit 501(c)(3) Michigan corporation and is governed by a Board of Directors comprised of individuals representing business, industry, higher education, K-12 education and state government. It is the parent organization of the Michigan Virtual SchoolTM (MVS) and Michigan LearnPort®, an online professional development portal.

MVS is accredited by the North Central Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement (NCA) and the Commission on International and Trans-Regional Accreditation (CITA). Since its inception, the MVS has supported more than 50,000 student course enrollments.

Challenge
MVU was having great success with Michigan Virtual SchoolTM, but they were ready to launch a new project. MVU wanted to provide Michigan’s teachers and administrators with professional development online courses through what is now Michigan LearnPort®. To bring this initiative to fruition, MVU hired David Myers, Executive Director, Michigan LearnPort®.

Since MVU receives federal funds, they must create courses that are accessible by people with disabilities. MVU wanted to create courses for teachers and administrators that were engaging, innovative, and appealing. To keep courses interesting and accessible, MVU needed to use a strong authoring tool that could incorporate audio, video, images, Flash, and work with screen readers. MVU also required a tool that could create courses that used advanced branching and tracking capabilities for the user.

Solution
Myers brought Lectora on board with him when joining MVU’s Michigan LearnPort®. From previous professional experiences, Myers knew how versatile Lectora was, especially when complex course creation was needed. Others within his team such as the instructional designers on staff quickly realized the benefits of using Lectora and found it to be very flexible and robust.

“Lectora’s versatility far exceeds its competitors.”

Prior to Lectora, MVU also had other tools in place. Myers found that these tools, however, lacked the strength and versatility that Lectora offers. “Other tools couldn’t create the complex branching and tracking that MVU needs to produce engaging courses that the users could easily follow,” said Myers. “Lectora’s versatility far exceeds its competitors.”

Results
To date, MVU has created more than 30 courses with Lectora which are each 10-35 hours in length. All courses include video, audio, and interactive Flash as well as content that is easily read by screen readers. There are currently over 45,000 registered users in Michigan LearnPort® taking free courses on a range of topics.

Myers and his team is most impressed with the flexibility and advanced features within Lectora which enable them to create powerful and engaging content, unlike other authoring tools. “Once you become comfortable with Lectora, you can do just about anything you want with the tool,” said Myers. “It provides so many options that other tools on the market don’t offer, yet doesn’t require the need to be a programmer or HTML expert.”

MVU can create advanced functionality like tracking and breadcrumb capabilities that allow the user to track where they are within a course and where they have been.

Myers also likes Lectora’s easy functionality of editing text, launching documents, and dropping in audio, video, and Flash. “You can use just about any file type with Lectora,” said Myers. “To jazz up a course you can simply drag and drop files of your choice straight into Lectora or you can use the multitude of features available within the product.”

“If we didn’t have Lectora, the development of courses of this caliber would have to be contracted
out to costly custom development shops and created by expensive programmers.”

In addition to the flexibility of Lectora, Myers also knew he made the right choice when it comes to cost. “If we didn’t have Lectora, the development of courses of this caliber would have to be contracted out to costly custom development shops and created by expensive programmers. By using Lectora, we are able to save money by creating courses in-house,” said Myers.