We live in an era of constant technological advancements and unlimited access to information at our finger tips. This also puts everyone in a constant learning mode for various needs – to keep up the challenges at work, to provide pertinent services to today’s clients who are much more demanding and informed, for the sheer joy of learning, to bridge the generation gap (!!), to leverage the power of emerging technologies and trends in business, to gain entry into new arenas, to adapt to unfamiliar spaces and surroundings, to increase efficiency and productivity at work …. The list is endless.Ignorance is just not an excuse in this age where the mantra clearly is continuous dynamic learning. Not just schools and colleges, but individuals and organizations are also forced to prepare learning strategies today to keep themselves equipped with necessary skills for demands at work /elsewhere. This move towards life-long learning is what has really skyrocketed the demand for and popularity of eLearning Solutions – which give you the freedom, power and flexibility to move away from conventional learning methods and embrace the new style of self motivated, self paced learning.At iridium Interactive, we have been championing this paradigm shift in learning since our inception and have, over the years, developed customized learning solutions on a variety of disciplines. Be it the K-12 segment, or induction programmes , soft skill development or livelihood trainings, our solutions have time and again proven the effectiveness of eLearning.

Our competency requirements are diversifying/growing too… we are working on a variety of technologies to be in tandem with the technological pace and realized the need to have a platform where employees could keep themselves constantly updated on a continuous learning mode. This brought up an opportunity for us to delve deep into the various approaches to eLearning yet again.

About the different approaches to e-learning

A comprehensive approach to e-learning uses the technology in an iterative way for the overall educational development. Of late, the importance of customized e-learning content that supports business objectives and improves customer satisfaction is gaining a larger importance. Custom content development processes have a very unique set of objectives, requirements, and constraints that meet AICC and SCORM standards at all levels and are very flexible. Over the years, e-learning approaches have been changing to provide highly interactive learning activity. These can be looked from 3 different perspectives and can be categorized accordingly.

1. Vendor/Hosted Model: In a vendor/hostel model, the application vendor hosts, manages and upgrades the application throughout its lifecycle and provides it you out of its datacenters. In this arrangement, the vendor is responsible for installation, integration and maintenance of the application and any supporting software and hardware, which makes it easy for the customer to purchase and get a level of tracking on content usage and completion. The provider will only be responsible for the price of the service, typically per user or per transaction. Advantages of this model include simplicity and ease of implemention . But the disadvantage is that the customer is restricted to purchase and use only content offered by the provider.

2. Directory Service of Packages for download: This model aims to facilitate multi-vendor searches in solving the problems of reusing and finding the content. Its goal is to produce small, reusable SCORM conformant packages relevant to the learning situation. The only downside of this model is the consumer must understand the vendor’s technical abilities, which is highly impossible in majority of the cases.

3. Content Portal: Content Management in Portals are catching up well these days where content is aggregated from a number of providers and making it available from a single location to meet the needs. Content creation and the delivery process have become critical in providing a robust and scalable solution for the learning process. Content portals reduce the time and keep the costs under control.
On a closer look the main challenges that drive the need for change in the learning process are:
1. Significant resources for the separate procurement of LMS and content
2. Purchasing process of the learning-content needs
3. Renewal of the licenses
4. Integrating the LMS with content providers
5. Content communication with the LMS
6. Network issues because of traffic
7. Routine management with multiple content sources
8. Security challenges with firewalls
All these challenges are be taken into consideration to keep one updated with the latest trends in the learning process.
Content Portal model is something that caught our attention for the qualitative features it offers. Deliberately looking into this model and customizing it according to our specific learning needs gave rise to ‘The Disciple’ – a new age Learning Management System.

About The Disciple

The Disciple is a Learning Management System (LMS) designed specifically for internal use of our employees – for delivering, distributing and managing training materials over the internet. It facilitates access to interactive learning content to anyone at any time and place and caters services to educational, administrative and deployment requirements.
The Disciple is designed for the key attributes of the approaches of elearning which overcomes many tribulations in the old learning process and provides a greater flexibility to the new systems based on the content model which enhances the agility, relevance and responsiveness of the learning organization and in turn fosters interoperability, reusability and portability of the learning materials.

The Disciple has empowereed the HR & training department with efficient management and enterprise wide delivery of training and learning solutions. The LMS has enabled us to easily upload SCORM compliant courses,centralize learning content and make it available to our employees.The disciples ,including those who “love to learn but hate to be taught” are now able to learn at their own pace, in their own style and continuously assess their progress. The disciple is compliant with industry standards and regulations and also allows to track the progress of employees throughout the training cycle .Efficient reporting capabilities are provided in a convenient interface.

The Disciple has all the advanced features of a Learning Management portal and provides full-featured access to managers, instructors and students for immediate error correction making it the most reliable and accessible LMS in terms of standards. The employees and managers are extensively and effectively using this for updating competencies of varied nature-technical, functional as well as behavioural.

We firmly believe that the full potential of elearning can be realized by constantly incorporating technological advancements and innovative approaches in development, deployment and management into our learning solutions. And this is what we have been practising all long – for the internal as well as external customers of eLearning-to ensure a learning process with involvement from the disciples.

“Tell me, and I’ll forget. Show me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I’ll understand”.

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Here I am sharing with you a truly wonderful experience

The Livelihood School is an academic institution promoted by BASIX group, a modern livelihood promotion institution. The objective of this education program was to build perspective and skill relevant for effective livelihood promotion. There are various idealistic, utilitarian and plain self-interest based arguments ranging from providing equal opportunity, to promoting economic growth, to ensuring social and political stability for promoting livelihood.

These learning institutions are not very different from those that exist in conventional educational settings. They are, however, different in the way they emerge, and cultivate themselves. Many of these learning environments are the result of a team effort, which bridges a wide range of expertise including subject matter experts, web developers, graphic artists, and instructional designers to produce one or more courses. Not always the most successful approach, the team approach has been widely used especially by distance education institutions.

It is now widely accepted today that promotion of large number of livelihoods, especially for the rural poor and women has emerged as the most significant development challenge of the century. The Livelihood School was set up to address this need. The School is involved in knowledge building, in areas relevant, for supporting large number of livelihoods and disseminating the knowledge to enhance implementation capabilities of individuals and organizations affecting the livelihoods of the poor. This task of promoting livelihoods ideally is that a livelihood should keep a person meaningfully occupied in a sustainable manner with dignity.

The Case Study

Livelihood promotion is very complex. However, many development organizations have attempted to extend a wide variety of services; there are few, which have attempted to address it in its full range. The Livelihood School is an academic institution promoted by BASIX group, a modern livelihood promotion institution. The objective of this education program is to build perspective and skill relevant for effective livelihood promotion. It is now widely accepted today that promotion of large number of livelihoods, especially for the rural poor and women has emerged as the most significant development challenge of the century.

The mandate of the school is to build up a scientific knowledge base on livelihoods & disseminate the same to livelihood practitioners for enhancing their understanding and implementation capabilities, who in turn will promote large number of livelihoods. The solution should address the livelihood challenges of millions of people & focus on livelihood promotion education and build the knowledge base of livelihood promotion. All economic activities are bound by some institutional context.

The challenge was to encourage the participants expected to help them – Acquire a broad perspective on different models of livelihood promotion. Aid them in understanding the process of livelihood support adopted by different intervention agencies. Finally, get them to appreciate that livelihoods can be promoted or supported in many different ways and that there is no one way of going about promoting livelihoods.

An Intervening Agency has to chart the path of promoting livelihoods and needs a framework for analyzing livelihood intervention choices in understanding the process with the choices offered. The livelihood school approached us to provide a framework for analyzing various design elements of a livelihood intervention and also lay out the choices available to an intervention agency on design parameters.

Solution

Our team @ ii closely worked with The Livelihood School to develop a comprehensive training solution. We have developed a courseware that utilizes full audio narration, animations, high-quality graphics, advanced simulations and tests to deliver a comprehensive and interactive training solution. This e-Learning course will lead to more effective & consistent learning and knowledge transfer through out the learning sessions at the livelihood school. We have raised some assessments towards the end of each topic/section, which might help bring out key issues that may arise from making some choices (right & wrong).

This module on Promoting Livelihoods introduced a variety of livelihood intervention models and strategies/approaches in promoting or supporting livelihoods. An understanding of these strategies and models helped draw on experiences of livelihood promotion in India and open our minds to the different choices. This module also covered twelve cases describing the livelihood intervention efforts of different agencies including Non-Government development organizations, state and private/corporate organizations. Being self paced or learner centric, the learner will be able to learn on his/her own pace, this will enable 100% learning. This course incepts motivation that helps the learner to drive towards the concepts with more urge and enthusiasm.

The course is targeted to entice anyone and everyone be a Doctor, Engineer, Government official, Volunteer, Banker, etc. – all whom have direct or indirect exposure to Livelihood. We need to understand that there could be different objectives of a livelihood intervention. As most livelihood interventions evolve around some economic activities, there is also an element of design of the livelihood activity. This course was designed to make learner understand and feel that they are a part of creating livelihoods and the course has been distributed into three modules: The first module describes what livelihoods are; the second module addresses how Livelihoods can be promoted, and the third module explains the framework for analyzing livelihood intervention choices.

The Impact

This course proposed clarity to a ambiguous training framework that helped think analytically and systematically about the choices and help design a livelihood strategy. It helped understand the essential right of all human being to equal opportunity (further educating that livelihood promotion is not only based on the principles of economic growth, but also on equity and human rights).

• Noticeable increase in the Training volume
  • More Revenue & More Reach Effect
  • e-Learning was used as a standalone training
  • e-Learning was used as a supplement to the classroom training
• Faculty could focus more on R&D
  • Qualitative improvement in curriculum
• Consistency of Training
  • Maintained across the geographies
  • This strategy helped cut down on any incurred costs

Most of the course participants are now producing interactive training volume. Preliminary feedback from the faculty and target audience suggests that they enjoy using the e-Learning course and find it extremely helpful. While this case study is based on enhancing livelihoods we suggest that if other countries have similar attitudes and experiences of e-Learning, the Flash based approach solution may well work elsewhere where livelihood institutions have similar requirements. We strongly believe that, the ease of use on self-learning does not guarantee that effective or engaging content will be created or that the students will appreciate it. Only the appreciation and commitment to best practices can do that.

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The Livelihood School is an academic institution promoted by BASIX group, a modern livelihood promotion institution. Livelihood involvements are conscious efforts by an organization to encourage livelihood opportunities for the masses, particularly the rural poor and women.

Objective
The primary goal of this school is to build a knowledge base on livelihoods and disseminate the same to livelihood practitioners, who will then promote a large number of livelihoods. The Livelihood School aimed to help participants acquire a broad perspective on different models of livelihood promotion; understand the process of livelihood support adopted by different intervention agencies; and appreciate that livelihoods can be promoted or supported in many different ways.However, as they learnt all too soon, there are two significant bottlenecks witnessed in the field of livelihood promotion: inadequate availability of a knowledge base on how to support and promote large number of livelihoods, and inadequate availability of trained human resources who can participate in this work effectively.The school realized that an intervening agency was needed to chart the path of promoting livelihoods and provide a framework for analyzing livelihood intervention choices in understanding the process with the choices offered. Given ii’s experience in handling projects on sustainable livelihood programs, they approached iridium Interactive (ii) to provide a framework for analyzing various design elements of a livelihood intervention and also to lay out the choices available to an intervention agency on design parameters.

Solution proposed

The team at ii worked closely with the Livelihood School to develop a comprehensive training solution, utilizing full audio narration, animations, high-quality graphics, advanced simulations and tests. ii enabled an effective and consistent learning and knowledge transfer throughout the learning sessions at the Livelihood School. As the visual design team at ii which worked on this project pointed out, “The Livelihood project was an exceptional e-Learning module right from initiation, and design to development and implementation. Overall, it provided us great learning experiences, both personal and professional.” The first module of the training course gives a description of livelihoods; the second module addresses how livelihoods can be promoted, and the third module explains the framework for analyzing livelihood intervention choices.

Results

ii charted out a solution which facilitated an analytical and systematic design of a livelihood strategy by clarifying an ambiguous training framework. The course is designed to be learner centric – the learner will be able to learn at his/her own pace, enabling 100% learning. The training module designed by ii has led to a noticeable increase in the training volume, generating more revenue and reaching more people. Based on e-learning, it can be used as standalone training, or as a supplement to the classroom training. Given that the training module was designed to be a self-learning one, the faculty was left free to focus on R&D, leading to qualitative improvement in curriculum. And finally, consistency of training was maintained across the geographies, cutting down on incurred costs. These tremendous results led Shankar Dutta from the BASIX group to exclaim, “We accomplished something that we never expected!”

About ii
iridium Interactive Limited (ii) specializes in providing online business solutions. With a presence across three continents, it has been at the forefront in integrating strategy, design and technology to build unique and robust user-centric e-business solutions. At ii, a holistic approach is adopted towards complex business problems to arrive at a complete solution. ii’s talented team has worked on a variety of disciplines for a multitude of clients drawn from various industries, and has a number of award-winning works to its credit. ii offers it services in the areas of interactive marketing, web marketing, e-learning, enterprise consulting and web accessibility initiatives.

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ITC is one of India’s foremost private sector companies with a market capitalization of over US $ 16 billion and a turnover of US $ 3 billion. Rated among the World’s Best Big Companies by Forbes magazine, ITC ranks third on all major profit parameters among India’s private sector corporations. ITC has a diversified presence in Cigarettes, Hotels, Paperboards & Specialty Papers, Packaging, Agri-Business, Packaged Foods, & Confectionery, Branded Apparel, Greeting Cards and other FMCG products. While ITC is an outstanding market leader in its traditional businesses of Cigarettes, Hotels, Paperboards, Packaging and Agri-Exports, it is rapidly gaining market share even in its nascent businesses of Packaged Foods & Confectionery, Branded Apparel and Greeting Cards.

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ITC’s International Business Division, one of India’s largest exporters of agricultural commodities, has conceived e-Choupal as a more efficient supply chain aimed at delivering value to its customers around the world on a sustainable basis. The e-Choupal model has been specifically designed to tackle the challenges posed by the unique features of Indian agriculture, characterised by fragmented farms, weak infrastructure and the involvement of numerous intermediaries, among others. Farmers can access latest local and global information on weather, scientific farming practices as well as market prices at the village itself through this web portal – in Hindi and local languages like Marathi, Kannada and Telugu. A dream that was visualized at such a large scale, to be realized, required that the personnel involved be trained for effectiveness and efficiency.

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A set of key findings emerged from the evaluation of training needs. With a workforce of over 1000, hub operations spread across many states and numerous hubs operating in each state, it called for a massive human resources initiative to ensure that these personnel receive the best of training on par with international standards. And what better way to ensure effectiveness of training than through computer based training modules. ITC float a tender to receive technical and commercial bid for the same. More than 10 companies were bided for the same. Finally based on experience and past work ability iridium Interactive was allocated the Computer Based Tutorial development work.

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ii Value Proposition for ITC

� Computer Based Tutorials

� Any time-Any where learning

� Portable & Less paper work

� Accurate and efficient content construction

� Cost savings

� Significant Return on Investment (ROI)

� Increased learner�s retention and bring attention

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For additional information regarding iridium Interactive – visit www.iridiuminteractive.com .

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Headquartered in Singapore, with offices in Tokyo, Delhi and Islamabad, Knowledge Platform has a rapidly growing, blue chip enterprise, banking, educational and government sector client base.

For more information on Knowledge Platform, visit www.knowledgeplatform.com

Knowledge Platform has selected iridium Interactive as one of its courseware development solution-providers. Chosen after a comprehensive review of alternatives, iridium Interactive will construct online learning courseware and digitalization for Universitas 21 Global project.

Universitas 21 Global, established as a joint venture between Universitas 21 (a consortium of 16 leading internationally recognized universities) and Thomson Learning, is a new e-University with programs designed to excel in shaping leaders for the global economy of the future. Universitas 21 Global is offering an M.B.A. Program and is working on the launch of an M.I.S. Program. Universitas 21 Global offers students an active, responsive online engagement for each subject being taught. The graphics and accessibility standards are reviewed and approved by U21 Pedagogica, an international accreditation body established by the partner universities worldwide to ensure that Universitas 21 Global programs meet stringent academic standards.

The learning experience is rich, student-centered and involves an innovative mix of online content and interactions, a deep library of online resources, online mentoring for each course, offline reading materials, online group study sessions, graded reports, assignments and final assessments. The learning experience is characterized by an innovative interface design (in accordance with SCORM and Accessibility standard guidelines), thoughtful integration of web-based resources, productive use of interpersonal interaction, and support services created for the online learning community. “At the same time, Universitas 21 Global is ‘pushing the envelope’ in technology-driven learning in many ways, including in respect of multi-format E-Learning content, self-study, group-study and instructor-led study, online case studies, handicap user accessibility and use of industry standards (SCORM).

As a partner of Knowledge Platform, we will provide value by designing and developing world class e-learning courseware on complex subjects and help the institution in expanding the frontiers of the still-emergent discipline and practice of E-Learning.

For more information regarding Universitas 21 Global, visit www.u21global.com.

Results

• Accessibility compliant content
• Time-to-market reduced
• Faster time-to-market for accessibility version
• Accurate and efficient content construction
• Cost savings
• Significant Return on Investment (ROI)
• Increased content
• Visitors & guest satisfaction

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