Name: Hannah Batchelor
Position: Learning Consultant
Company Name: Acergy
Industry: Oil & Gas
Company Description:
Acergy is a seabed-to-surface engineering and construction contractor to the offshore oil and gas industry worldwide. They provide integrated services, and plan, design and deliver complex projects in harsh and challenging environments.
1. How many people in your organisation are typically involved in e-learning course creation?
Just myself and my manager as direct authors but with input from subject matter experts from a variety of business functions. We are currently working with Mohive, using their coaching service to increase our capability and skills, which is invaluable.
"We are currently working with Mohive, using their coaching service to increase our capability and skills, which is invaluable."
2. What processes do you use to enable them to work together effectively?
We have a strong stakeholder engagement ethos in our learning and development team, so regular contact with our key internal customers is one of our priorities. Ideally, we use face-to-face meetings to discuss the initial requirements for an e-learning course and to agree who will be the subject matter expert(s) (SMEs) assigned to work with us. We then set up a series of face-to-face workshop(s) with the SMEs where we work through the planning phase in Mohive and then the content input and review. Sometimes this process is done through conference calls or online meetings with a shared screen, but from experience we’ve found that it works better to do as much of this as we can face-to-face.
3. How long have you been creating courses using Mohive?
As an organisation we have been creating courses with Mohive for two years; however, the number of courses has not been large as we are still finding our feet with the new training delivery medium. We are still fairly new to using e-learning and are currently trying to promote it to the business. (Traditionally, Acergy has focused primarily on face-to-face, classroom delivery). As an individual I have been using Mohive on and off during these two years.
4. What software did you use previously to Mohive?
We didn’t have any e-learning software before we chose to use Mohive; this is our first foray into authoring e-learning in-house.
5. What type of courses do you create?
The majority of the courses created so far have been oriented towards either systems or process training, but we hope in future to produce courses for specific functional areas such as ‘finance for non financial managers’, ‘oil and gas industry basics’ and ‘foreign corrupt practices act’.
6. And how long are the courses usually?
The length of our courses varies from a ‘short, sharp’ five-minute module (such as how to use a specific element of our learning management system) to an hour-long series of modules (such as our ‘performance management’ course). We aim to focus on courses which last no longer than 15-20 minutes so that they can be completed easily during the busy working day.
"We aim to focus on courses which last no longer than 15-20 minutes so that they can be completed easily during the busy working day."
7. How much time does an average course take to create from when you start work to uploading into the LMS?
At the moment this is hard to judge as we are still learning the best methods to produce e-learning. The most recent course I have worked on (a 20-minute introduction to our online management system) will have taken me two days of solid authoring work (it includes Captivate) plus some time spent with the SME. However, this was a course where there were already materials available to work with. Some of our longer modules have taken several weeks in total to complete.
8. How long does each stage in the development process take to complete (i.e. planning, authoring, Q & A and publishing)?
This depends on how much information we have up front. If we are lucky enough to have materials to work with then the planning stage for a 20-minute module will probably take around half a day to complete, authoring will take two days, and Q&A and publishing probably one to two days over a two-week period. Again, we are still learning how best to complete the process.
9. What aspect of the Mohive system do you find most helpful?
For me, the review cycles (both in the planning stage and QA) are essential. Reviewing the courses is so much easier when I am working with colleagues in several different global locations, and being able to collate all the comments into an actions list is invaluable.
"The review cycles are essential."
10. Which Mohive templates do you find particularly effective for the type of course you create, and what features make them your preferred choice?
The flexi template is the one I use the most because it gives more freedom to be creative in the design and layout of each page. In addition to this, being able to add in the interactive question templates and i-explore templates adds something unique to the learning experience.
11. What tip have you discovered that you would like to share with other Mohive users?
Copying and pasting common templates from one course to another can save a lot of time!