Enterprise eLearning Development on AgLearn: Doing More With

Enterprise eLearning Development
on AgLearn: Doing More With Less
By John P. Rehberger on June 4, 2012
with Joe Gorup, CourseAvenue
About AgLearn
 About 125,000 users (e.g., USDA employees, contract
staff, partners, etc.) across 29 agencies and offices
 About 1 million learning events each year (courses
taken, books read, classes attended, etc.). Over 99%
free to USDA learners.
 Full-service operation with significant economies of
scale (<$5M annual budget = $27M in cost avoidance).
Overall budget shrank about 10% from FY11 to FY12.
 The official training record repository for USDA.
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Core AgLearn Services
• Support Mandated Training
• Classroom Management
• External Training Management
• Library of Common Work Resources
• Creation of Mission-specific
Online Courses
• Talent/Competency Management
4
AgLearn Vended Learning Resources
Business
Skills
IT Professional
Desktop
• 1,700+ titles
• 400+ titles
On-demand
Business &
Technical
books
• 15,000+ titles
• 900+ titles
SkillSoft Government
Leadership Advantage
And
SkillSoft Live Events
Award Winning
Immersion Training
• 17 In Depth Programs
Financial, Retirement
and TSP Training for the
Federal Workforce
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Custom Courses Were 86% of
AgLearn Online Courses in 2011
USDA-wide
Dept Admin
11%
7%
OCFO
5%
NRCS
5%
2%
APHIS
2%
FS
2%
FSA
50%
12%
Non-USDAspecific
Courses
9th House
SkillSoft
3%
Other
Agencies/Offices
More than 1 million completed learning
activities on AgLearn in 2011.
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AgLearn is Hosting More
Webinars …
Cumulative Number of Webinars by Fiscal Year
1200
1000
800
FY2010
600
FY2011
FY2012
400
200
0
Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun
Jul Aug Sep
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And More People Are
Attending Them
Cumulative Webinar Attendees by Fiscal Year
20000
18000
16000
14000
12000
FY2010
10000
FY2011
8000
FY2012
6000
4000
2000
0
Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep
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AgLearn “Wedding Cake”
Director: Jerome Davin
Deputy: John Rehberger
PMO and Hosting Support Staff
(about 13 FTEs)
AgLearn Agency/Office Leads (about 50 people)
AgLearn Administrators (about 1400 people)
AgLearn Users (over 125,000 people)
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The Content Integration Problem
+ The process for getting new material into AgLearn was:
–
–
–
–
–
Mandatory (and thus somewhat resented);
Slow and unpredictable;
Expensive in terms of support costs and the submitters’ time;
Not transparent (and thus made people suspicious);
And often ended in finger-pointing and nasty or sarcastic or
passive/aggressive e-mail messages.
+ New tools were being introduced concurrently, but these
tools were not going to be able to fix the underlying
process problems.
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Old Integration Took an Average
of Two Months per Course
Agency
RD Average
OCFO Average
NRCS Average
FSIS Average
APHIS Average
OCIO Average
CR Average
AMS Average
FS Average
ARS Average
DA Average
Grand Average
Source: ATS data for 2009-2010
Days Lapsed
26
28
29
56
57
60
65
92
93
107
211
68
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About Half of Submitted Courses
Didn’t Get Onto AgLearn
Source: ATS data in Jan. 2011
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Old Content Integration Process
Content Files
Uploaded to FTP site;
ATS ticket is Created
Files Sent to
Staging Site
Feedback sent
to POC via ATS
508 review; AICC and
SCORM testing; TIA
assessment
Final Review by
Agency POC
Files Sent to
Production Site
13
Lean 6 Sigma Project
+ LSS project ran from Jan. – May 2011
+ New process started in June 2011
+ Outcome:
– Process is capable of a sustained 5-day cycle time
– Thru 105 submitted courses:
• Average cycle time cut to 29 days with 100% success rate (and far
fewer complaints)
• Support costs dropped from more than $500/course for integration
to less than $200/course
– Course development risk pushed out to parties best able to
manage it
– Supports greater scalability
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Part of the secret…
Ensuring Standards are met
Free-for-all: Not good
Standards & Guidelines: Better than nothing
Templates: Fine - Not scalable & variable
application
Built in : Ensures consistent application,
scalable
15
Current “Fast-Track” Process
Agency official signs
conformance form
Forms are completed;
files are uploaded or
identified
Files sent to
Staging Site
Final
Acceptance
testing
Files sent to
Production Site
Sample testing by
AgLearn staff
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Content Integration Guide and
Tools
+ AgLearn+ Courseware Technical Reference Guide – Provides
technical details for people when developing content for
AgLearn
– See http://usda.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/119 for details
+ AgLearn Central SharePoint site – Enhances transparency
17
AgLearn Online Course
Creation “Swim Lanes”
Briefings
Create new
courses
Modify current
CA and non-CA
courses
Create new or
modify current
courses
Content Integration Process
Other tools/vendors
Procure online
COTS courses
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Course Development Tools
+ CourseAvenue (our recommended, but not required, tool)
–
–
–
–
–
Supports 508 compliance
Supports maintainability and better content updating
User-friendly with expertise-based support
PowerPoint template = 90% of final course “look and feel”
Currently used to create about 50% of the new content in
AgLearn
– Developing support for multi-platform mobile options
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The Future of Content on AgLearn
+ 2013 will be the year of “AgLearn Mobile”
– We routinely get demand-pull requests for mobile learning
support
– Based on the 2012 ASTD conference no one seems to have
mastered mobile learning and learning management
– The SuccessFactors purchase of Plateau has modified Plateau’s
mobile plans
USDA Mobile
Platforms
– Technical constraints
• Mobile single sign-on (SSO) authentication
• Current mix of USDA platforms
– Currently testing various mobile support
options
(as of May 2012)
Other
Smart
Phone
Black
berry
Stnd
Cell
Phone
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Questions?
Visit us at www.aglearn.usda.gov
and see how
AgLearn+ is “Adding to Your
Knowledge”!
John P. Rehberger, Deputy Dir. 703-828-5519
Joe Gorup, CEO, CourseAvenue 630-225-4257
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