The success of eLearning software development projects is extremely crucial due to several factors. A project may fail due to a lack of clarity, in the beginning, causing a procedural breakdown later on. However, if you adhere to a tried-and-true e-Learning development process, everyone involved will know the project’s status and what to anticipate.
Here’s what a successful eLearning development process looks like:
1. Align Objectives & Constraints to Kick-off the Project
Planning your course of action is the initial step in the development of any complicated project, especially eLearning software. What will the program achieve in the broadest sense first? What will it accomplish? How will you evaluate these improvements? Program objectives that are well-written give the stakeholders concise statements of expectations to which they may respond. Their comments on the objectives should determine your best line of action.
Furthermore, if you start with effective goal setting, you won’t need to make major adjustments later on. Both sides should discuss each person’s participation in the project during meetings to align goals. There should be a single primary point of contact for both parties; ideally, the client lead is a subject-matter authority accessible to the production team for queries.
Once the learning outcomes have been outlined and approved, you can move on to the project details. At this step, decide on the project’s key activities’ delivery date and timeframe.
2. Evaluate Your Learner’s Needs
The star of the show is the learner. Spend enough time researching the target learners your custom edtech software will cater to. What is the main issue or knowledge gap there? How is that determined? What prevents people from understanding or using what they already know? Please take into account their age, technical skill, familiarity with the material, and desire to study. How would content be presented? Will they opt for ‘just-in-time’ microlearning segments or a longer break from learning? All of these are crucial aspects of the strategy.
3. Content Strategy
Now the focus shifts to content. What subjects and sub-subjects must be covered in the classroom to overcome the learning gap? Engage your subject matter experts to generate a list of potential topics, sort those topics into manageable study units, and then direct you to the right people to ask these questions of.
Next, create an action verb-based learning objective for each of these subjects. Look for outcomes like recall, application, achievement, or value. Using action verbs gives you a baseline to gauge your progress later on. Assessments are directly related to the educational objectives: were they able to demonstrate a particular skill, or did they remember the information?
4. Instructional Layout Design
After the kick-off discussions, the production crew will have all the required knowledge to get to work.
The narrative and storyboard documents are created during the instructional layout design process and given to the client for review. Storyboards make it simple to understand how all the components — text, images, audio, video, animation, links, and activities — fit together.
The creative templates are created and approved during this stage to give the e-learning project a unified appearance. This is an essential element of custom edtech software design. Learning is further improved by visual graphic elements, animations, and video. The effectiveness of your eLearning module depends on how the content is delivered.
Think about the following essential components when storyboarding a module:
- a narration script on audio
- Animations, photos, videos, and graphics
- On-screen text, music & sound effects
- student interactions
- Evaluations, criticism, and correction
- Results and advancement
5. Development Processes
Think about how the learner will access the module before your storyboard comes to life during the development stage: on a laptop, a mobile device, or both. Input the on-screen elements, make interactions and assessments, then align any animated objects with the audio narration using your preferred course-writing software.
Your LMS specialist ought to be in touch with the developer to talk about publishing preferences and how the course will be organized in the LMS. What kind of curriculum instructions and module descriptions should be provided to students in the LMS? The module is prepared for revision once development is finished.
6. Testing & Revision
You may choose to start with a soft rollout of the curriculum to a focus test group, depending on the requirements of your organization. Stakeholders should review the modules developed and provide feedback before this.
Make sure to give specific instructions on the type of feedback you want. Personal disagreements that seem to fluctuate with the weather can keep a module under review for months. In order to prevent the project from stalling, if you anticipate this with your stakeholders, assign one person to review all feedback and then make final revision decisions.
7. Launch
The e-Learning program is prepared for use once testing and any modifications have been completed and double-checked.
If your company is launching an e-Learning program for the first time, you’ll need an online learning management system (LMS). There are numerous LMSs available; do your research to find the best cloud-based platform for your organization’s size, needs, and spending capacity. If you’re having trouble figuring out which LMS to use or how to launch your product properly, get in touch with Golpik Inc. to have your Edtech projects handled by experts.
Conclusion
Everyone involved will know what is being delivered when your project is finished if you follow a tried-and-true e-Learning development process. Communication that is open and clear is essential throughout.
Everyone will be pleased with the outcome if you outline the process for all project participants before it starts and regularly updates them on its progress.
