The range of variables to consider when managing a portfolio of eLearning solutions is complex, to put it mildly. There are such a broad range of factors that can create unique learning demands. One imperative factor being the different channels any one eLearning product may be deployed, such as open enrolment/direct versus enterprise/business-to-business engagements. This can often result in a product portfolio containing many customised and specific versions of topics or courses over time, that provide limited opportunity for re-use or an efficient base to scale from. One concept that stands out as a powerful approach to managing these demands is recontextualisation. Instead of creating a custom product to service each deployment, approaching opportunities with a view to leveraging existing core learning materials to a greater degree with a layer of context specific to the opportunity, can provide real value. Let’s unpack this further and look at the upside potential it might enable.
Custom vs Recontextualised
The mindset when engaging with enterprise or organisational opportunities is most often that each project is unique, and therefore demands a unique solution. With that mindset there are psychological barriers from the onset such as, for example, an open enrollment product being at the core of the solution. In practice, however, the parts of a solution that typically require customising are related to the branding, imagery, and the examples used to support the content, such as scenarios or case studies. The core of the learning material often remains mostly or entirely unchanged. By implementing a recontextualised solution from your existing courses, you are allowing for both efficiencies in speed to market and potential profit margins. Further, this approach to course design allows you to tap into a balance between custom solutions (perceived or real), economies of scale, and rapid market entry.
Thinking modular
Curating a modular eLearning portfolio presents real advantages by enabling the reuse of topics across different products and opening greater potential to create new offerings from aggregating individual assets into a new learning journey. Having an effective strategy to leverage the assets you have can be challenging, as the lens in which we view the portfolio from has the potential to be a barrier. If you are viewing a portfolio from too high a level, as complete offerings, it can appear to be a challenging prospect to re-use existing materials. Consider the parallel with a magazine structure, where at high level you have the entire issue, cascading down to chapters or sections, and down yet further to individual articles or features. An eLearning portfolio bears similar resemblance; where you might have full courses that each contain modules and within each module there is a topic or series thereof. Through maximising the utility of each topic or content item, a modular portfolio not only drives cost savings and operational efficiency from re-use at scale but also expands the potential range of educational offerings, ultimately leading to new opportunities, greater customer satisfaction and engagement.
Fuelling improvement
Changing the focus for a moment. Above, we have focused on the benefits for both the alignment of a core experience into custom enterprise, organisational opportunities, and the portfolio scalability benefits recontextualisation can furnish. But what about improving the core? Though leveraging a core solution in a broader range of deployments and, by extension accessing a (likely) more diverse audience, there is significantly enhanced potential to positively influence the iterative improvement of the core experience itself. Each recontextualisation serves as a potential to garner valuable insights into how a diverse range of participants interact with and respond to the material. Through analysing participant feedback and interaction data presented from these varied contexts, this can aid in identifying common strengths and weaknesses in the core content. Ultimately, this creates a flywheel of positive inertia, where the iterative improvement cycle is continuously fueled with more data. This fosters a robust, versatile educational product that is high-quality and more adaptable over time.
There are clear advantages to leveraging a core set of eLearning solutions and implementing a process of recontextualisation to make them applicable to different use cases and open doors to all new products. In approaching your portfolio this way, you create a competitive edge in efficiency, adaptability and ultimately, financial performance.