By Greg Boyd | Published: Thursday, February 09, 2012
Desire2Learn in the Corporate Vertical - Why, and Why Now?
2011 ended with a lot to be proud of for the Corporate team at Desire2Learn, with new clients coming on board in the final weeks of the year, and promise of more to come in early 2012. There is a great deal of momentum coming into the year because of both this growth, and also because of the investment Desire2Learn is making here in the years ahead. This is great news for our existing base of Corporate and Association clients, but does lend itself to the question of ‘why’ (let alone, ‘how’) and ‘why now’? Online Learning in the Corporate space is hardly a new idea, and there are a number of leaders in today’s marketplace already – so what makes Desire2Learn different? Among the many factors Corporate clients will consider when looking to choose an Online Learning system, we think there are three things that are absolutely critical, and that set Desire2Learn apart: Desire2Learn’s Leadership in Teaching and Learning, the Design and Flexibility of Desire2Learn products, and the Engagement Model Desire2Learn uses to work with our Corporate clients.
Leaders in Teaching and Learning Technology: Desire2Learn has built a reputation as a world leader in Online Learning in the education space, partnering with some of the finest and best known K-12 Schools, Colleges and Universities in North America and around the world. To date, the focus for the design and development of the product has been around pedagogically sound methods, which enables our users to leverage professional design that helps enhance and optimize the educational impact of the courses ‘students’ attend. Learning Departments within organizations find the Learning Environment easy to use and intuitive for structuring course design and delivery, such that users have an experience that simulates that of a traditional ‘course’ experienced at a high school or post-secondary institution. Having an environment that is intuitive for both students and instructors is critical to overcoming user’s apprehension towards Online Learning as opposed to more traditional ‘in class’ style.
System Design and Flexibility: Online Learning systems can be built on a modular ‘Organization Structure’. This enables administrators to allocate roles to various levels of users that can have unique permissions associated at the most granular level. A major barrier to the adoption of wide-spread Online Learning tends to be security and permissions concerns that obstruct an instructor or administrator’s ability to control ‘who sees what’ within the system. To ensure an effective user experience for both administrators and students, an Online Learning system must be flexible enough for users to have access that is designed for their needs, and overcome these security and privacy concerns. That is, students should be permitted only to see/access courses which they are required to take, instructors the courses they are teaching, and administrators the areas that they have authority over. This can be achieved to the extent that, in certain cases, Desire2Learn® Learning Environment can be used to grant singular access and permissions to individual users with a unique use case. Although best practice would encourage as broad an ‘Organization Structure’ as possible, some Corporate clients require levels of granularity that forces them to leverage the ‘modular’ design inherent within Desire2Learn Learning Environment.
Model for Engagement: Online Learning systems are among the many applications that organizations in the Corporate space will run internally to support day-to-day operations of their business or association. Moreover, the Online Learning system faces the challenge in some client organizations as being perceived as a ‘secondary’ priority, or perhaps even a system that can be stood up, and left alone to be accessed by students at their convenience. These are risks unique to the Corporate space, as in contrast, the Online Learning system is an essential piece of the Education Institution’s infrastructure – That is, the Online Learning system is the ‘ERP’ (Enterprise Resource Planning system) of the education space. To overcome what can be daunting challenges requires the owner of the learning program to have a defined, justified (and, often, approved) need, a strong strategy and roadmap, and sound metrics in place for measuring the success of the system. These metrics can be elusive to define, as tracking returns on training and education is far less tangible than, say, tracking ROI in dollars and cents. Desire2Learn has an effective sales design and engagement model in place for our Corporate clients to combat these challenges. The Corporate Engagement Model is made effective through the smooth transition of the client from the initial sales cycle to Account Management (AM) upon signing, where the AM team is held accountable for client’s success. Support at this stage to not only define a successful strategy for Online Learning, but to redefine and invigorate the Online Learning strategy, is critical, and is a key differentiator for how Desire2Learn engages with our Corporate clients. Backed up by a whole Support and Services organization, the entire Sales team works in partnership with clients to ensure success and the continued evolution of Online Learning within today’s organizations.
2012 is a big year for Desire2Learn, as growth is expected to continue in the Education sector, a major, new release of the product is scheduled for the Spring, and this continued push into the Corporate will allow the organization to deliver value to clients in ever-increasing ways. Advances in the technology driven out of one vertical (that is, Higher Ed, Government, or Corporate) can be leveraged in the others. When Corporations and Associations look for an Online Learning system, there will be a variety of factors to be taken into consideration – however, three factors critical to the success of any Online Learning strategy will be the pedagogical foundation of the learning system, its flexibility and design, and the model used to support organizations embarking on an Online Learning journey.
Follow us as we continue to build out our Online Learning story for Corporate clients in 2012. Watch for news updates, Community events, webcasts, and monthly blogs posts, right here on Desire2Learn.com. Join the conversation – we’d love to hear from you!
Posted in: Corporate Learning Environment Learning Management System
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Lily said...
What a great blog