Compliance e-learning – the bane of many an e-learning developer. Why? Because there is often a mismatch in e-learning design expectations between the subject mattter expert and the learning professional that understands the difference between content and application.
For the SME, they want to ensure staff know the content of a policy (e.g. Code of conduct, IT security, EEO). Their utopia is for all staff to be able to recite all aspects of the policy (paraphrasing allowed). Staff knowing the policy content is what is assumed will protect the organisation from scrutiny, should an issue go to court.
Learning professionals want to see behavioural results i.e. staff may not remember what’s in the policy, but they know how to behave appropriately – they know what’s right and what’s wrong.
This differentiation can help inform our design approach. It is less about content, and more about action – learning activity that helps make clear what’s right and what’s wrong – learning activity that explores ambiguity and helps staff to make the right decisions on how they should choose to behave.
Behaviour is an outcome of values and belief, and so e-learning activities should engage staff value judgements. A good way to do this is through video scenarios that explore the multiple perspectives of characters involved in a compliance incident. Well scripted and acted video provides context, enables learners to explore shades of grey, and gives a level of credibility to the topic being explored.
To summarise:
- Less content, more activity
- Less content, more context
- Less text, more video
And a gentle reminder that Connect Thinking now has a video producer on our team. Alan can help you to create videos for your internally built e-learns.