How Big Data Impacts Your eLearning Initiatives

Never has the gathering of data been more important to business.

Because we have moved to an experience economy from a manufacturing economy, our focus is not just on offering a product or service, but rather in providing our end user with a memorable and pleasurable moment in life.

The term “big data” is tossed around to describe that incredible pile of instantaneous information that drives our experience-centered world. A small portion of that is marketing analytics, the kind that tells us if we are delivering our experience in just the right way for maximum impacts on our users.

In the e-learning courses your human resources department is devising for your employees, it refers to that information that is collected while the person is taking their course or training module. The term “big” isn’t linked to the amount of data gathered, but instead all the individual unique pieces of it.

These snippets of information are then studied to determine what parts of the e-learning process are working most effectively with an eye to duplicating them in future endeavors. What we are looking for is how the employee learns. How fast do they speed through sessions and when do they come to a halt and appear to withdraw or become discouraged?

If you have invested in creating e-learning programs for your staff, it makes sense to spend equal amounts of time going over the data generated so that you can further refine the programs and make them better in the future.

It may be overwhelming when confronted with mountains of data to even begin to determine what is relevant to your goal of improvement.

Concentrate first on observing how the employees are taking in the information and which parts they find most appealing. Are they responding better to stories or videos or simple, clear and clinical explanations? Do they prefer game-playing to text-based courses?

Trends will start to emerge. You will soon notice if one course module seems to slow the pace of learning whereas another speeds it up. Some modules will be returned to repeatedly, while others will be passed over once and ignored after that.

Which parts of the learning program are so intriguing to the employees that they opt to share them with their colleagues or their friends?

The great thing about e-learning data is that you can receive it immediately instead of having to wait for a report delivered several months from the unveiling of a course or a learning module. Its nature allows for quick changes and adaptions as needed.

Your e-learning initiatives will be most effective if you learn to be a smart user of the data that is collected. It will give you insight into what kinds of customization are needed on your projects. In certain situations, you will even be able to personalize courses to meet the specific needs of key employees, maximizing their learning experience.

As you track learning patterns, your ability to design and deliver effective e-learning programs will increase. You will be able to steer resources into key areas that are effective, and eliminate other elements that are not connecting with the learners.

Unlike writing a textbook and then forgetting about it until it is scheduled for an update in three or four years, creating e-learning programs is an ongoing, time-sensitive project. The faster you learn how to interpret and respond to the big data available, the better your employees will learn. Read These 2017 latest eLearning trends.