Announcing Global Giveback 2012

Posted by Mike Culligan

Over the past three years, the volunteers from the eLearning community have generously shared their skills, creativity and time with the member agencies of LINGOs through the Global Giveback program. Together, teams of learning professionals and NGO staff have developed approximately 90 courses in topics as diverse as Tuberculosis therapy, microfinance, risk management, leadership and much more.

As Global Giveback enters its fourth year, LINGOs is excited to introduce important changes intended to increase the participation and impact of the program.  These changes fall into four categories:  theme, audience, format and process.

Theme:  “People Management.”  For the first time, all GG2012 develop courses will focus on a single theme:  People Management. This is a topic that has been consistently prioritized by our member agencies and which is in high demand among development practitioners around the world. 

Global Giveback 2012 aims to develop 18 courses related to people management that include topics like leading teams, performance managements, new managers skills, and more.  The courses will be contextualized to the development/relief sector and will be designed so that learners can follow a learning path that leads to a certificate in people management.

Format:  “e-Learning …   … and more!”  Each course developed for GG2012 will include materials in four format

• Self-led format:  e-learning content that can be accessed via the internet (or shared via CD-ROM) that allows people to learn, practice, apply and assess new skills.
• Face-to-Face format:  curricular guides that allow facilitators to lead workshops.
• Facilitated On-line Synchronous format:  curricular guides and slide decks that allow facilitators to lead classes in an on-line virtual classroom.
• Facilitated On-line Asynchronous format:  curricular guides and support materials that allow facilitators to instruct groups via on-line communities and discussion rooms.  This format is most useful in situations where individuals want to learn in a group but only have intermittent access to the internet or are unable to attend regularly scheduled meetings.

Audience:  “Benefiting the Global NGO Community.” All Global Giveback 2012 content will be developed with the intent of sharing it widely and freely with the Global NGO community.    Courses will be developed with the intent of ensuring that the learning content benefits not just for one agency (or a collection of LINGOs member agencies), but for all the people and organizations working to reduce poverty and alleviate suffering.

If any LINGOs member agency wants to customize Global Giveback 2012 content to its organization, source files for the content will be made available.  These files can be updated with organization specific logos, colors, scenarios or new content.

Process:  More “Giveback”; less “Competition”: During the first three years of the Global Giveback program, the event was run as a competition. Courses were assessed by a judge’s panel and evaluated according to criteria of effectiveness, inventiveness and creativity.  In the end, however, the biggest winners of the Global Giveback program have always been the staff of the organizations who have been able to access world class learning resources that would have otherwise been out of their reach.  This year, the global giveback wants to acknowledge all of the great organizations that are giving back to GG2012.  Rather than submit each course for review in the context of a formal “competition,” all the courses will be acknowledged through their inclusion in the LINGOs Global Giveback Showcase.

How to participate

The development of each GG2012 course will be led by a LINGOs member organization that will coordinate the work of volunteers.  Together the organization and the volunteers will form a team that develops content in each of the four GG2012 formats.

-       LINGOs’ member organizations who are interested in coordinating the development of a GG2012 course should contact Mike(at) LINGOs.org.

-       Individuals interested in volunteering to develop GG2012 content should visit the Global Giveback 2012 Linked In Group and post their interest, skills and availability to the site.  http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3131298&trk=myg_ugrp_ovr

And the Winner is…

Posted by Mike Culligan, LINGOs Director of Content and Impact

LINGOs congratulates this year’s Global Giveback Competition winner, Amanda Warner.  She developed “Isoniazid Preventive Therapy (IPT) for the Prevention of Tuberculosis in People Living with HIV” for LINGOs member agency FHI 360. This course was selected by the judges’ panel for its innovative use of scenario-based interactions – tracking learner responses and providing on-going feedback to measure the effectiveness of learner interactions, in addition to the high potential impact of the course. IPT has been shown to have tremendous impact in preventing TB, a leading cause of mortality among people living with HIV.

Screenshot from “Isoniazid Preventive Therapy (IPT) for the Prevention of Tuberculosis in People Living with HIV”

For the first time, this year’s Global Giveback finalist courses were developed by teams on three continents, with volunteers in the United States, Canada, England, and South Africa working with Population Services International, Save the Children, FHI 360, the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and more.  The complete list of  finalist courses, volunteers and agencies is found below, and are available for viewing at http://lingosglobalgiveback.org,

Volunteer Finalist	Course Title	Agency
Skill-Pill	Travel Safety and Security Tips	Save the Children
Amanda Warner	IPT for the Prevention of TB in People Living with HIV	FHI 360
Claude Abbott and Bonnie Solivan	Becoming One	Save the Children
Anjanay Panetti	LINGOs New Member Onboarding	LINGOs
Yewande Daniel-Ayoade	Performance Management	IAVI
Bram Piot and Lucia Salters	From Maps to Decision Making:  Mapping the PSI Way	Population Services International (PSI)
Ian Minderman	Welcome to PSI	Population Services International (PSI)

In presenting the Global Giveback Award The eLearning Guild’s Learning Solutions Conference and Expo in Orlando, Florida, LINGOs’ Executive Director Eric Berg thanked the competition co-sponsors, The eLearning Guild and Open Sesame, and all of the instructional designers and developers who volunteered their talents to the program. “Together these volunteers have developed over 90 courses in the past 3 years, resulting in invaluable improvements in the impact of their programs in humanitarian relief, development, conservation, and social justice.”

The Global Giveback Competition entries were reviewed by a panel of six judges who selected the overall winner.  This year the judge panel included:

Martin Baker, CharityLearningConsortium;
Anouk Janssens-Bevernage, DynaMind, Ltd.;
Neil Lasher, TheLearningCoach;
Kelly Meeker, OpenSesame;
Jean Marrapodi, ApplestarProductions; and
Clark Quinn, InternetTimeAlliance.

LINGOs Partners with OpenSesame

Guest Post by Kelly Meeker, OpenSesame

 

You all are fortunate and engaged members of a global network – LINGOs – that takes advantage of emerging technologies to connect global resources to a global community.  No longer are the far-flung employees of international nongovernmental organizations disconnected from the latest trends in their industry! LINGOs is doing incredible work to  leverage elearning technology to build global capacity.

And OpenSesame is proud to jump in. As a new startup in the elearning sector, we’re thrilled to partner with LINGOs to connect our technology platform and community of talented elearning developers to you, the learning leaders in international organizations.

The OpenSesame eLearning Marketplace Connects the Buyers and Sellers of Elearning Courses

OpenSesame is an online marketplace that makes it as easy to buy elearning courses as it is to download a song off the internet. eLearning sellers from all over the world upload their courses to the OpenSesame marketplace, set prices and bulk discounts and sell their courses to new customers.

 eLearning buyers browse our catalog by course subject, author, length, difficulty and special features and discover new courses and new authors. Before making a purchase, buyers can preview courses, read user reviews and research the seller’s credentials – ensuring that they’re finding the best courses to meet their organization’s learning and development goals.

In addition to connecting buyers and sellers through OpenSesame, we remove one major headache for learning managers like you by connecting any SCORM course to any LMS. Our platform technology removes obstacles to implementation and enables you to focus on the important stuff, like building connections with colleagues, developing new resources and getting to the core business of what you do – solving problems.

Opening a Larger Conversation

We are also facilitating a larger conversation on the evolving elearning sector on our blog and on Twitter. We’re blogging about everything from technical stuff (Creating a Multi SCO Package to Include Support Materials) to investigating new growth areas in the elearning sector (How to Create a Social Learning Environment). Our mission is to unlock elearning by making elearning accessible and easy to implement, while enabling you to choose the most effective and appropriate courses for your needs. 

Partnership with LINGOs

We’re proud to work with LINGOs to bring more learning and development resources to nongovernmental organizations because we believe elearning is the key to unlocking the potential of every learner, no matter how far away they may be.

We are partnering with LINGOs to engage the OpenSesame community in generating more resources for LINGOs members. First, we’re adding a check box to our course upload process to enable OpenSesame sellers to choose to donate use of their courses to LINGOs members. We’ll work with LINGOs to add those courses to the LINGOs LMS and make them available to members directly through a LINGOs area on our website.

OpenSesame will also join LINGOs and the eLearning Guild  as a co-sponsor to the 3rd Annual Global Giveback competition. This competition brings out the best in the elearning community by connecting willing volunteers with some of the organizations making real change happen on the ground, and we’re proud to invite our sellers to participate.

We hope this is just the beginning of a fruitful partnership that will continue to generate more resources for LINGOs members. Thanks for everything you do. We look forward to working with you, and we invite you to connect with us through our blog, Twitter or email.

Are NGOs in Southern Africa Region ready for eLearning?

Guest Post by Roger Steele, LINGOs

I answered with a resounding ‘yes’ when I was asked that question about six months ago — perhaps a bit too enthusiastically.  At the time, I had just started managing the LINGOs project to ‘Strengthen Project Management Capacities’ in collaboration with World Vision International’s (WVI) Southern Africa Region. (For background on LINGOs work in cross-cutting area that affects every member NGO, please see the blog post on Field staff capacity building models)

With almost a dozen week-long PMD Pro1 introductory courses under my belt, I still say ‘yes’ – but – you might sense some hesitation in my voice (check out http://pm4ngos.org if you don’t know what PMD Pro is).  Not totally unexpectedly, we have encountered challenges on our eLearning journey.

As I shared here back in September of last year,   the World Vision/LINGOs project has embraced a blended learning approach.  We decided to lead with a combination of face to face and virtual instructor-led courses.  The future blend will incorporate more self-paced learning, small group (hubs of training) and coaching (performance support).  I’ve written about the face to face (F2F) courses in this blog.

Our face to face instructor-led courses have been conducted over a period of 5 days. Each course is delivered in a fairly typical NGO format for the first four days. The facilitators combine techniques to engage participants in active learning to complement lectures that introduce fundamentals of Project Management for International Development.  On the fifth day, Friday, facilitators proctor an internet-based examination that presents 75 multiple-choice questions to each participant. The set of questions has been carefully validated and normed to measure knowledge and comprehension contained in the PMD Pro1 Guide.  A unique feature is that each exam is automatically computer-scored.  Each test-taker is given his/her score and pass-fail result immediately upon exiting the exam.  I was a little surprised that this feature proved so popular with participants.  They love  getting immediate results.

 So far, our team has facilitated the face to face PMD Pro1 courses in five WVI Southern Africa countries: Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, DR Congo, and Malawi.  Without fail, we have encountered significant eLearning challenges during the examination on the fifth day, of the each and every course.

PMD Pro1 Course participant with Roger in Zambia

These Friday problems have always happened in spite of the fact that our team works hand-in-hand with the WVI National Offices to secure reliable Internet connectivity.  In Zambia, our first pilot country, one hotel in Lusaka has hosted all three PMD Pro1 courses over the past nine months.  At the first course, the hotel proved incapable of providing sufficient Internet bandwidth, so the IT office from WVI-Zambia arranged for a dedicated connection from an internet service provider (ISP).  The ISP ran their wires down from the hotel roof and through hallways to our classroom.  Even with that dedicated line, the internet connection dropped numerous times during the exam period causing several test-takers to time-out prior to exam completion.  During the second and third Zambia courses, the host hotel’s internet provider agreed to increase bandwidth on the morning of the exam – but we still experienced connectivity problems and exam delays.  We recently secured approval from the testing authority to increase the total block time from 1.5 to 3 hours as a mitigation strategy for future exams.

 The venue of the one course we completed in Malawi was a relatively isolated hotel on the shores of Lake Malawi.  While the hotel had assured WV-Malawi that a strong and reliable Internet connection would be available all week, the reality was another story.   The hotel’s internet signal was very weak and did not even reach the training room.  Fortunately, the WV Malawi IT department came to the rescue by mid-week.  They were able to set-up a portable satellite Internet system (VSAT) next to the PMD Pro1 classroom – allowing all 23 program managers to successfully complete the examination on Friday.

two participants taking practice exam

I suppose some will say that what I’ve describe sounds quite expensive – and the special Internet arrangements that I’ve described will be beyond the budgets of many NGOs.  I acknowledge this concern, but encourage readers to keep in mind that WVI and LINGOs are operating learning pilots and expect to cultivate efficiencies moving forward. 

In Harare, the WVI-Zimbabwe office hired an Internet Service Provider to set up a fiber-optic connection at a hotel for an estimated US$1400 (5 days).  I had sticker-shock when I first heard this quote – but upon reflection realized that those costs must be put into perspective.  It is significant to keep in mind that 33 WVI program managers were trained and certified during that week.   The cost of Internet could be incrementally assigned to each participant at the rate of US$42 – an amount that was considerably less than what some participants paid for a single night of lodging during the course.  I wish I could report that the fiber optic line we used in Zimbabwe worked trouble-free.  However, after enjoying blazing internet speeds from Monday through Thursday, a scheduled power grid shutdown brought the internet to a total halt for the whole of Friday morning.  Fortunately, the national power grid was restored and the Internet-based exam was completed by late Friday afternoon.

I’m sure some are asking; wouldn’t it be quicker and cheaper to administer a paper-and-pencil examination?  Perhaps it would be in the short-run — but once PMD Pro gets past its pilot phase, LINGOs is expecting scale-up to create efficiencies for both internet instruction and testing.   I recently discovered that a group of researchers have been actively investigating online versus paper exams, with some interesting findings that extend well beyond time and cost considerations.   Check out:  http://research.csc.ncsu.edu/efg/teaching/papers/2010-1150_Online.pdf  

 I’ll write about my experience facilitating the PMD Pro1 course with WVI participants in the Southern Africa Region using the Elluminate platform in a future blog. 

 You might also be interested in these 2010 posts about LINGOs Project Management Work

 Sept 2010: Participation and accountability in face to face training: Lessons from Southern Africa   

October 2010:  Field Staff Capacity Building Models for National and International NGOs” the 4As

 October 2010: PM4NGOs Launched as Independent Organization to Promote Project Management in the Development Sector  

Field Staff Capacity Building Models for National and International NGOs: the 4 As

Presented at the Interaction meeting in June 2010 and  adapted from an article by Eric Berg and Beth Birmingham in “Monday Developments” (Aug 2010, p 37)

For years international NGOs have struggled to develop the skills and competencies of their staff around the world. This challenge has been complex and daunting: broad geographic dispersion of the target audience, a wide range of experience and competence levels, high levels of staff turnover, challenges identifying content, multiple language requirements, and very limited resources. Fortunately, there is good news.

Over the past decade, development organizations have been able to reach thousands of hew learners with quality learning content at very low incremental cost. What has changed? The introduction of learning innovations that help organizations address the ‘Four A’s’ of capacity building:

• Audience – Can the learning content be scaled to reach staff across the world?
• Appropriate – Is the content contextualized to the environments where it will be applied?
• Accessible – Are the learning resources there for staff to use when they need it and where they need it?
• Affordable – Can the resources be deployed given the resource constraints of development organizations?

There is no single simple solution that an address the ‘four A’s of capacity building. However a creative combination of innovation in learning design and content distribution, have enabled a number of organizations to successfully address the challenge.

Blended Learning Design
Enhancements in learning technologies are providing the opportunities for international NGOs to blend the best of their traditional approaches to face to face training with an array of new learning media (skype, webinars, etc.). One example of these “blended learning” environments is a 10-year collaboration between World Vision International and Eastern University. This leadership development program brings NGO leaders together once a year in their region (5 continents) for a workshop atmosphere. Faculty are a combination of both professors and practitioners from the region, serving as facilitators and coaches both in the residency environment as well as the on-line environment (using an on-line learning platform) that continues throughout the year. This on-going interaction beyond the residency or workshop ensures on-the-job coaching and greater implementation of the training content.

New Distribution Models
A second innovation in the world of staff development training is the introduction of new models for distributing learning content. Traditionally, learning has been ‘pushed’ through organizations from a central office without much regional contextualization. Increasingly new distribution models allow learners in the field to PULL the learning they need to their locations – when they need it, where they need it and in the form they need it. The new models are more flexible and available through self-service approach, whether that be through on-line courses, communities of practice, RSS feeds, webinars, or recorded content that is accessible through the internet.

One example, of this shift toward social learning is the work of the Project Management Capacity Building Initiative sponsored by LINGOs and PM4NGOs*. While the program can include face to face training approaches that are more formal where facilitators are ‘sent’ to lead trainings around the world; the same content that is conveyed through formal workshops is also made available through webinars, recorded sessions, and e-learning modules. Now, if an employee in Ghana wants to enhance her skills, she no longer needs to wait for a workshop to be conducted in Accra. Instead, she can begin working on her learning immediately. As a result of these new distribution models, she has a variety of choices from which to choose and can decide what best fits her professional needs, her personal constraints and/or her learning preferences.

Social Learning
While much attention has been placed on the use of new technologies, some of the most important recent innovations have been in the area of social learning. The Project Management Capacity Building Initiative, for example, invites all its learners (regardless of the distribution platform they use) to join open community of project management practitioners. In less than one year, over 750 project managers have joined an on-line community where practitioners from the development sector are available to discuss new approaches and provide guidance for any learner seeking assistance from the community. Similarly, the learning collaboration between World Vision International and Eastern University enhances its instruction through the use of a cohort model where groups of students move through the program together, employing peer support groups intended to support the application of the learning to their job situations.

Conclusion
For international NGOs, the introduction of these innovations couldn’t be more timely. Today, the need to build the capacity of local partners and national staff is more urgent than ever. With these new tools, there are now practical and proven approaches that can help ensure that appropriate, accessible and affordable training is available to a global audience.

*The case study of the project management capacity building work was presented at a LINGOs webinar in September 2010. To access the recording, click here

Participation AND Accountablity in Face to Face (F2F) Training – Lessons from Southern Africa

Last week, World Vision International held the third in a series of project management trainings that are scheduled to take place across southern Africa over the coming two years.   In many ways, the event was like most other training courses held by international organizations anywhere in the world.  The five-day workshop included staff of both World Vision and implementing partner agencies. The facilitators employed a blend of presentations, participatory exercises, case studies and (even) some serious games.

 

What made the workshop unique, however, was the dynamic of the learners at the end of each day’s training events.  Participants were staying an hour or two hours after the conclusion of the day’s session – asking questions, practicing the tools, reading the Project Management Guide  and reviewing the day’s learning materials.   

Participants collaborate and get a consultation from Roger Steele

Roger Steele, the facilitator of the event, attributed this unusual dynamic to the influence of the PMD Pro1 certification examination that all the learners were scheduled to take at the end of the training week.   He observed that the combination of interactive, case-based facilitation with a certification-focused examination served as a game-changer for the training paradigm.  On the one hand, rich facilitation techniques (through learner participation, contextualized cases, and small-group work) increases the learner’s enthusiasm for subject matter and helps him or her apply the learning to her  work context – “Did I like the training?  Was it relevant?”  On the other hand, including a certification examination at the end of the workshop increases the emphasis on learner accountability – “Am I studying the materials and wrestling with the often complex concepts included in the training?”  Together, these two elements help increase the likelihood that the training content is learned, retained and applied in the learners’ organizational working contexts. There are, however, considerations that organizations should keep in mind when deciding whether to link their training events to certification tests.   For example, one important consideration is whether the certification examination is connected to a valued/recognized credential.  In the case of the PMD Pro1, the certifcation and exam are accredited through the APM Group  – the same group which manages the Prince2 certification for project management.  As a result, the learners’ motivation to succeed on the exam is enhanced by the credential’s reputation and credibility.  

A second consideration is the cost of the effort (in terms of time, people and money).  While the PMD Pro1 employed a number of strategies to constrain costs, the upfront work in creating the credential was substantial.  Some of the strategic approaches the PMD Pro1 group employed to reduce costs included the decision to make the test a a multiple-choice, knowledge-based, on-line exam.  This approach automated the distribution and grading processes for the exam, making it much more affordable to manage.  The PMD Pro1 also benefited from economies of scale that result from multiple organizations working together, and from its strategic relationship with the APM Group.  A third consideration when developing certification tests is reducing the risk of examination bias.  For an exam to be fair, test-takers need to be working on a “level playing field.”  There can be no inherent (dis)advantages to a particular group of test takers.  Once again, in the case of the PMD Pro1, the working group that  developed the certification (including representatives of LINGOs, World Vision International, Catholic Relief Services , Oxfam and others) took a number of steps to hedge against the risk of examination bias and to ensure that the test was fair.  More specifically, some of the areas of concern they work to address included the following:  

•  Question Bias:  Are the test questions clear?  Do unambiguous answers exist?   Is there a baseline document against which the test questions are written?  To address these challenges, the PMD Pro1 developed a baseline guide from which all the questions were developed.  The questions were developed with the assistance of instructional designers and editors who checked to ensure that the questions were clearly written and linked to clear learning objectives.  Furthermore, all the materials were studied by a panel of over 30 reviewers (comprised of a mix of project management experts, learning professionals, development sector representatives and others).
•  Language Bias:  Do native-English speakers have an advantage?  The experience of the PMD Pro1 exam is that test takers who identify English as a second language (or third) have had lower test passing rates.  For that reason, all test takers taking the English language exam on line have the option of extending the time limit from 60 minutes to 90 minutes if they require more time to navigate the exam language.  A longer term solution is to make provisions for translations.  The PMD Pro1 guide and exam are currently being translated to French, Spanish and Portuguese with the intent of making the credential more accessible (and fair). 
• Audience Bias:  This is one area where the PMD Pro1 examination needs to focus. Very preliminary data indicates that the staff of international NGOs (both the HQ-hires and country office-hires) have pass rates that are higher than the passing rates of staff of local NGOs.  This data is new and will need to be tracked and analyzed further over the coming months. That said, some initial ideas for addressing this area of potential bias might include any of the following approaches:
  • Ensuring that there are a variety of learning tools that can reinforce the face to face instruction .  The PMD Pro1 for example, provides access to the Guide to the PMD Pro1, practice examinations, and instructional videos.  An on-line course sequence is also in the works for the coming year. 
  • Provide the option of delaying the examination.  The data comparing pass rates is drawn from learners who sat the examination on the last day of a five-day workshop.  This might mean that some training participants need time to study.  Remember, many of the learners come from backgrounds that might not have a formal test-taking culture, or it might have been years since they have taken and examination.   

So, while it is clear that challenges exist when developing certification mechanisms that are linked to F2F training events, the initial data from the World Vision workshops and other PMD Pro1-focused training events around the world indicates that a mix of contextualized, interactive facilitation with a focus on test-based certification results in learning events that combine the benefits of participation AND accountability.  

    

LINGOS Community Coffee Break/Happy Hour*

Please join fellow LINGOs members from PATH and World Vision International as they host a LINGOs Members’ virtual coffee break/happy hour * on Thursday, August 26 at 1pm Eastern, 10am Pacific Time, and 6pm London time.

  

Meet informally via Elluminate to share what you are doing and learn what others are up to in terms of organizational learning, capacity building, developing and deploying courses, summer vacations and give input to get the most out of the Fall LINGOs member meeting in Washington, DC (October 6-7).

For details on the virtual coffee break/happy hour and to add to your outlook calendar, click here. (You can see all upcoming Events and details on the lower right hand side of the screen at www.LINGOs.org.)

 

*How to prepare:
1. Add the Coffee Break/Happy Hour to your calendar with the Elluminate session link (on LINGOs Events)
2. Check your settings for Elluminate on the computer you will use for the coffee break/happy hour: www.Elluminate.com/support
3. Get a cup of coffee/tea, glass of water, or happy hour beverage of your choice
4. Log in a few minutes early on August 26

 

SCORM What?

Over the past couple of years, LINGOs has spoken with several member agencies regarding their desire to utilize a learning management system (LMS) other than the LMS portal provided as part of LINGOs membership.  Although LINGOs doesn’t require member agencies to use a particular LMS, access to content in the LINGOs Catalog has not been available outside the LMS portal provided with membership…until now.

About nine months ago, LINGOs began working with our partner Rustici Software, to develop an LMS-agnostic solution which would allow LINGOs to retain full control of content available in the LINGOs Catalog while allowing the member agencies that prefer to use another LMS (such as Cornerstone on Demand, Moodle, PeopleSoft ELM, etc.) the ability to access content from the LINGOs Catalog.  In March 2010, LINGOs sent an email to member agencies regarding the plans for the new product. In May 2010, four agencies (Catholic Relief Services, Population Services International, Save the Children US, and The Nature Conservancy) began beta testing the new product.  On July 19, LINGOs released the new into production.

 

The product, called SCORM Dispatch, allows LINGOs to provide very tiny SCORM 1.2 course packages to a member agency that can be loaded into the member agency’s SCORM 1.2-conformant LMS of choice.  Once loaded, the course package appears as just another course within the member agency’s LMS catalog.  The member agency has the ability to enroll users and control access to the course within their LMS.  Content for the LINGOs Catalog courses still resides at LINGOs.

When an enrolled user clicks on the course within his or her agency’s LMS, the SCORM Dispatch course package connects to SCORM Dispatch, authenticates the user, and passes certain SCORM 1.2-related data back to the agency’s LMS.  All of this is done in the background with no additional login required by the user.  During the course session, small bits of data are transferred between SCORM Dispatch and the member agency’s LMS on behalf of the user.  When the user completes the course, completion status, completion date, and course grade (if applicable) for the user are passed to the member agency’s LMS. 

 

SCORM Dispatch opens a whole new world of opportunities for agencies with needs beyond what the basic out-of-the-box IntraLearn portal provides.  For example, if an agency wanted to:

•  Synchronize user data between an LMS and internal systems (HRIS, talent management systems, etc.)
• Establish a single sign-on between an LMS and internal systems (SharePoint sites, internal web sites, etc.)
• Configure an LMS that generates custom reports
• Create a system whereby LMS usage reports are emailed to targeted groups or available for download
• Deploy an LMS that has more robust social networking features, talent management capabilities, or more robust course management features

then SCORM Dispatch could be used with the agency’s chosen LMS to help achieve these goals (in addition to others not mentioned).  SCORM Dispatch would be the delivery mechanism for the course content from the LINGOs Catalog and the communicator of course status to the member agency’s LMS.  The member agency’s LMS would handle all other processes. 

As stated in previous messages, SCORM Dispatch is an add-on.  Member agencies wishing to utilize SCORM Dispatch must be Level 2 or Enterprise members (or upgrade existing Level 1 membership).  Depending on membership level, there is a one-time fee and annual maintenance fee to utilize SCORM Dispatch (See Member Benefits for details).

Thanks to the partnership with Rustici Software and the hard work of our Beta Testing members (CRS, PSI, TNC and Save the Children-US) and the leadership of Robb Allen,  LINGOs very pleased to be able to offer this add-on product to member agencies that have matured beyond the basic out-of-the-box features of the IntraLearn portal provided as part of LINGOs membership. 

Member agencies wanting more information about SCORM Dispatch, can find it here:  http://ngolearning.org/communities/lms/community/pages/SCORM%20Dispatch.aspx.  LINGOs members with questions not answered within the aforementioned site, please contact Robb [robb (at) lingos.org].

2nd eLearning Global Giveback – ready, set, go!

As we discussed at our first Quarterly Update webinar on June 8 (click here for recording), the 2nd eLearning Global Giveback (GG2) is just kicking off this month. The first Global Giveback was a smashing success, and as an organization dedicated to learning, we learned a bit, and are making some adjustments to how we set it up for the second round.
 

1. The eLearning Community was ready to giveback in numbers of volunteers and hours of labor beyond our wildest imagination. This year, we ask volunteers to sign up and then member organizations that have posted a course to be developed will seek a volunteer. Last time, there were more volunteers than courses, and we lost the opportunity to contact some willing experts. We know there are more courses to be developed this year (including some that LINGOs itself plans to develop on project management, and onboarding for the LMS, for example). This way, we will have the volunteers’ contact information.

2. Longer timeframe: Last time, there was a scant two months for the courses to be developed. Many agencies with global staff, not to mention response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti, were unable to get all the pieces and people together in that short timeframe. This time, we have longer. All courses completed for a LINGOs member organization between April 1 and December 17, 2010 are eligible for the eLearning Global Giveback Competition (this includes some that missed the 1st Giveback deadline).

3. More supporting information for Members and Volunteers: Our GG2 site (http://ngolearning.org/globalgiveback) has tabbed sections with information for Volunteers and for Members with links to resources (downloadable or on line). Please be sure that your volunteers are aware of the tools and resources that the Global Giveback Sponsors are generously making available to them.

Please instruct agency subject matter experts who are working directly with volunteers, to refer them to the resources and to the Clive Shepherd 60 Minute Master’s for Subject Experts (this course is coming soon to the LINGOs LMS… in the meantime, it’s on the  web).  

We’ve created an eLearning Global Giveback Community Group on LinkedIn. This group is independent of LINGOs and the eLearning Guild, and we encourage all participating in the Global Giveback to join in the group and share ideas, tips and resources. To discuss ideas for course topics to develop, please use the regular LINGOs group on LinkedIn as that site includes the broadest range of LINGOs members.

The First eLearning Global Giveback provided LINGOs members with over half a million dollars’ worth of customized eLearning for LINGOs member agencies. In the first round twelve member agencies took advantage of this resource. We’d like to double the number of agencies and courses developed in the second round… and even more importantly, we’d like to maximize the usage of the developed courses. The opportunity to participate is open to all LINGOs members in good standing. Self-paced courses developed for Level 1 member organizations will be posted on the shared portal and available to all Level 1 agencies. We strongly encourage Level 2 member organizations to share the courses developed for them with all LINGOs members. However, Level 2 agency administrators can load the courses directly onto their own portals.

How to get started:
Once you’ve decided on what course(s) you want to develop with a volunteer, your organization’s key contact to LINGOs should request a username and password for the “members only” section (contact membersupport(at)LINGOs.org). Post your course, and then look at the information on volunteers available. Volunteers will indicate the type of course content and specific interests when they sign up. Their detailed information is only available on the “members only” page.  Look at the FAQs for members for more details. Join the LinkedIn group for the eLearning Global Giveback.

And feel free to contact me (marian[at]LINGOs.org) or Ana Raquel (AnaRaquel[at]LINGOs.org) with questions!

Welcome back to the LINGOs Blog

We are back from our sabbatical from blogging. There are lots of great things going on at LINGOs and within the LINGOs community of international NGOs and we’re exploring new ways of sharing the news. As you read on, you will see that we are expanding the scope of this blog to include news on many LINGOs topics, and not limiting the blog to Learning Tools.

Our goal is to post a new article every two weeks about new products, resources, and ideas that LINGOs member organizations can and are using to build the capacity of their staff delivering global development, relief, conservation and social justice programs around the world. We are working to adjust our systems so that blog posts will be sent out in an email to anyone who is already signed up for announcements and events on the LINGOs website, and anyone who signs up for a feed from here.

We will continue to post links to relevant LINGOs events and announcements as part of a discussion on the LINGOs group. As of today, there are over 170 people in the group with discussions ongoing including:

• resources for global cultural fluency
• mentoring for younger staff
• courses for the eLearning Global Giveback
• eGames for Change
• Oxfam’s mid June conference for international NGOs on eLearning.

We are also going to fine tune our webinar offerings to maximize this valuable “synchronous” time where members are together in voice, if not in person, for discussion rather than presentation. You tell us that you value the webinar format and we know that you are very busy. We also know that if you miss a webinar, most people would rather get the information through reading or watching a quick Jing! than sitting through a recording of a longer session that was designed to be interactive with participants who were there in “real time.”
We will focus webinars on Quarterly Updates for members (the first one is scheduled for Tuesday, June 8 at 11am Eastern time – that’s 8am Pacific time and 4pm in London). Click here for details, including Login link.

We are also working to schedule more presentations by experts in the fields of learning, measurement, and more. If you have suggestions for vibrant speakers, please send them to Marian.

Additionally, we’d love to continue to support member interactions via webinar. If you are working on something you think is of interest to other members, or a topic that has generated great discussion on LinkedIn (such as building content on global cultural fluency, hint, hint), please contact Marian. We may be able to set up a session in our new Elluminate “big room.”

Please keep in touch with LINGOs with comments, questions, suggestions… you can reach us by email, phone, skype, LinkedIn, Blog comments, and even… in person!

Here’s some of our travel for the next month and a half:

Date	Location	LINGOs staff member
June 2-4	WASHINGTON, DC	Eric
June 11 – 19	THAILAND	Eric
June 14-18	BOSTON	Marian
June 14-15	NEW YORK CITY	Mike
June 16-20	OXFORD, ENGLAND	Mike
June 21-25	LONDON ENGLAND	Mike
June 26-27	NEW YORK CITY	Mike
June 28-30	BALTIMORE/WASHINGTON DC	Mike
July 15-16	WASHINGTON, DC area	Marian

Next blog will be posting on the 2nd eLearning Global Giveback. We look forward to seeing you at the June 8 quarterly update webinar!

Happy Learning!
- Marian

marian[at]lingos.org