General

I’ve just signed up to run my first ever masterclass. It’s on the subject of e-learning design and it’s on June 3rd in London. To be honest I have mixed feelings about the prospect. The learning strategy for a masterclass is typically simple exposition (lectures if you like), with some Q&A and perhaps a little discussion.

This is absolutely not what I’m used to doing and certainly not for a whole day, but strangely I feel quite attracted to the idea of delivering a lot of content in a condensed format. No instruction, no discovery, no exploration, just simple exposition.

However, for independent, experienced specialists this format can be entirely acceptable. Yes there’s still a danger of overload, but if they’re capable learners they’ll soft out what’s useful for them and take lots of notes.

True, this may well be better delivered online as webinars, perhaps even as podcasts or videos, but I suppose that for most participants a day out of the office is protected time and has the added advantage of providing plenty of networking opportunities.

I think I’ve sold it to myself. My conscience is now clear.

Press Release:SyberWorks and Focus Compliance & Validation Services Announce Risk-Based Approach to FDA Computer Systems Validation Webinar Excerpt: "Focus Compliance & Validation Services, will partner with SyberWorks to present the fundamentals of conducting risk-based approach to computer systems validation with... Dave Boggs

AMREF's Innovative eLearning takes off in Uganda
ReliefWeb (press release)
AMREF's ground breaking and award winning electronic learning (eLearning) project has launched in Uganda. The project which is designed to rapidly and cost ...

The College Network Partners With American Nurses Association to Support ...
Marketwire (press release)
As one of the nation's leading eLearning companies and a partner with some of the nation's foremost institutions of higher learning, The College Network has ...

and more »

Free Online Course Availabe to Hoosiers
NewsTalk 1010 WCSI
Marc Lotter with the IDWD says there are over 750 E-learning courses available. Some of the more popular ones include pc basics, project management and ...

Upside Learning Announces Mobile App Based Learning Solutions
PR.com (press release)
Upside Learning, a global provider of learning solutions and a recognized leader in training outsourcing, custom e-learning development & LMS solutions, ...

and more »

B Line Schools Announces Unique New Program for Online GMAT and SAT Test ...
Marketwire (press release)
BLineSchools.com), the premier site for advantaged and customized eLearning, is announcing B Line Test Prep, an innovative online GMAT and SAT test ...

and more »

Great article on How to Create Great Teachers. It's focused on K-12 education primarily, but there is wisdom in the discussion relevant to workplace learning.

Here's the major points I take away:

1. Great teachers need deep content knowledge.
2. Great teachers need good classroom-management verbalization skills.
3. Great teachers need their content knowledge to be fluently available to them in the context of typical classroom situations. To get this fluency, they need to practice in such situations---and practice linking actions (especially their verbal utterances) to specific classroom situations.

The Displacement Hypothesis says that one activity can displace another activity.

In the following research by Robert Weis and Brittany Cerankosky, boys given video games (1) did worse in school, (2) spent less time in other after-school activities, (3) had more behavioral problems, and (4) had lower reading and writing scores.

Abstract of the Research Article:

Young boys who did not own video games were promised a video-game system and child-appropriate games in exchange for participating in an “ongoing study of child development.” After baseline assessment of boys’ academic achievement and parent- and teacher-reported behavior, boys were randomly assigned to receive the video-game system immediately or to receive the video-game system after follow-up assessment, 4 months later. Boys who received the system immediately spent more time playing video games and less time engaged in after-school academic activities than comparison children. Boys who received the system immediately also had lower reading and writing scores and greater teacher-reported academic problems at follow-up than comparison children. Amount of video-game play mediated the relationship between video-game ownership and academic outcomes. Results provide experimental evidence that video games may displace after-school activities that have educational value and may interfere with the development of reading and writing skills in some children.

Analogs in Adult Learning

Are there analogs in adult learning? In a quick database review I couldn't uncover any research on the displacement hypothesis with adults, but here are some learning events that may displace other learning events:

1. Twitter
2. Social Networking
3. Web Surfing
4. Blogs
5. RSS following
6. Gaming

Postscript:

When I asked the lead author if he knew of any studies on adults regarding the displacement hypothesis, he said "no," but he pointed me to this article on college students.

Cammy Bean interviews me in regard to the three most important e-learning design flaws in today's e-learning. I discussed three---and then two more!! Five design flaws in all.

How's your e-learning?

Check out the interview here.

You can also download the segments as podcasts.

Here is our latest press release and LMS e-Learning Implementation Series podcast: Press Release: SyberWorks LMS e-Learning Implementation Podcasts: Episode #36: Interview with Nicole Rollender of Advertising Specialty Institute Podcast: Interview with Nicole Rollender of Advertising Specialty Institute Dave Boggs,... Dave Boggs

As part of the Big Question this month Open Content in Workplace Learning?, I’m exploring whether Open Content can be used by for-profit companies.  And, since Open Content comes in under the Creative Commons license structure.  Actually, I’m curious if Open Content ever is not Creative Commons?  It’s by definition Open, but theoretically you could choose a different open license. I’ve just never seen it.

In any case, to understand the use of Open Content, it’s important to understand Creative Commons licensing.

Creative Commons Licensing Terms

Creative Commons licensing terms.  All CC licenses start with:

• Attribution (CC-BY) – Allows others to copy, distribute, display and perform a copyrighted work – and derivative
  works based upon it – but only if they give credit. All CC licenses contain this condition.

Licenses may have one or more of the following permissions or restrictions:

• Non-Commercial (NC) - Allows copy, distribute, display and perform a work – and derivative works
  based upon it – but for non-commercial purposes only.
• Share Alike (SA) - Allows others to distribute derivative works but only only under the same conditions as the original license.
• No Derivative Works (ND) – Allows copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of the work, but not make derivative works based on it.

These get combined into one of six licenses:

• Attribution (CC-BY)
• Attribution Share Alike (CC-BY-SA)
• Attribution No Derivatives (CC-BY-ND)
• Attribution Non-Commercial (CC-BY-NC)
• Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike (CC-BY-NC-SA)
• Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)

Licenses on Open Content

I took a bit of a sampling of various sources of content found via the OER Commons and from the OCW Consortium:

• SERC – CC-BY-NC-SA
• Learn NC – CC-BY-NC-SA
• MIT OpenCourseWare – CC-BY-NC-SA
• Utah State OpenCourseWare – CC-BY-NC-SA, but some specific courses such as Intro to Instructional Design has a CC-BY-SA
• Johns Hopkins OCW - CC-BY-NC-SA
• Notre Dame - CC-BY-NC-SA
• The Open University – CC-BY-NC-SA

There’s a definite pattern here.  Most of the OCW content appears to come under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence.  There were a few exceptions such as Stanford Engineering Everywhere with a CC-BY license.

But, I think this really turns into a question of the implications of CC-BY-NC-SA.

Implications of Noncommercial Use

Creative Commons noncommercial licenses disallow “commercial use” – i.e., they preclude the use:

… in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation.

From what I’ve read, it’s intentionally fuzzy what this exactly means and I am by no means an expert (or a lawyer) around this stuff.

Creative Commons themselves conducted a study to understand commonly held interpretation of this definition – which is itself important from a practical standpoint.

The study itself tells us that people generally consider the following unacceptable:

• Promotional use (advertising)
• Use makes money

Perception is that greater scrutiny is required as you move from:

• Private or individual,
• Charitable or social good,
• Non-profit,
• For-profit

In other words, generally use by an individual (i.e., self-study is considered okay).  If it’s for a charity, social good or non-profit, you are generally safe if you are not making direct revenue / donations from it.

I interpret that putting up links as a means for employees to access the content themselves would generally be considered safe.  I would be curious if anyone disagrees with this.  Of course, you can always find a corporate attorney who doesn’t want to do that even, but you probably can’t access common websites from that company either.

Here’s the tricky questions.  Maybe there are clear cut answers, I just don’t know what they are. 

What if I want to use the course content or part of the course content to teach employees or partners behind the firewall.  Is that commercial use?

A question from the study:

“Work would be used by a for-profit company, but no money would be made”

• Definitely commercial - ~33%
• Can’t say - ~40%
• Definitely noncommercial - ~27%

Shows that people are generally split on the question of whether the scenario I describe is considered commercial or noncommercial.  So it’s a bit of a gray area.  And likely it’s even fuzzier based on whether you are linking, copying, modifying, etc.

Any thoughts on the practical answer here?  If I want to create eLearning for use by my employees, can I use CC-BY-NC content as part of it?  Under what conditions?

Implications of Share Alike

Share Alike has some interesting challenges in interpretation for this situation as well.  From the Creative Commons FAQ:

If you are combining a work licensed under a ShareAlike license condition, you need to make sure that you are happy and able to license the resulting work under the same license conditions as the original work.

This suggests that if you use ShareAlike licensed materials in a course for your employees, then the resulting work must be licensed the same way. 

There’s a lot of gray around this as well.  First, likely the course is being provided only behind your firewall.  There’s nothing specifically that I can see that says you have to distribute the resulting work or make it widely available.  However, there is a clause that causes a bit of concern:

You may not impose any effective technological measures on the Work that restrict the ability of a recipient of the Work from You to exercise the rights granted to that recipient under the terms of the License.

Of course, the license would allow anyone with access to the work to distribute it themselves.  Thus, an employee could theoretically make a copy and distribute it.  Doubtful that an employee would do this, but since it would be consistent with the license, I’m not sure you could pursue.

In practice, I’m pretty sure you would want to approach the use of this content a bit differently.  If you are taking ShareAlike content and either using a subset or modifying it, you might just want to create a derivative work that is ShareAlike on its own.  It can be fully redistributed, and you wouldn’t care.  Then you can link to that work within your broader course.

It’s somewhat a loose coupling of content, but it is consistent with the spirit of the ShareAlike license.  Create new, public works based on the original work.  Don’t put stuff in that new work that is specific to your organization that you don’t want shared.  That creates a new ShareAlike work.  And you can link to a public instance of that.

If you think about it, having a large collection of these smaller chunks that could be used by employees probably could provide value to others.

Question for Images and Other Content

Of course this same question comes up about a whole lot of other content.  For example, Flickr provides access to images according to Creative Commons license.  See Flickr Creative Commons.  The images under the Attribution license obviously give you a fair bit of freedom to use in your eLearning.  How about those under Noncommercial?  Can you put one of those images inside your internal corporate training as long as you provide attribution?

It’s really the same question as the noncommercial use as described above.

ShareAlike would seem to be a bit problematic for images.  You are very likely using it as a copy inside the course.  Doesn’t that run you into the problem described above?

Help

Again, I’m by no means an expert on this stuff, nor an attorney.  But what would be good is to have some people who know more about this weigh in with help on how to proceed.

I’m also curious to find out what corporate attorneys are deciding around this?

eLearning Technology
Subscribe to the Best of eLearning Learning for updates from this blog and other eLearning blogs.

The Market Financial
Newport Digital Technologies Set To Generate First Time Revenues (OTC:NPDT)
The Market Financial
They are also tapping into a $52.5 billion worldwide e-learning market. Based on thorough technical analysis, the price may be heading higher to the $0.03 ...

Insight and Trafalgar launch agent incentive schemes
Travel Daily UK
In addition, agents can increase their discount each time they make a booking and by taking part in the eLearning programme, with the potential to earn a ...
New incentives from Insight and TrafalgarTravel Daily UK

all 2 news articles »

Boost eLearning Joins Google Enterprise Partner Program
Business Wire (press release)
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Boost eLearning, provider of end user training on how to use Google™ search and the Google Search Appliance™ to effectively ...

and more »

Echo360 Announces 2nd Annual Grants Program for Lecture Capture Research
Earthtimes (press release)
... vital means of building an international community in the field of lecture capture," says David Morris, director of eLearning at Coventry University. ...

and more »

The March Big Question on the Learning Circuits Blog asks why it is that open content initiatives such as the OER Commons and the Open Courseware Consortium haven't had a bigger impact. I have some suggestions:

• There is no history or culture of content sharing in workplace learning and development. Most l&d departments operate in glorious isolation and would probably never consider engaging with their peers to share learning content. There are, of course, exceptions and associations can play a valuable role in identifying common needs across a vertical or horizontal market sector and helping to centralise efforts to create new content. A good example is Learning Pool, which creates e-learning content for sharing across local government in the UK and helps to ensure that content developed in the field is distributed more widely. This is not a free service, but it does reduce the costs to any one local authority significantly.
• L&d people may simply never get to hear about the free resources available because these are not advertised in magazines or shown at exhibitions.
• Social media will not fill the dissemination gap, because most l&d people don't use them, at least not for professional purposes.
• And we should never forget the power of the 'not invented here' syndrome.

I nearly forgot to mention another exception to the rule that's so close to home I couldn't focus on it - the 60-minute masters. This resource for occasional instructional designers was created collaboratively under a Creative Commons license. The resulting short course has been taken by many thousands of designers around the world. The content can be freely adapted and distributed in any form, as long as it is not sold on commercially. Perhaps we could have more projects like this.

Latitude to Demonstrate LatitudeLearning.com, its Open-Source LMS at Learning ...
PR Web (press release)
Since 2002, the eLearning Guild's annual gathering has been the preeminent resource for e-Learning professionals, attracting leaders in the industry. ...

and more »

Are you dreaming of an immersive simulation while your team members plan yet another Jeopardy game? If you want stakeholders to expand their horizons, a working prototype is your best friend.

A working prototype has simple placeholder graphics, but the clicking and dragging work as they will in the final activity. Build a quick-and-dirty version of the activity of your dreams, and use it to convert everyone on your team.

Here’s a two-part video that shows what I mean. Leif Cederblom of SmartBuilder compares two prototypes of the same activity and highlights the goals and benefits of prototyping.

Part 1: The conventional drag-and-drop: busywork that’s easy to forget

Part 2: A more realistic activity that’s more likely to change behavior

Try both prototypes yourself and see how the contrast between the two underscores the power of the more realistic activity. No amount of polish would make the drag-and-drop more than a rote activity, while the “leave the lab” prototype is effective even in its raw, prototype form.

State Offers "eLearning" Courses Online
93.1 WIBC Indianapolis
Marc Lotter with IDWD says there are over 750 e-learning courses available. Some of the more popular ones include PC basics, project management and human ...
Ind. Department of Workforce Development offers free online job training ...Fox 59
State Launches Free Job TrainingInside INdiana Business (press release)

all 19 news articles »