Home > News > September 2005 > 22-Sep-2005

The Training Foundation launches e-learning initiative

The Training Foundation has launched an e-learning product suite following a four year research and development programme.

The suite is built around an online authoring system called Acce-Lerator which includes an integral instructional design course, Screencraft, and its own learning object design assistant. The Training Foundation has also launched the first programmes in a planned series of customisable content libraries.

The first two content programmes launched, The Responsible Employee and The Responsible Manager, were developed under the supervision of director of e-learning Clive Shepherd. Each comprises 11 one-hour online courses developed with Acce-Lerator, designed as customisable induction programmes.

Clive Shepherd explained the background to the project: "Since the mid 1990's, e-Learning has consistently under-achieved its predicted take-up levels. In August 2000, our strategy team identified three main reasons behind the disappointing 'first wave' of e-learning. Entry costs were too high. Trainers had not generally engaged with the medium. Business and job specific learning content were scarce - most of the budget was going on the technology and not the content."

Nick Mitchell, The Training Foundation's chief executive (right), added: "Since we were convinced of the substantial benefits that effective online learning can deliver, we defined an R&D plan to address these issues.

"The key component was to develop an extremely easy-to-use authoring tool, usable by all teachers and trainers without any previous online experience. It had to be accessible to all, hence online, and to meet all best-practice accessibility standards. It had to empower a total novice to create a learning object inside two hours from first accessing the product. It has been a long road because the technical challenges were immense, but we have finally met every design requirement.

"Since early 2004 we have made Acce-Lerator available to tutors in around 150 colleges, through a collaborative project with learndirect and the LSC, and the results have shown that Acce-Lerator fills a major ease-of-use gap.''

Les Hobbs, director of learning solutions and Acce-Lerator programme director, commented; "From the start we realised that, to engage trainers, tutors and subject matter experts, we needed to offer them more than just a software tool. Instructional design for online delivery of learning requires new skills of traditional trainers; this is often overlooked. At The Training Foundation, we have been providing certificated e-learning professional skills training since 2000, so we put an instructional design training course into Acce-Lerator and also design guidance for more than 40 different types of learning object.

''This is what makes Acce-Lerator unique: it's not a product designed by software engineers, it's a product developed by software engineers, but designed by learning professionals.''

External link

The Training Foundation

Training Reference is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites.

Related information

For related news, case studies, articles and research, visit our
e-learning home page

Books for training professionals

• Bookshop home page
• e-Learning books
• Blended learning books

Find e-learning providers

Visit the Training Reference Directory to view supplier details for a wide range of courses, products and services.

Sponsored links

Back to top