Shiny Disks vs. HTTP: electronic training methods compared
Word Lions recently helped a customer author a CD-ROM for some training content that our customer created. During the process, we were reminded that:
- We’ve created a lot of training content that was ultimately distributed either online–via a Learning Management System (LMS) or web page–and via optical media like CD-ROM or DVD.
- We’ve had to learn a lot about how to do optical media content distribution through difficult on-the-job lessons.
Shiny Disks or Web Pages
You’ll want to decide whether you are going to distribute your content on physical media (shiny optical disks) or electronically (using a LMS or web page) early on in the content development process. Why? Because the Quality Assurance (QA) process is very different depending on which distribution method you go with, and getting the QA right will make or break the customer perception of your training content.
You decide whether to use CD-ROM or HTTP by thinking through the constraints of your training environment and other relevant considerations, summarized in the table below:
|
Constraint/consideration |
Lean Towards |
Why |
|
No reliable internet or network access in the training environment. |
CD-ROM/DVD |
Trainees won’t have access to an LMS or web page if there’s no internet access in the training environment. |
|
Training content will change often and students need immediate access to the updated content. |
LMS/Web |
An LMS or web page lets you deploy updated or changed training content with much greater speed, ease, and lower cost than a CD-ROM/DVD distribution. |
|
Your content is already behind schedule and you have a hard date you’re trying to hit. |
LMS/Web |
If your project is already behind schedule, the extra time it takes to move ISO files back and forth, burn images, and do a good QA job on the resulting disks will further threaten your delivery date. |
|
You need to control who has access to the training content. |
LMS/Web |
After a CD-ROM/DVD gets into the wild, you have no control over where it goes or who sees it. With an LMS or Web page, you can use DRM and other techniques to control who has access to the content, and you can revoke access if necessary. |
|
You need to track who uses the training content. |
LMS |
Almost all LMS systems have some ability to track who uses the training content, and the outcome of their interaction with the content and any assessments it contains. |
|
The audience for your content has a particular preference either for Web or optical media methods. |
Depends |
Do take into account your audiences’ preferences! Some people want a physical disk they can hold in their hand, take home with them, and cuddle up next to at night. |
Optical Media Best Practices
If optical media is the best distribution method for your training content, keep the following best practices in mind:
- We recommend that customers plan for the same kind of QA procedure you would have if you were distributing software on optical media. In general, this means having at least:
- One QA pass on the finished content before you create a master CD-ROM/DVD image.
- One QA pass on the finished content after you use the content to create a master CD-ROM/DVD image.
- Testing the content end-to-end on one or more computers configured exactly like those your customers will use.
- Allow adequate time for CD or DVD duplocation and shipping.
- Allow some time (and budget) for the unexpected!
LMS/HTTP Best Practices
if an LMS or web page is the best distribution method for your case, keep these best practices in mind:
- While we don’t encourage skimping on QA if your are using an electronic distribution method, you certainly can fix issues that your QA process uncovers more easily than with optical media. For this reason, you may want to structure a beta release of your training content–via web or LMS–to a limited audience as a way of testing your content before it’s wider release.
- While there are lots of nice LMS packages that you can self-host, give serious consideration to hosted solutions. Hosted LMS companies can save you a lot of setup, configuration, backup, and other operational headaches.
- Even though an LMS makes lots of things easier, there will be support calls. Create good instructions on using the LMS for your customers, and a good FAQ, to reduce the number of support calls.
