Custom is King: Why Bespoke Courseware is Taking Over
By 29 Oct 2019
The original digital courseware was very different to what we see today. eLearning providers would develop, what we now refer to as white label courses – generic, non-branded courseware on a wide range of topics which could be purchased by any organisation and used to educate staff.
In order to be relevant to as many organisations and learners as possible the courseware was vague and did not focus on specific organisational processes. Learning was delivered in a language that would hopefully be understood by all, regardless of the learners age, experience or education level and the information delivery methods kept standard.
Overtime however, organisations have come to understand the benefits of investing in custom courseware, specifically developed with both their learners needs and company values in mind. This understand has caused a shift in a large number of organisations approach to training and development, many of whom are now opting to partner with eLearning developers to build specialised content for their team.
To help understand why so many organisations are now going to the effort of creating their own custom learning content, we have reviewed 3 of the biggest benefits of the courseware below.
1. Information Delivery Methods
A customised eLearning course is a unique solution that only your company can use. As mentioned, it considers which training methods will specifically suit your learners and delivers information in a method and language that will best resonate with them; resulting in higher engagement and increased retention of information. An example of this is the use of video to deliver information to younger audiences who do not have the attention span to read through pages of text.
This benefits your organisation by training staff correctly and more efficiently the first time, resulting in less time spent on training, less invested in refresher training and ultimately more profitable staff in the long run.
White label courseware on the other hand is built with assumed knowledge of the learner meaning the information delivery methods and language styles will most likely not be suited to the end user.
2. Relevance to Role
The bespoke nature of custom content means that it can be tailored to address very specific topics that would not be found in a standard white label course. If, for example, there is a procedure that is completely unique to your organisation, you can have this included in the courseware by your eLearning developer.
Course developers can also customise the content of your eLearning courses to mimic your company’s use of language, its values and its policies, helping to create consistency and build your brand’s identity in the eyes of your learners.
This is again in contrast to white label content, which is generic, impersonal and used by several companies across several different industries. It is impossible to train your employees on any specifics that are unique to your organisation and worse still, will include information that does not actually apply to your organisation – leading to wasted time and confusion.
3. Easy Updates
These days organisations are operating within fast paced and ever-changing environments and it is crucial that their learning and development processes can keep up and stay relevant. Once an organisation owns their own learning content, they can have their course developer make changes both quickly and affordably to ensure the information being provided to staff is correct – improving performance and often mitigating risk to the organisation.
Because white label courseware is non-customisable and often does not actually belong to the organisation, there is no way for a company to have the information within updated. In this scenario, an organisation must either hope that the owner of the courseware will update the information or go in search of a new course all together – a process that can take both time and money.