Reminder: Dust Off Your ELearning

By: Justin Ferriman • January 9, 2017
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It is a new year and the perfect time to think ahead about exciting projects to come, and if you are involved in the elearning industry then this often means new courses for the new year.

But before you start on those endeavors don’t forget about the courses you created last year. Now is the perfect time to revisit those courses to make sure they are still “fresh”.

Online course content can have a short shelf-life. It doesn’t take much for the material to appear dated. Changes in logos, policies, technology, and other outside factors all impact the relevancy of your elearning. Knowing this you should set aside some time (preferably before new projects begin) to give your courses a quick review.

This isn’t to say that you have to rewrite and reorganize the entire course. Perhaps in time that will be necessary but more helpful at this point in time is to just verify that there are no blatant errors in the lessons.

For example, if you have a course that trains to a certain piece of technology then you could go through your screenshots to make sure that they are still relevant. Software is often evolving and there are times when menus and settings change. You will want to capture these changes for your learners.

Sticking with visuals for a moment you may also want to review any charts or diagrams including in your elearning. You should check to see that the data is still accurate (and will it continue to be relevant) for the coming year. Also check to see if there is new information that can be included.

Depending on the length and amount of courses you have this exercise could take a little time. In a perfect world you should perform this course content audit once a quarter, but if that’s not possible then twice a year will work – starting with a review January. 🙂

Justin Ferriman

Justin started LearnDash, the WordPress LMS trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major universities, training organizations, and entrepreneurs worldwide. He is currently founder & CEO of GapScout. Justin’s Homepage | GapScout | Twitter