“Rapid” is a hot word in the e-learning industry. The speed and ease with which you can create an online course is the big selling point for many software developers. Ease of use is always good, but for me and my clients, speed to audience is rarely the most critical factor. Over the years I’ve been developing e-learning courses the big ticket item our clients want is ability to easily edit content after the product is originally delivered. A lot of our work is for government agencies and once a contract ends, it doesn’t matter if that agency needs to change one word of a product, if the contract is over it’s a huge headache to get the work done. That’s why so many statements of work that come to us require use of non-proprietary products, and/or the requirement that said agency will have the ability to make edits to a deliverable at a later date.

To that end we often develop using off-the-shelf products with which our clients have the ability to update facts or figures in their training products without having to recontract. They may need some training, just as when they first opened Word or PowerPoint, but the ability is there, and the effort is similar to working in either of those programs.

One challenge that comes from keeping e-learning course content that easily editable is that it can be prohibitive to integrate other media, like video—and I’m talking professionally produced video, not webcam footage which I recognize is becoming more readily available to e-learning authors—into the course. For example we’re working with clients for which we’d like to have an actual presenter as part of their online course. For another we’re producing short, personal video stories, and for yet another, we’re capturing brief personal interviews. The purpose of each course is different, as is the audience and tone, but for all three projects we’re keeping one thing in common among the videos—they won’t include content—or even key personnel—that are likely to need to be updated. Our host will stick to generic content like the welcome, section transitions and historical examples. Our interviewees will be telling personal stories and sharing opinions. We shy away from including agency leadership in video (particularly not in an election year!).

We let the video do what it does best, add story or personality to support the facts or techniques being conveyed via the training course. By keeping the video elements evergreen we limit the likelihood of costly revisions, and give our clients a product that will better stand the test of time.