Social eLearning Software Blog

800 years!  It’s hard to imagine that there are organisations that have existed 800 years or more.

For a North American, such as myself, I’m certain it’s even more difficult to imagine, than for those that reside in continents steeped in ancient history.

In the academic world, there are only 4 institutions in the world formed as degree granting universities that have existed 800 years or more:

Università di Bologna formed in 1088;

Université de Paris formed around 1150 ;

University of Oxford was officially formed in 1167, however teaching began there almost 100 years earlier;

University of Cambridge was established in 1209, and is celebrating it’s 800^th anniversary this year.

Cambridge is especially important to Interactyx, as the University of Cambridge, Judge Business School has selected TOPYX® as their new Virtual Learning Environment for their newly launched Executive MBA Program.

Read the full release here - http://www.interactyx.com/university-of-cambridge-s-judge-business-school-chooses-topyx-elearning-solution

That brings me to my point: How Does an Institution Continue to Thrive for 800 Years?

Certainly academic institutions such as Cambridge and the others are steeped in centuries of tradition, but they thrive by remaining relevant to their students.

As an example, the Executive MBA program at Judge Business School chose TOPYX because of it’s contemporary features and their relevance to their students. They are embracing TOPYX various embedded Community Development and Social Networking components, such as Linkedin, Facebook, Skype and even Twitter to enhance the learners experience!

They recognize that not only are Executive MBA students enrolling at Judge Business School because of it’s reputation for excellence and the quality of it’s instruction, but also for the networking opportunities with their peers. Those networking opportunities are now being extended and embraced by Judge Business School by using TOPYX as their learning environment. Students can connect with each other through a wide variety of tools at a level no other learning management product has even considered.

This is a great example of how an institution continues to thrive for so long.  They recognize, respect, and honour their tradition, but yet continually adapt to remain relevant to their constituents.

This is a major step toward the future of creating the most collaborative, engaging learning experience for students by one of the most respected academic institution in the world, the University of Cambridge.

Learn more about how eLearning with integrated social networking is changing academic programs - http://interactyx.com.  Or, feel free to contact me directly to discuss your eLearning program at patrick.batty@interactyx.com. 

We are both thrilled and honoured to be working with the University of Cambridge, Judge Business School.

Welcome to TOPYX.

Patrick Batty
Vice President, Academic Solutions

Interactyx Limited

patrick.batty@interactyx.com

www.interactyx.com

For the next few weeks I am providing tips for your blogging, which also benefit the Twitter users that want to drive more traffic back to their websites.

Tip 2 – Don’t Flood Readers with Posts

Certain types of blogs have different level of posting frequency.  Unless you run a news blog that needs to be updated multiple times per day, try to find a nice posting schedule that you can keep to.  I tend to post around one to two times per week on my main sites.   Three to four posts per week on your main sites is still an acceptable number; I could do more, but only if I really have something to say.

Twitter tip:   Overactive users tend to get “unfollowed”.  This has been minimized by tools like Tweetdeck, but if you are tweeting 10x per minute (some people really do this) then you are going to clog up the twitter ”stream” and people will stop wanting your updates.

Fun site for more blogging tips - http://www.dailyblogtips.com/

Jodi Harrison

Vice President, Business Development

Interactyx Limited 

jodi.harrison@interactyx.com

www.interactyx.com

The facts are starting to impressively pile up for Talent Management professionals to adopt Web 2.0 tools across the Talent Management Lifecycle.   Any HR executive looking to crack the code on positively impacting their organization’s productivity at an affordable cost using Web 2.0 needs to take a serious look at TOPYX from Interactyx.  Wow, how can someone be so confident that their solution can enable a best in class transformation in a matter of months.  Easy, we are doing it today.

Last month (June, 2009) Aberdeen Research confirmed the TOP 5 Uses of Web 2.0 for Human Resource professionals in its enlightened research piece:  HR Executive’s Guide to Web 2.0 – Cracking the Code for Talent Management.   The “Best in Class” Talent Managers have adopted and leveraged these tools far more often in 2009 with significant growth in the areas of:  Recruiting (105%); Onboarding (35%) and Learning and Development (35%).

TOP 5 Uses of Web 2.0 in Organizations

Source:  June, 2009-Aberdeen Research entitled HR Executive’s Guide to Web 2.0 – Cracking the Code for Talent Management.

The survey focused on 220 organizations that utilized at least one Web 2.0 technology in 2008 and 2009.

Aberdeen used three key performance criteria to determine the Best in Class; Industry Average and Laggard organizations in leveraging Web 2.0 tools for talent management

1.    Time to Productivity (defined as the time it takes an employee to reach desired level of competence in a new role)

2.    Employee Retention / Turnover

3.    Percentage of employees who indicated that they are highly engaged (as of most recent employee engagement surveys)

The results are astounding and speak to the need for companies to adopt a TOPYX-like solution for their organization as quickly as possible. 

Source:  June, 2009-Aberdeen Research entitled HR Executive’s Guide to Web 2.0 – Cracking the Code for Talent Management.

These performance metrics can provide the inputs for a significant business case for organizations that are not “Best in Class”.  The TOPYX solution will quickly enable the returns for the most important assets of your business – employees.  As a talent manager, you will change the game for your organization by becoming “Best in Class”.

To learn more about TOPYX and how we do it, please contact me at bob.brogan@interactyx.com or via phone at 888.575.2266 x203

In a recent article by Howard Schechter, eLearning consultant for eLearn Magazine, Mr. Schechter details the cost of implementing the traditional learning management systems.  Here is what he says:

“A typical first-year budget may be in the $100,000-$200,000 range for a Fortune 1000 company, while a small business or divisional learning initiative may spend $30,000–$50,000. Smaller learning initiatives cost less because there are fewer concerns, such as tying it in with CRM software."

Enterprise level implementations require a lot more design and upfront work (money), as there are more players, issues, and integration. The bigger the project, the more it's going to cost.

This discussion focuses on the concerns of this mid-market, which covers learning systems engaging between 1,000 and 5,000 learners.

Mid-Market Costs
The costs of mid-market programs vary significantly, and there are several different costs within, including:

• initial cost of the LMS, LCMS, and authoring software
• annual software maintenance (typically 15 percent to 20 percent of the purchase price),
• software licenses required to run the applications such as SQL Server, Cold Fusion, Crystal Reports, among others
• "free" systems of the open source genre, such as Moodle.org (costs are different for "free" systems) NOTE:  Please read blog on the real cost of Moodle at http://www.interactyx.com/blog/uncovering-the-hidden-costs-of-moodle
• the initial and ongoing cost of training people on three or four different software applications,
• integrating, maintaining, and updating the software and servers, and other IT needs
• managing multiple vendor relationships
• having additional employees specialized in content management, instructional design, interactive designers, and authoring tools
• having subject matter experts

Here's a recent example of costs from a small company that manufactures products and is a leader in its field. The company decided to move its internal and external customer training courses online, about 30 courses in all. The HR manager in charge had experience as a trainer but no background in designing, creating, and managing an online learning initiative. The manager received advice from various vendors and had decided the following were needed:

1. A learning management system (LMS): $50,000–$200,000. A cumbersome, home-grown database application was being used to track training, and the company saw the need to upgrade to a commercial LMS. The perception was fueled by 1) cost projections of bringing the home-grown application up to speed to learning standards conformance (SCORM) and open source standards, 2) the perceived need to import a purchased library of 200 courses, and 3) the need for certain features, such as reporting. The LMS packages being evaluated ranged from $50,000–$200,000.

2. A learning content management system (LCMS): $50,000–$150,000. The manager did an online search for "content management" and came up with three candidate packages. The prices for this trio ranged from $50,000 –$150,000.

3. An authoring tool: $1,500 per workstation. An authoring package that is aggressively marketed and widely used was priced at $1,500 per workstation, and two full-time employees were slated for the authoring positions. Additional costs included initial training, annual upgrades for the software, and sustainment training.

The low-end estimate reached approximately $175,000 for the project. The only "moving target" difficult to quantify is the LMS pricing model, which is rarely a fixed cost. Indeed, the cost often escalates as the number of learners on the system increases or on the whim of the LMS company. This can make the annual cost of having an LMS an open-ended budget item, unless it's tightly managed.

Sticker shock is not unusual. Initial costs from $100,000–$500,000 have caused many "small implementation" managers to say, "Hold on. All we want to do is offer a few courses online. Isn't there a cheaper way to do this?"

The answer is YES WE CAN.

We have discussed the strengths of TOPYX® as it relates to bringing collaborative/informal learning with an integrated social networking to traditional LMS functionality.  Please learn more by visiting www.interactyx.com, take a test drive, view some videos, read some collateral material.

But when I read the costs of putting in traditional LMSs, Moodle, etc. at multiples of the cost of TOPYX, and with less engaging features to enhance the learners’ experience, I want to ensure that you know YES, there is a cheaper way and better way to do this.

We have a very compelling value proposition:

Despite all the changes we see in technology and software the “rules” to a successful blog including micro-blogging tends to have remained the same.  Yet, while the rules haven’t changed much a lot of our traffic generation methods have.

Each niche is getting more competitive by the day but it still doesn’t mean you can’t stand out from a crowd.  One of the best sites for creating relationships and getting website traffic has actually turned out to be Twitter.  In my next six blogs I will be sharing six common rules which can help with your blogging and also benefit the Twitter users that want to drive more traffic back to your site.

Rule 1 – Provide Value

That is the single most important reason anyone subscribes to a blog.

They get value, whether that value is in the form of humor or in the form of how to make money, that’s what people want.  Instead of getting into blogging to think how you can benefit (mindshare, income, etc.) look at how you can benefit your readers.  How can you make someone laugh, how can you make someone more money or in the case of our site: how you can help someone deliver robust training wrapped in social networking?  If you offer constant value to your readers, you’ll give them an important reason to stick around and keep your info top-of-mind.  Stay tuned for rule #2 next week!

Twitter tip: Instead of just linking to your website all the time, why not help people out. Ask people how you can help them or even just inspire people with some motivational quotes.

Fun site for more blogging tips - http://www.dailyblogtips.com

Jodi Harrison

Vice President, Business Development

Interactyx Limited

jodi.harrison@interactyx.com

www.interactyx.com

Until recently, the creation of a Corporate University has been out of reach for the vast majority of companies due to the costs of establishing the environment.  With the advent of affordable technologies such as Web 2.0, the creation of an interactive university that supports formal and informal learning for mid-market companies with 300 or more employees is now a reality.  For those that are looking to create learning environment for their distributed organization, Interactyx Limited offers TOPYX Corporate University in a Box.  The solution allows companies to realize cost saving and productivity benefits in a matter of months rather than years.

Based upon the research from Corporate University Xchange’s Survey of Future Directions, the benchmarks for starting up a Corporate University made little sense for any company but Fortune 1000’s.  To address this problem for the vast majority of companies in need of training destination for its employees, Interactyx Limited has created an offering that combines its hosted LMS with integrated social networking for collaboration, courseware from world-class sources and experienced professional consultants to provide a superior employee learning environment at a fraction of the traditional costs.  Here is how TOPYX Corporate University in a Box stacks up to the benchmarks.

 Source: Corporate University Xchange: Survey of Future Directions, 2006

While these facts alone should be enough motivation for your company to look at the TOPYX solution, our social networking components enhance the communication of the organization by allowing experts to share knowledge with others, expedite new product or process improvement rollouts, facilitate problem solving and improve the overall performance of your employees.  TOPYX is a transformational game changer that supports the future direction of learning within your business.

To learn more about TOPYX Corporate University in a Box, please contact me at bob.brogan@interactyx.com or via phone at 708 572-4899.

Interactyx is looking partners.