Social eLearning Software Blog

Have you wondered about Social Networking?

Do you want to increase marketing reach and effectiveness?

Come learn more ….. FREE Live Webinar - 

Create a New Revenue Generating Channel for Your Business

Wed, May 27, 2009 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EDT

69% of US adults who use the internet also use social media—from blogs and discussion forums to podcasts and videos.

So if you’re not using social media, you’re missing a big opportunity to engage them.

What can you achieve?

• Extended brand visibility and reach
• Up to 50% increase in customer satisfaction & retention
• Increases of up to 54% in demand & revenue

Social media and learning solutions enable you to engage and interact with your prospects, customers, and enthusiasts, and then use their participation to grow your business. 

Whether integrated into your existing web presence or as a separate destination portal, social media solutions will help you open up lines of communication, build brand loyalty, and gain more customers. Here’s how you can benefit from social networking:

• Generate demand and increase revenue by developing deeper ties with prospects and building trust. On average, customers engaged with social media spend 54% more than their non-social peers.
• Establish brand champions to communicate your message through viral channels—and let the community work for you to generate referrals, share product reviews, and foster innovative ideas. Drive offline viewership, online readership, and increased ratings to maximize site traffic and increase advertising revenue.
• Improve customer satisfaction by giving customers a voice. In a recent study, 89% of best-in-class companies reported year-to-year improvements in customer satisfaction due to social media.
• Extend your brand visibility & reach by giving your customers, prospects, and partners a voice and interacting with them on a regular basis to create brand buzz and extend PR access.
• Improve retention by streamlining customer communications and increasing your response rate to customer issues. Customers who use social media and community remain customers 50% longer than non-community users.
• Advance market research and foster product innovation by conducting online focus groups and leveraging the collective insight, wisdom, and creativity of your customers, prospects, partners, and employees—without the expense of costly research and travel.

 I am sure you heard the phrase “content is king”.  If that is true, then the platform is queen.  What good is it to view the new Star Trek movie on a black and white television set?  The content will never realize its full potential without the right platform.

Last week, we announced our partnership with  SkillSoft plc where we would provide the market leading SkillSoft content on our TOPYX eLearning platform.  We are very excited about this partnership.  Why?

We provide our customers with a comprehensive solution to their eLearning needs.  By teaming up the largest eLearning content provider in the world, we are able to provide customers a broad array of relevant content on a fully integrated learning platform.  A true turnkey solution.

The old style of digitized content and boring legacy learning management systems are not relevant, as black and white television sets are not relevant anymore.  As technology has evolved to hi-def televisions, so must your eLearning platform.  We can leverage technology the enriches the learning experience and keep people involved with the content with features that surpasses anything else on the market.

TOPYX is the right platform for eLearning in today’s world.  It engages, interacts, and collaborates – both learner and instructor alike.  Combine that with the content provided by SkillSoft in a bundled, turnkey solution and it is a winning combination.

And what would a king be without his queen…

Collaborative learning, cost savings and an environmentally friendly education distribution system our eLearning 2.0 and mLearning platform provides are just some of the benefits of TOPYX. For more information, blogs, forums, videos and even test driving TOPYX, please go to www.interactyx.com.

Alfred R. Novas

Chief Executive Officer

Interactyx Limited

al.novas@interactyx.com

www.interactyx.com

If you haven’t seen our latest news (http://www.interactyx.com/interactyx-limited-announces-partnership-with-skillsoft-plc), this week Skillsoft and Interactyx entered into a partnership that will allow corporations and services companies to access 4,500 (English language) eLearning titles via the TOPYX learning management platform, which is integrated with social networking.   The solution is affordable with a foundational subscription of 15 core classes on our SAAS platform at less than $25,000 for an organization below 1,000 learners. 

With this partnership, companies can access and train interactively with others for skill enhancement or certification through TOPYX on a variety of subject areas including:

1.   Business Skills – Strategy, Leadership, Operations, Lean Six Sigma, Marketing, Finance, Accounting, HR and Administration

2.   IT Skills – Websphere, Java, Microsoft, Sun and Programming Fundamentals

The courseware is augmented by a secure, internal social networking that allows learners to continue to share informal practices via communities of interest with discussion forums, articles, video/audio/IM chat and blogs among other functionality.    The ability to create these communities, manage, monitor and moderate the informal learning is done through a single console.

How easy can it be for your company to embrace the future of learning?   Just say TOPYX and Skillsoft - bringing unique ingredients to extend your corporate training boundaries.

To learn more on how TOPYX can assist your company, please contact bob.brogan@interactyx.com or via phone at 708 243-7004.

Last week we looked at some of the arguments for eLearning from a cost perspective.  Now you may have to address stakeholders who say “We get that eLearning is cheaper, but is it better?”  Here are some reasons you can use to explain why eLearning is better than the classroom – most of the time.

1. Freedom to go wrong - privately

Is learning always better done in a group? Not for learners who prefer a more private experience. Learners may not want to reveal their lack of understanding of a topic. They may not want to fail publicly. eLearning affords a private experience, enabling learners to explore mistakes and learn from them, without any fear of what others think.

2. Better approximation of reality

eLearning is not the same as learning by doing on the job; but if it’s well designed, it can get a lot closer to approximating reality than classroom sessions do. Goal-based scenarios which emulate the worker’s real environment can do a pretty good job of emulating real work tasks. If they incorporate real-world data such as emails, reports and websites and provide learners with realistic challenges, then you’re already a lot closer to reality than the more traditional ‘tell’ environments of the classroom.

3. Higher consistency

If you’re looking to communicate a key message, how to interpret a policy or set of guidelines, there’s the risk of inconsistency whenever a group of facilitators are delivering it. There’s the possibility that a key point will be missed, or miscommunicated. Elearning delivers the same core point to everyone, and well designed assessments and formative questions can check for understanding and more importantly ability to apply the points on the job.

4. More learner control

Learners in classroom environments have very little control. They attend based on a centralized schedule which may not be in tune with when they actually need training. When they do get to attend, they’re locked into one speed, the one the facilitator chooses. Elearning is available on demand, the learner’s in control of the pace, and sections can be revisited whenever learners need to refresh, or the learning suddenly becomes relevant, e.g. two days before performance reviews.

So what’s the performance evidence?

Brandon Hall (2001) did a study where they compared learner performance for two groups, one using elearning and one in facilitator-led training. The results showed that learner performance was enhanced through elearning compared to classroom methods in terms of:

• learners’ attitudes toward the elearning format and training in general
• learners’ scores on tests, certifications or other evaluations
• the number of learners who achieve ‘mastery’ level and / or ‘pass’ exams
• learners’ ability to apply new knowledge or processes on the job
• long-term retention of information

There’ll be times when you need that social interaction, expert facilitation, and hands-on activity that facilitator-led training can deliver. But in economic times like these, when speed to performance in the most cost-effective manner, is key – you should be starting with elearning first.

http://www.kineo.com/elearning-tips/e-learning-why-it-delivers-better-performance.-.html

With so much of the discussion about TOPYX centering around the Social Networking integration with the LMS, sometimes we lose focus on some other important features that differentiate TOPYX from many of the old traditional LMS.

One feature that admittedly, when we designed it, we simply felt was normal, has actually become a very distinctive differentiator that has received rave reviews from both instructors and students as they’ve seen and worked with Topyx. Almost everyone that sees it comments how they can’t do it with their current product.

It’s as simple as this: Everything can be viewed one place!

When a student Logs in to TOPYX, on their home page they see their entire calendar at a glance with all of the schedule, assignments, quizzes etc. from ALL of their TOPYX Courses all in one place. They don’t have to go into each course to see each schedule separately. They can go right into content, do their submission, do their quizzes and assignments...or for that matter use any of the social networking components, all from one elegant, school branded page.

Similarly instructors also get this important benefit from TOPYX. All on one page, they can manage ALL of their courses, content,  schedules, assignments, markings etc. They see and manage everything from one easy to read view.

These are a few minor features, but when you consider that both students and instructors work with the LMS constantly, these are important features that contribute to the overall satisfaction of using the platform.

See for yourself - Take the TOPYX Test Drive.

Until next week,

Patrick Batty

Vice President, Academic Solutions

Interactyx Limited

patrick.batty@interactyx.com

www.interactyx.com