Part 4: Evaluating and Analysing Your E-Learning Course

In this 4-part series, WorkPlan takes you through the phases of creating an effective e-learning course. This is part 4 of the series where we discuss the importance of analysing and evaluating your e-learning course, and how you can get started.

Welcome to the final instalment of our 4-part series on creating an effective e-learning course. In the previous part of this series, we’ve discussed how you should approach planning, the considerations you should make when developing your e-learning course, and how you should develop and implement your e-learning course.

In this part, we will unpack the importance of evaluating your e-learning course. This includes questions you should ask yourself and the tools at your disposal to answer those questions.

Go back to your e-learning course roots

The entire goal of evaluating your e-learning course is to see if your employees are learning and achieving the intended outcomes and goals of the course.

Your first step to evaluating your e-learning course should be to go back to the planning stage and refamiliarize yourself with the goals, intended outcomes and benefits of the course. Once you’ve done this, you will then know what to look for when you analyse and evaluate.

Content

As briefly mentioned in our first part of this series, aim to keep the length of the content fairly short so that the entire course can take around 15 minutes to complete. This will ensure that your employees retain the knowledge learned in each course they complete.

The overall content can include microcontent which is copy, imagery or videos that can be consumed in 10-30 seconds.

Questions to ask yourself

Directionless evaluation does not get you anywhere. Once you’ve understood the goals and intended outcomes, you should ask yourself the following questions:

• Have we solved the problem?
• How do we know we’ve solved the problem?
• What is the impact of the e-learning course?
• What needs to change?
• What can we continue to improve?

When asking the last question, you can ask further questions such as:

• Is the content still relevant and current?
• Are standards being maintained?
• Are learning objectives still being met?
• Are the materials being used correctly?

The e-learning course should be reviewed periodically to maintain the quality of the course over time.

What tools do you have to help you analyse and evaluate

The tools you have at your disposal should all aid in your evaluation of your e-learning course.

Learner feedback

The best way to learn about the effectiveness of your course is from the people who are taking it. We mentioned in part 3, about testing your course during the implementation phase. Feedback can be collected through a number of ways such as surveys, word-of-mouth, focus groups, etc.

WorkPlan Learning allows managers include surveys within their courses and allows learners to comment on e-learning courses.

Assessment results

Assessments help you see if your employees are understanding and retaining the knowledge they learn from your e-learning course. Analysing the results data from the quizzes included in your course can give insights into what your employees are understanding, what they need more help with, whether there are errors in the quiz, or if the learning content makes sense.

LMS course metrics

Course metrics can tell you a lot about how your employees are engaging with, completing, and achieving the goals of your e-learning course.

For example, course completion metrics can show you whether your employees are engaged with the course throughout. A low completion rate can reveal underlying problems with your course.

Conclusion

Creating an e-learning course doesn’t have to be difficult; understanding what you want to achieve with your course is the first step.

Workplan Learning is a collaborative LMS that simplifies e-learning course creation and publication and puts the power in the managers’ and learners’ hands. WorkPlan Learning allows you to align employee learning with your strategy, and managers to track employee training progress.

Please contact us today for a free demo today.

Missed reading the previous parts of this series? Just click the links below:

• Part 1: How to Plan for an Effective E-Learning Course
• Part 2: Designing An Engaging E-Learning Course
• Part 3: How to Develop and Implement Your E-Learning Course

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