Crafting effective online training: expert insights

October 2, 2023

A lot goes into building an effective training course, and not all the steps are things people might expect. For content that isn't spelled out in regulations, it's even more complex. That kind of material is rarely documented in one place, and every trainer has their own take on it. In a recent webinar, CarriersEdge President Mark Murrell sat down with Tiffany Cancian and Rick Duchalski from the CarriersEdge Content and Marketing teams to break down all the things they do when building courses on non-regulatory subjects. They covered:

1. Scanning the horizon: Where to start?
2. Into the weeds: Research
3. Clearing the underbrush: Designing with purpose
4. Building the path: Putting it all together

Scanning the horizon: Where to start

The content team writers have backgrounds in instructional design, writing and research, but they still need to figure out which topics need to be covered. Sometimes industry partners will ask directly for a new course, but sometimes writers have to go out and discover the need. They need to monitor the industry constantly by attending events, trade shows, webinars and information sessions, as well as regular news monitoring. This helps identify trends and issues and, as themes emerge, they can zero in on the topic that will best address the concerns that the industry is talking about.

Once they have the topic, the process starts to get a little more focused and the writers can begin to dig into the material.

Into the weeds: Research

Researching the course topic can sometimes involve chasing information in all sorts of directions, even into things that won't necessarily make it into the course itself—but getting into the weeds like that will allow the writer to make choices about what to include and what to leave out. At this point, it's all about collecting information.

For non-regulatory courses, writers will use sources like consultative bodies (e.g., the Governor's Highway Safety Association or the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute), industry perspectives in magazines and webinars, as well as directly interviewing subject matter experts on the given topic. Cancian also notes that “Driver forums are really important for us to research” to get a clearer sense of what's relevant for the driver. Driver-produced YouTube videos are also immensely useful, especially for hands-on insights that just won't be found anywhere else.

This last point about what's relevant to the driver is crucial—as writers move through different sources and really get ‘into the weeds' of the material, they end up discovering all sorts of things about the topic that they didn't know before. But that doesn't mean that it's information drivers will need to know when taking the course. Keeping the target audience in mind is critical for deciding which material needs to be covered and which can be left out.

Clearing the underbrush: Designing with purpose

As the writer works through the research, the course will begin to take shape with the help of three elements: learning objectives, story and language.

The learning objectives provide a guiding structure—what is it that the writer wants the user to take away from the course? What do they need to have learned in order to call it quality training? Once the writer has a sense of these objectives, they can use them to decide which content belongs in the course.

But just focusing on the objectives alone could turn the course into a long list of boring facts—this is where the story comes in. All of the courses involve some kind of creative story the user can follow as they move through the material—and this is what allows the writer to strike a balance between content and engagement. By telling a story with characters that are followed throughout the course, the content avoids becoming a list of stiff factual points that are soon forgotten.

Filtering the content and learning objectives through a story does something else—it forces the writer to use normal, everyday language (since it's going to be spoken by the voice actors)— “The importance of the story and character—using them effectively blocks you from just dropping in large chunks of your research because a believable character just isn't going to talk like that,” Duchalski says. Cancian agrees: “That helps with the flow and comprehension of the text, as well as keeping our word count down.”

So when they talk about designing the course with a purpose, it's about delivering the learning objectives in ways that cover the material while also being engaging.

Building the path: Putting it all together

Once the storyboard is written, they also need to think about interactivity—what are the different ways the user can engage with the content: popups and buttons? Self- assessments? Drag-and-drop mini-tests? Choices here will have implications for other teams who will be working on the final product because the written content is now at a point where other departments and specialists can be involved. It might need an on-site photoshoot with the graphics team or a new interactive widget with help from the technical team. But as the course is handed off to the next set of experts, there is constant contact with the writing team to make sure that each step of the project lifecycle keeps the learning objectives in focus and intact.

Building courses in this way involves a lot of moving parts: from identifying current industry needs and diving deep into research to designing engaging narratives and ensuring the content is relevant, every step is carefully curated. Creating effective online training courses is about bringing together the right components: people with know-how, well-thought-out processes, and a clear understanding of the purpose of the course in order to get people the right training in a way that sticks.