Educational Institutes: Gearing up for the eLearning wave

The eLearning industry is growing at tremendous pace. The eLearning market has gone beyond USD 250 billion in 2020. eLearning market includes AI, VR, LMS and content development.

(Ref: https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/elearning-market-size )

Universities / Colleges / Institutes awareness of the requirements of the eLearning industry is very limited. There is no specific curriculum which teaches students about the skills, roles and the opportunities in this evergreen industry. There are a large number of jobs being generated in this sector. Students can also look at various online sites to study these roles and look at careers in this field. This article identifies the various roles in the eLearning industry for which the curriculum can be designed.

Instructional Designer

Instructional design (ID) as the clearly mentions giving clear instructions and direction to the content to ensure that the Learners are able to grasp and content easily. The ID ensures that the raw content is chunked into parts which make it for effective, appealing and engaging for Learners. There are various Instructional design models, but the most popular is the ADDIE model with the five phases of analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation.

Key Skills

• Strong English Language skills
• Written and Verbal Communication
• Interact and understand content from the Subject matter experts
• Instructional design models
• Content Visualization
• Good knowledge of tools, used to create the eLearning content

Graphic Designer

Graphic designers(GD) are responsible to handle the visual elements in your eLearning course design. Graphic designers create the eLearning player, prepare the layout, select the right image, create illustrations, create multimedia within the branding guidelines boundaries.

Key Skills

• Read Storyboards
• Visualize the content to bring the SME and ID’s ideas to life
• Understand design, colors, fonts and other design elements
• Strong knowledge of graphic tools and/or Multimedia tools like Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Aftereffects and others

eLearning developers

eLearning developers are responsible for working with the ID and the GD to integrate various objects of learning into the content. This can include graphic designs, multimedia, documents, navigational elements and assessments.

Key Skills

• Read Storyboards
• Visualize the content to bring the SME and ID’s ideas to life
• Understand SCORM and other eLearning standards
• Strong knowledge of eLearning authoring tools like iSpring, Articulate Storyline, Adobe Captivate, Lectora and many others

Quality Assurance

Quality Assurance (QA) is a very specialized role in eLearning. The QA’s need to understand the SB and check from the Learners point of view if the eLearning module meets the required principles. They also ensure that the right objective set by the Subject Matter Expert (SME) / ID is met.

Key Skills

• Read Storyboards
• Understand LMS, SCORM and other eLearning standards
• Strong knowledge of eLearning principles
• Good observation skills to identify bugs and missing elements

Project Managers

Project Managers (PM) is a very specialized role in eLearning. PM’s need to have very good knowledge of the eLearning process and the flow of content. They need to be extremely good at coordinating and managing expectations of various stakeholders involved in the content development process.

Key Skills

• Strong knowledge of eLearning processes
• Understand LMS, SCORM and other eLearning standards
• Ensure clear communication
• Always looking to make the process efficient
• Good Knowledge of MS Excel, MS Word and other tools