Instructional design specialist, Neil Lasher, is conducting a series of courses in ID techniques for the Open University editorial staff and design team, which includes people who are creating the OU’s e-learning materials.
Traditionally, OU lecturers and other subject matter experts have created curricula and courses and then the OU’s editorial designers have produced the resulting learning materials.
These materials have been largely paper and DVD-based – with documents, pdfs and video forming significant proportions of the OU’s e-learning materials.
Having decided that it needs to use good practice – as well as more creative use – of e-learning materials, the OU approached Neil Lasher, managing director of independent e-learning specialists Trainer1 and author of the UVID model and ‘A list’ ID rules.
Lasher has developed a series of three ‘learning events’ for some 45 of the OU’s staff, based at the OU’s headquarters in Milton Keynes, who are involved in the project management, editing, design and development of the OU’s learning materials.
Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance
Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday
“These learning events deal with both traditional and the new views on ID and ID techniques,” Lasher explained. “They aim to help these OU editors, designers and developers to create learning materials that further enhance the learning experience – especially when that learning is developed via e-learning.
“The OU is one of the leaders in the field of distance learning. This project is one of the ways in which they can keep this position in the market and provide increasingly rich learning experiences for their students – including taking e-learning to a new level of increased learning effectiveness.”
