The Victoria & Albert family of museums – which includes the V&A, the Museum of Childhood and the Theatre Museum – is developing a virtual learning and training intranet website in partnership with business college Ashridge.
A learning management system (LMS) from In Tuition is also currently on trial.
The website can be accessed by any of the group’s 750 employed and 250 contracted staff, as well as volunteers. In addition to e-learning, the museum will still offer a range of classroom-based training.
Veronika Harris, head of training and development at the V&A, said: “We realised that with this increased level of learning activity among our sizable number of staff, we needed more than a proprietary database to record who has learned what from which course – and what knowledge and skills each employee currently has.”
Known as the In Tuition Customer Extranet (ICE), the LMS shows users what learning materials and courses are available, takes course bookings, generates and issues course confirmation letters and manages an individual’s learning records. In Tuition has worked with V&A for several years, and ICE is also being used for one of its ongoing projects to map the organisation’s IT competencies.
Harris believes ICE will continue to help the V&A adapt its training to the needs of the workforce.
“We are tending to run shorter, more focused training events, where the trainees will have worked through pre-course e-learning materials to bring them to a common standard before attending the training course,” she said.
“We are also making electronically delivered support materials and assessment tests available to them after they have completed the course.”
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