Edit this table!

Hello! I finally figured out how to get an editable table into this blog. It’s big and ugly but you should be able to edit it. It’s the only way that I could figure out to post a table you could edit on the front end, keep your comments anonymous (or at least limited to your user name), and have it hosted on a Canadian server (this one is in Vancouver).

This is what I’d like you to do:

  • Select a row to examine.
  • Are all the competencies in that row necessary? Are there duplicates? Which cell would you eliminate? Would you combine any cells?
  • Are there any missing? If there are, add them at the end of the row, or post what you would add. (E.g., “Add ‘Weave symmetrical, waterproof baskets from forgotten dreams” to H-Technical Skills”)
  • Write your comment directly in the table

[wpdatatable id=4 table_view=regular]

OCAN 1 Round 1 Done + Survey

Thank you everyone! I will be consolidating all the data for all eight competency areas into one chart and will be making that available next week for a second round of comments.

In the meantime, please complete [qsm_link id=1] this survey[/qsm_link]. Gathering this data is a crucial part of my project, and I’ll be tracking how responses to it change as we proceed. I will never report individual data, and if there are specific comments that I would like to quote in my project report I will not report identities, even the user names that you have been assigned for this project.

The survey should take less than 5 minutes. Please complete it, whether you were active on the blog or not, by Sunday, February 10.

Area 8—Technical Skills

Hello, Participants! This is the final competency area for eLearning Developers. Having said that, we’ll review the results for all eight areas a couple of times before we finalize the list. But for now, please consider the following question:

What Technical tasks do eLearning Developers do?

This is a tricky question because the first impulse is to think about all the software devs use. But please try to frame responses as the actual technical tasks performed by eLearning devs, rather than the knowledge they require.

Please post answers by Wednesday, February 06.

Area 7 Creativity Summary

There weren’t a lot of contributions to this area. Before we leave it for the final competency area, please check the list below to see if you would like to revise the list. Contributing participants, please check to see that changes I’ve made still reflect your intention. Remember, these are tasks that Developers, not IDs, do:

• Create and iterate on screen designs for eLearning courses

• Create graphics and media, including images, video, and audio

• Recreate diagrams and graphics that we may not have legal access to accurately, but uniquely

• Determine the best position and placement of screen elements on a page-to-page basis

• Scope the authoring and graphic elements of proposed projects

• Estimate development hours for pro formas

• Plan videos

• Determine the best way to present content

• Work around authoring tool limitations to achieve instructional goals

Area 6 Customer Service Summary

Thank you so much, participants. This is a tough area to discuss and y’all came up with great ideas.

More than other areas, I paraphrased and edited your comments to come up with this summary. Please review it and let me know if you think I’ve missed something or misunderstood something. I’ve numbered the comments to make them easier to refer to.

  1. Update the client on project status
  2. Ensure the project is meeting the client’s original expectations
  3. Contribute to project documentation (lessons learned, risk register, project charter, closeout report, change requests, etc.) that directly relates to client satisfaction on current and future projects.
  4. Communicate in such a way that every client feels that they are the most important client
  5. Explain to a client how something in the course functions
  6. Provide possible treatment options or solutions for a problem
  7. Explain technical or visual elements clearly to help the client envision the final product
  8. Provide detailed QA to catch errors the IDs missed
  9. Suggest a more effective way of presenting content
  10. Research the client to develop a feel for their brand, visual identity, and core values (to produce a design that embodies the client)
  11. Interpret a client’s desires for their eLearning
  12. Create exciting and memorable learner experiences for the client
  13. Refer to project documentation in Teamwork or Notes to clarify client expectations
  14. Speak with confidence to persuade a client to accept a helpful idea or treatment

Is this list an accurate representation of your suggestions and ideas?

Area 6—Customer Service

The Professional Development area produced 26 different ideas! The other milestone is that everyone has made at least one contribution to the research data. That’s amazing brainstorming and collaboration. Thank you so much! You can see the first draft of the competency chart here. On to the next competency area: Customer Service. Please consider the following question: What Customer Service tasks do eLearning developers do? Please post answers by Monday, January 21st. We’ll start the next area, Creativity, on Tuesday, January 22.

Area 4 — Project management

We’re going to move more quickly. The next competency area to comment on is project management. Please post answers to the following question:


What Project Management tasks do eLearning developers do?


Please post answers by Sunday, December 16th. We’ll start the next area on Monday, December 17. Everyone who posts three or more different responses gets a small prize!

Area 3 — Communication

Please reply in the post to this question:

What Communication tasks do eLearning developers do?

So, we’re done with two areas, Quality Assurance and Problem-Solving. We’re moving on to Communication.

Once again, can everyone post at least one idea about the communication tasks that eLearning Developers do? Two would be better! Don’t worry if you want to repeat something that you mentioned in QA or Problem-Solving. We’ll slice, dice, and edit later on.

Do you think we can get everyone’s input by EOD Wednesday?

By the way, here is the eLearning Developers’ competency chart at this point.

Area 2—Problem Solving

It looks like you folks really know the drill in developing supporting tasks for each competency. I’ve chosen the next one: Problem Solving. Just as you did with QA, please list, please post your answers here to the question:

What Problem Solving tasks do eLearning developers do?

QA was such a great start. Can we continue with everyone adding two or more tasks that developers do that can be categorized as ‘problem solving’? Remember that the form of the task should be verb-object, e.g., Create ways to display large quantities of text without increasing the learners’ cognitive load. (That’s obviously one I thought up and everyone may disregard it completely.)

It’s still brainstorming, so come one, come all!

And we’re off with QA!

Thanks so much itenpl who started us off with QA (and kudos to brisho, too, who was only a minute behind!).

Please post your answers here to the question: What Quality Assurance tasks do eLearning developers do?

othols has made a grand start, and I’ve copied their ideas from the previous post here to inspire everyone else.

eLearning Developers:

  • Identify errors in alignment, line spacing, and kerning.
  • Identify when the wrong font or colour is used.
  • Identify inconsistencies in the functions of buttons or other selectable objects.
  • Identify problems in timing, for example when narration does not match up with what is happening on screen.
  • Identify errors in branching/logic that could prevent someone from progressing smoothly through the course.
  • Document standards for personal use and use by other developers.

With this great start, everyone should be able to think of two more things that developers do. Please add them to this post.

Pick one to start

Thank you all for your great suggestions (you can see them all in one place in this document). Now it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty.

After all the ideas you provided, I found 8 “big buckets” or general areas of competence. They are, in no particular order:

  • Quality assurance
  • Problem-solving
  • Communication
  • Project management
  • Professional development
  • Customer service
  • Creativity
  • Technical skills

We may add or subtract from these as we continue. But for now, we’ll take one of them and build out specific tasks that support it. I’m going to get fussy and challenge you to express your ideas as “verb – object”. So, not “know how to make breakfast” or “understand why breakfast is important” but things like, “Explain the physical and mental benefits of eating breakfast”, “Determine how many people need breakfast”, “Plan breakfast menu”, “List required ingredients”, “Check on available quantities of ingredients”, “Purchase missing ingredients, in required quantities, balancing nutrition, cost, and quality”, etc. You’re all going to have to think like IDs! I’ll help and pester as required.

Someone pick a bucket, any bucket, to start. First person to post here gets the honour of choosing and we’ll all follow. Once we’ve established a starting point, I’ll ask everyone to post the actual, observable, and measurable tasks that fill the bucket.

Keep it going

Wow! This has been an awesome response. We’ve had a 50% reply rate, and a total of 26 ideas. This is an excellent beginning, but I’m pretty sure there are way more ideas out there. Remember, this is brainstorming so that means there’s no such thing as a bad idea and there’s no such thing as too many ideas, either.

I’ve taken all the comments so far and sorted them into broad categories. This sorting is my opinion only. I’d like you to read through the table and consider:

  • If the general area names are about right (we can tweak repeatedly as we go on)
  • If I’ve put the comments with the correct general areas. If i haven’t, should the comments be in a different area already in the table, or a brand new area entirely?
  • What areas are missing?
  • What further comments should be added?

I’m looking forward to lots more comments and plenty of discussion in the posts and threads. We’re going to keep working at this stage at least until Tuesday, November 13.

If we were doing this face-to-face, I’d be asking folks specifically for their contributions, so don’t be surprised if I post something like, “Hey xperson, what do you think?”

I’m looking forward to hearing from y’all.

Let’s begin!

Thank you so much for participating in this research. To get started, please watch the OCAN Orientation. It’s about 4 minutes long and narrated, so you might want to use headphones.

I’d like you to think about general areas of competence. Those are the big buckets of tasks. For example, if we think of “owning a car” as a job, general areas of competence might be:

  • Finances
  • Maintenance
  • Operations

The Finances area might include supporting tasks like:

  1. Make regular car loan payments as per contract
  2. Pay insurance premiums

The Maintenance area might include supporting tasks like:

  1. Change oil every 5000 km
  2. Maintain adequate levels of gasoline

The Operations are might include supporting tasks like:

  1. Acquire license plate and vehicle registration
  2. Secure appropriate parking

All the tasks are part of owning a car, but they can be categorized into the general areas of Finance, Maintenance, and Operations.

Once you’ve watched the Orientation, please think about this question:

What are the general areas of competency required of eLearning developers?

That is, what are the buckets that contain related tasks? Just throw your ideas into this thread. This is an exercise just to get used to brainstorming. Don’t worry if what you write is perhaps a task, rather than an area of competence. Don’t worry about spelling, formatting, or even getting the words exactly right. We can pay more attention to those things once we get going.

And of course, if you have any questions or comments, and don’t want to make them in this thread, shoot me an email or a Slack message.