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.

18 thoughts on “Let’s begin!”

  4. eLearning Development
    General areas/buckets
    * Listening and communication (Both critical skills)
    * Responsibility and ethics
    * Analytical and strategic thinking? Troubleshooting, problem solving and strategy/planning and developing (Creative and logical skill strands)
    * Flexibility (to adapt to changing workloads and new concepts, different projects and information)
    * Time management
    * Thoroughness (set up personal approach to task to ensure it is completed to the most efficient and appropriate approach, develops and organizes systems, reviews and checks for accuracy)
    * Teamwork and collaboration
    * Technology and software
    * Training and development (we identify and assist our team members to learn tasks that may be new to them to keep the team flexible, we also share knowledge in specialized areas to expose our team to further knowledge and skills) – this could essentially fall under teamwork and collaboration

  5. Other areas of competence are:
    – Language (spelling, grammar, punctuation, working knowledge of multiple languages)
    – Comprehension (understanding what the client wants to achieve and feeling their passion for success)
    – Ownership (Pride in your work, your team, and contributing as if you owned the company)
    – Mentorship (Coaching and supporting others who are new to the them, at a peer level)
    – Learning (Keeping your skillsets sharp, and undertaking new ones on a consistent basis)
    – Competitive (Follow the competition – what can they do, and is it something we should bring into our toolkit?)
    – Humility (Taking responsibility for your errors, determining the fix, implementing it and learning the lesson without bitterness)

  6. Design
    Adapt coding
    Storyline authoring
    Collaboration (with IDs, PMs, and clients)
    Communication (with IDs, PMs, and contractors)
    Media manipulation (for lack of a better term–I mean things like photoshopping, editing video files, editing audio files, turning raw files into the right format for use in courses, etc.)

  8. Attention to detail
    Ability to breakdown complex problems into a list of steps leading to a resolution
    Logical troubleshooting
    Teamwork/Collaboration skills
    Time Management
    Use a computer in an efficient manner

  9. Attention to detail
    Troubleshooting
    Accountability (owning mistakes and fixing them)
    Patience? (get through the mind-numbing stuff without rushing through and making mistakes)

  11. Communication – listening to clients and clarifying their needs during the whole process.
    Time Management – Being accountable to one’s manager and the team for one’s deliverables.
    Quality Assurance – Having a trusted QA process that simplifies time spent during development, and reduces the chance for missed items.
    Analysis – Creative thinking and uncovering issues as self risk mitigation.

  12. I would say the main categories of skills/tasks that eLearning developers have are:

    Visual Communication
    (Knowing how to communicate effectively through art)

    Digital Media Creation
    (Having the technical know-how to create said art)

    Management
    (Managing priorities and time)

    Customer Service
    (Knowing how to interpret client needs and communicating in a friendly, non-confrontational way)

    Adaptability
    (Being able to quickly research new methods, tools, or concepts and apply them accurately with minimal delay)

  13. Great start! iozend has suggested that general areas/buckets of competency for eLearning developers include:

  14. listening
    research
    communication
    writing

    15. What would other folks add?

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