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Software Assurance eLearning Benefit from
Microsoft
Rose Solutions has carefully analysed the
benefit, and consulted with dozens of customers about their experience with it.
Our conclusion: it is powerful and very valuable - but poorly positioned and so
few (well, none of the customers we've spoken to) were getting the value out of
it. The advice below is information we generally give customers as an
ice-breaker, before moving on to how we can help them leverage the benefit, and
supplement its shortcomings.
We have carefully put together an
offering to help you leverage your existing investments in Microsoft skills and
Microsoft learning content - call us today to discuss the value this could have
for your organization - 1300 66 1912.
For Knowledge Workers
The Microsoft eLearning benefit that comes with
Software Assurance is a great offering for end user training -
- there are courses on the most common
Office products
- they range from introductory, through
intermediate
- the courses come with pre and post
assessment questions, helping to target and confirm learning
- the reporting capability provides a great
management environment, showing information about access, and also about pre
and post assessment results.
What could make this even better?
- Leverage Office Online, where there
are over 120 modules (each between 30 and 50 minutes long) providing more
than 85 hours of office training - and available free (or you have already
paid for it, if you prefer to see it that way!) For more information, look
at the attachment to the briefing note
here.
- Get extra content to fill in the gaps -
to see a sample briefing, click
here.
- Add a Training Needs Analysis system,
which can leverage the modules of the Microsoft materials to create
personalised skills development plans. For more information, click
here.
- Many customers ask about adding additional content from
something like HP LearningCurve, which we selected as the best from an
uninspiring bunch. LearningCurve provides search facilities, over 1600 short interactive guides,
and a 24x7x365 ask-the-expert facility. For more information, click
here. If you are interested in such a
system, make sure it is adding sufficient value over the free Office Online
and Core Training courses. Understand that the content does not cover lots
of areas that might be important to you, especially about using products
together, using the newest products (OneNote, InfoPath) and using server
features (Sharepoint, Project Server). Many products - like Publisher,
Producer, Frontpage and Visio - might not be covered at all. Finally, make
sure the vendor will be coming out with support for new versions before you
intend to roll them out!
For IT Pros and Developers
The Microsoft eLearning benefit that comes with
Software Assurance provides some useful information for IT Pros and developers.
Unfortunately, the materials are less useful than the end user materials:
- there are no pre or post assessments
included, so the reporting tool is much less useful
- the course is a cut down version of the
Official Microsoft Learning Product (used live and
InTheSandbox)
- it has a small subset of the review
questions, dumbed down to be multiple choice
- the 'labs' are simplified, cut down
versions of the exercises using a limited flash environment, so the user
can't explore other parts of the product and doesn't get a full exercise
of the course materials
- the benefit only includes about 20 of the
courses that are available InTheSandbox - in other words, we have over 148
other courses!
- there is a very limited amount of support
available for students on the internet - nothing like our Sharepoint sites
and Mentoring.
If a customer was interested in getting the
most value out of their eLearning courseware:
- Target learners to the module level via a
training needs analysis
- Objective
assessments to be done after training to verify knowledge was gained (or
instead of training as a proof of existing skills) would be useful
- The first two items can both be
achieved though Microsoft Skills Assessments
for Organisations.
- Supplement with
InTheSandbox (and live training) for learners who need a richer experience
- For anything where the students don't
have a practice environment (usually anything interacting with a server!)
provide a lab environment for the students to get exposure to the real
products. If that is problematic for you, discuss the virtues (and
drawbacks) to a virtual lab environment with us - we have it already
pre-built if its a good solution for you!
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