However, in most of these projects, the Learning Management System (LMS) where much of the content is located, has remained outside of the social environment, and learners have had to navigate their way to it, leaving behind their social feeds and connections. The two areas exist in isolation and so much benefit is lost as a result.
Why Is It Important?
Harnessing social learning is important because employees attain useful knowledge about how to do their jobs from other employees and experts in their organization, and much of this is transferred in social learning moments. So delivering this successfully is one of the key goals for organizations in the next few years.
eFront For Connections
Epignosis, the makers of eFront, have recently developed an integration to the world’s leading Enterprise Social Network (ESN), called eFront For IBM Connections, that now delivers truly connected social learning.
Learners can see their training catalog and subscribe for courses and training events without leaving their social workplace. They can create and share content with their colleagues in communities around specific areas of interest, and managers can assign content they consider relevant to their team members.
The learner will also receive notifications about their training directly in the IBM Connections social feed, for example, notifying them that a training certificate is about to expire, or that they have been registered in a training course by their manager.
Tests, assessments and surveys can be conducted and results are tracked and monitored for performance improvement discussions in the Learner Record Store. Baseline testing can be used to identify gaps in the employee’s knowledge and then the appropriate course or content can be served up automatically for the employee to take.
Self-service learning is one of the principles behind the development and with this integration employees can manage their training needs in the same place they have email, calendar and social connections.
Why Integrate?
The reason behind this integration is to empower the employee to take control of their training needs from within their social workplace and to deliver a richer training experience. The employee can collaborate with other employees in learning communities, where they can see training course and content recommendations and decide to register themselves based on their colleagues’ comments.
But, managers can also take part by assigning online courses and content, or classroom-based training, or perhaps schedule an online training session. There are many things the employee can now do to enrich their training and the best part is that they can do it without having to leave their social workplace.
Status and Gamification
EfrontPro delivers a dashboard within IBM Connections so that employees can see the status of each of their courses. At a glance, employees can see which courses are left to be completed, which ones are done, and if Gamification is enabled, they can see how they compare to other employees in the organization. This fosters competition and leads to better performance, in most cases.
On The Go?
Many employees now travel extensively to do their jobs. Whether it is on a commute, or to another part of the country, or internationally, most employees now work on their mobile device more than on a PC. EfrontPro delivers courses and content to the learner on any device wherever they are, and whether they are connected to the internet, or not.
Online and Offline mobile training is a reality with the responsive design capability that ensures the learner sees the course or content exactly as it should be, and with the download option that allows a course or content to be downloaded directly to the learner’s mobile device for when they are offline.
And because the learner is using their browser, all the functionality of eFront for IBM Connections is available while they are online.
Don’t Have IBM Connections?
Don’t worry. If you aren’t using a social network at your organization this can be provided for you as part of the overall solution. We have many IBM Partners who work with us to deliver eFront For IBM Connections.
If you use a different social network there is still no need to worry. EfrontPro can probably be integrated to your social network directly to ensure you receive all the benefits of social learning. This is one of the strengths of the product. Contact us for a discussion about how we could help.
Summary
eFront For IBM Connections makes social learning a reality for organizations today. Further development will continue to ensure greater enhancements to this exciting new solution. This is one of the great futures for our industry being delivered today and bringing the benefits of leveraging the expertise and knowledge in your organization for the improvement of other employees’ performance.
If you’d like to see how this could help your organization why not schedule a demonstration or appointment with one of our Value Added Resellers in your country? For further information just contact us.