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Master eLearning Dates 2010
A few places remain for B Online Learning Master eLearning Course 12 April. Due to the popularity of the course additional start dates have been set for 22 June and 20 July. There are limited ...
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Level of Interactivity
By knowing your audience, budget, and overall training and business objectives you will be able to determine what level is appropriate for your eLearning initiative. ...
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Best of eLearning Winners
Atlantic Link Content Point has been awarded Best eLearning Development Tool by the prestigious eLearning Magazine in the fifth annual Best of eLearning Awards. Content Point also received an Award of...
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Debunking eLearning Bluff
Perhaps the mystery and hyperbole that surrounds so many new technology based solutions is inevitable. Perhaps people are intimidated by the “newness” and fear investing on the “bleeding” edge...
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eLearning is Green
B Online Learning have designed and developed a demonstration of why companies should be choosing eLearning over traditional face to face learning methods. Take a look at it here and help reduce your ...
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Atlantic Link more clients
Atlantic Link, the world’s leading provider of collaborative rapid eLearning authoring software, is delighted to announce multiple new client wins from organisations around the globe. Click here to...
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Sharepoint and the LMS
Time to converge? Of the ~40 companies Bersin & Associates reviewed only one, Operitel, owners of Learnflex LMS, openly markets its abilities to connect SharePoint and the LMS. ...
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DOTMAR Case Study
Read how B Online Learning successfullly implemented rapid eLearning for DOTMAR Engineering Plastics ...
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Kennards Hire Case Study
Read how B Online Learning successfullly implemented rapid eLearning for Kennards Hire. ...
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The Rise of Rapid eLearning |
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9 rapid eLearning articles by Atlantic Link you don't want to miss.
 | Rapid E-learning brings significant training and financial benefits for Everyday Financial Solutions
Everyday Financial Solutions (EFS) offers a wide range of credit, insurance and warranty products to customers of Littlewoods Shop Direct Home Shopping brands and has over 1500 employees across three locations in England. As a business with rapidly changing product lines, product features and a large number of call centre staff, there is a constant need for staff training, particularly in the areas of induction, FSA compliance and products and systems training. Before 2005, use of e-learning at EFS had been very limited but a number of factors led the training team to consider e-learning more closely in 2005. There was a business requirement to train more than 5500 heads across the three sites in the 2005/2006 financial year and classroom teaching was proving to be cumbersome, expensive and resource hungry. In addition, EFS had no systems training environments so training had to take place in live environments with an unacceptable risk to customer service. Overall, there was a need...
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| | Can E-learning consultants learn to live with Rapid E-learning
StandfirstAt first sight the advent of rapid e-learning technologies, which allow companies to write professional quality e-learning courses without programming specialists, would appear to be a threat to those who earn their living from producing such courses. However, Mike Alcock, MD of Atlantic Link argues that consultants have the potential to harvest a boom in e-learning if they embrace the possibilities that the technology has to offer. The changing world of e-learningThe last five years have seen a revolution in rapid e-learning tools with software which allows non-programmers author high quality e-learning quickly and easily. The inexorable advance in WYSIWYG editing software for word processing and website writing made it inevitable that such tools would move into the e-learning arena. Many thought that such was the technological sophistication of high end e-learning, that "DIY" tools, as they were sometimes derogatively known, would never succeed in challenging...
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| | The rise and rise of rapid e learning
Mike Alcock believes that while new technology has dramatically altered the world of e-learning over recent years, the revolution is far from over. Rapid e-learning software has meant many companies getting rid of outside consultants and writing courses in house themselves. But he argues that if consultants embrace the new technology the e-learning market will be transformed again over the next five years. The e-learning industry has grown from zero to a major worldwide industry worth an estimated £25 billion in the space of 20 years. It is unrecognisable today from the on line text books that first emerged at various US campus universities in the mid-1980s. What you could do then with computer-based technologies was very limited with the internet and multi media technologies way ahead in the future. In fact, it took a great deal of skill and dedication to produce effective e-learning courses. Hence, e-learning became the preserve of specialist consultants and e-learning companies....
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| | Rapid e-learning set to dominate - published in Training Zone
E-learning expert Mike Alcock, MD of Atlantic Link Ltd, argues that the landscape of e-learning has changed out of all recognition as a result of rapid e-learning authoring software. He also argues that with e-learning consultants beginning to use the tools themselves to aid collaboration with clients, the industry will look entirely different again in five years time.It is clear now that rapid e-learning is not a passing fad. Over the past five years, tools which allow non-programmers to produce sophisticated e-learning have developed explosively, matched only by the demand for them from front rank large and medium sized businesses. As promised, the tools have delivered e-learning development back into the hands of the trainers within companies. They have discovered that they can produce the courses they want quickly and easily without having to outsource to e-learning houses.For many trainers, the frustrations of high budget development of bespoke e-learning with long timescales,...
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| | Why the E-learning star is once more ascendant
In its early days, E-learning promised much but delivered much less, largely because of the inflexibility and costs of outsourced programming. E-learning expert Mike Alcock, MD of Atlantic Link Ltd, argues that technological developments in rapid e-learning software over the past three years are releasing e-learning to fulfil its promise and that as a result it is enjoying a renaissance. Where it went wrong for e-learningThroughout the technology revolution, e-learning has been a promise waiting to happen. Great things have been forecast and industry leaders have been keen for their company to be at the front of the revolution. However, despite the industry’s best endeavours the revolution has never quite arrived.Looking back, the principle reason for this has been that e-learning hasn’t proved to be the cheap quick training solution that was promised. Creation of e-learning for bespoke purposes has proved to be complex and costly. The involvement of outsourced providers was always...
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| | What should you look for in Rapid E-Learning Software?
By Mike Alcock IntroductionWhen writing for journals as little as two years ago I would have first had to introduce the idea of "rapid e-learning". I would have explained how it was "delivering e-learning back to the trainers" and how in-house training teams were using the technology to liberate themselves from outsourcing constraints as it was simple, required no programming skills and delivered high quality e-learning. I would also talk about the savings that could be made compared with bespoke development. I no longer need to make this case, the industry has quickly embraced the merits of the technology. Lead times for e-learning development are being cut shorter all the time. E-learning consultancy Kineo have identified 21 days as being the expectation for the development of new e-learning from conception through design, development, testing and deployment 1. Lean structures and rapid development are required to deliver in these time scales so it is...
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| | Rapid Authoring of E-learning
So you think e-learning is the solution to your training needs but don’t have the time or budget to commission material from specialist developers? Many trainers are finding the solution is at hand with rapid authoring tools which allow non IT specialists to write their own, high quality, e-learning in record time.Why Rapid AuthoringThe real excitement of rapid authoring is the way it promises to enable trainers to take control of their own e-learning agendas. Good rapid e-learning authoring is not only quick but it is intuitive and shouldn’t require more than usual IT literacy to be able to master it. In short, rapid authoring allows non technical trainers to produce their own highly professional e-learning in times that even the best authoring houses couldn’t have dreamed of even three years ago.How Rapid is Rapid?A recent assessment by e-learning consultancy Kineo identified 21 days as being the magic number for the creation of new e-learning, design, development and deployment...
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| | We have seen the future and it is user friendly
Article for e-learning ageBy Mike Alcock, Managing Director, Atlantic Link LtdLike all businesses, e-learning providers have to monitor their business environment and predict the major changes which are going to take place over the short and medium term. In our industry technological changes have been driving a fundamental shift which marks the end of traditional e-learning design and programming companies, allowing trainers with little or no IT expertise to author e-learning.Software designers have been utilising the latest technologies to make e-learning authoring tools increasingly easy to use. This process has had a dual effect, firstly allowing e-learning providers to produce courses more quickly and easily than ever before, leading to more intense price and service competition, and secondly to allow non programmers to provide e-learning courses of a very high standard.Technological factors driving change:The technology changes which are driving this change are familiar in all...
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| | Time for e-learning to be handed back to the trainers?
Article for Training Reference Web SiteBy Mike Alcock, Managing Director of e-learning authoring software provider Atlantic Link LtdThe world of training embraced e-learning enthusiastically in the 1980’s. It offered solutions to the problems of geography, time away from work, and the venue and trainer costs associated with traditional classroom training. It also offered a much more responsive medium than paper based distance learning. Specialist e-learning companies offered individually tailored courses for companies, crafted by their teams of specialist programmers and containing technical sophistication which soon prevented training specialists who were not also IT specialists any meaningful input into their development.The Costs of E-learningE-learning certainly was a boon which greatly increased the ability to provide learning to people in a range of educational and business situations. This opportunity did however come at a cost:• Development costs – elearning was always a...
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