White Papers
NOTE: White papers require Adobe® Acrobat® Reader® for viewing.
Learning for the sustainable enterprise: How investment in learning drives long term competitive advantage [PDF 109 KB]
Sustainability is now a hot trend, and often it is associated with environmental responsibility. However, the environmental benefit is just one of the positive outcomes of a sustainable approach. Sustainability is a strong business principle that simply means to sustain positive results over a longer period, for more stakeholders, while continuously reducing cost and negative impact of various kinds. Seen in this light, sustainability is not such a revolutionary idea.
A Set of Best Practices for Targeting, Aligning and Measuring Learning [PDF 812 KB]
This paper offers a set of best practices for identifying learning needs that support business priorities, align a solution and measure results. It is a consolidated set of ideas, tips and techniques collected from the experiences of SkillSoft customers.
Highlights include:
- Helps organizations move from "order takers" to business partners
- Provides practical approaches
- Is based on the best practices of organizations around the globe
- Outlines an approach for level 4 msmt
- Prescriptive method to make the shift from the left of the LGM to the right
The True Value of Learning [PDF 244 KB]
Yogi Berra, that paragon of word manipulation, exposition and baseball, is often quoted as saying, "The future ain’t what it used to be." And, surprisingly, so it is in the world of learning measurement. We cannot sustain our training departments based on how well we do against our training budgets. This only leads to the budget being cut on a year by year basis. If we measure ourselves as an expense, so we shall be treated like an expense. That means we are the first to go when funds are needed elsewhere.
The Greening ofTraining: How Sustainability is Reshaping Organizational Learning [PDF 268 KB]
Is your company "going green?" Would you like it to? This paper looks at corporate sustainability efforts and the pivotal role that the learning department can play in them. Also included are practical ideas for making training more environmentally-friendly.
The Impact of Work Force Agility on Business Performance [PDF 264 KB]
Agility is an issue that is becoming more and more prominent in businesses across industries. While it is a common goal, its meaning can be somewhat ambiguous. Depending on the context, agility can mean different things to different organizational units. But one common thread persists: the accelerating speed of change. Change is not only driving organizations to keep up and anticipate, but more so to be its catalyst in order to be competitively positioned.
Open Learning Services Architecture (OLSA): An integrated learning environment that meets your enterprise needs [PDF 363.7 KB]
With an expanding inventory of content and new, more dynamic content types that combine traditional courseware with related services, SkillSoft customers are often challenged by the integration and maintenance necessary to deploy these resources to their learners. SkillSoft has responded to this need with the creation of SkillSoft Open Learning Services. The goal of Open Learning Services is to simplify and enhance deployment of SkillSoft's various offerings through a customer's platform of choice.
At the Speed of Business: 5 A's of the Corporate Learning Chain [PDF 251 KB]
The corporate learning infrastructure must simultaneously meet the corporate objective of providing appropriate materials that will be useful to the organizational goals and also satisfy the learner's criteria for selection, or it won't be used or accessed. This concept is reflected in the five As of an effective corporate learning chain. IDC examines how a corporate information resource system must incorporate each link in the chain to provide maximum benefit to the enterprise.
Extending Reach and Ensuring Effectiveness of Leadership Development: The Role of Technology-Based Learning
[PDF 2 MB]
Leadership is an important element of organizational success. So, it is not surprising that many companies look for ways to extend the benefits of leadership development to more employees. Technology-based learning approaches such as online courses, books and video programs can be used effectively to develop employees at all levels.
Business Impact and Challenge Series: Design and Development Guidelines
[PDF 3.5 MB]
Today's learners expect e-learning to be as engaging and visually rich as many of the Web-based environments they encounter on a daily basis. SkillSoft's latest content innovation, the Business Impact and Challenge Series offerings, were designed with those expectations in mind. Using a rich mix of Flash-based animations, video, and audio-driven dramatizations, each Business Impact or Challenge creates a concise, yet contextually rich scenario filled with realistic characters and business challenges. The result is a set of highly engaging learning assets that appeal to multiple generations and that can be used in support of multiple workplace performance learning models and environments.
Strategic Issues Facing Enterprise Learning: Report from SkillSoft's Executive Advisory Board
[PDF 130 KB]
SkillSoft brings together its Executive Advisory Board (EAB) annually to discuss the major issues of interest to the enterprise learning community. The group is comprised of high level executives in many of the most advanced learning organizations in the world. Their opinions and concerns are a bellwether for the overall learning market. This white paper documents the SkillSoft Executive Advisory Board meeting held on March 29, 2006.
SkillSoft Product Strategy Roadmap[PDF 745 KB]
SkillSoft looks forward to introducing many new solutions that address our customers' learning challenges and help their learning programs work more effectively at a strategic level within the organization. This roadmap offers a thorough overview of SkillSoft's development plans for the coming months and the customer needs that these initiatives are designed to address.
Making the Abundant Relevant: Solving Today’s Learning Challenges Through a Next Generation Technology Architecture [PDF 173 KB]
There are two major challenges facing SkillSoft customers today: the need to integrate a wide variety of technology systems and content types, and the need to present content in a way that is relevant to the individual learner. These problems are getting more difficult as the number of content types and technology systems proliferate and the trend toward aligning learning programs with business initiatives accelerates the need for relevance. SkillSoft agrees with customers and analysts who say that these problems must be solved in order for e-learning to reach its potential, and this is the impetus behind SkillSoft’s Open Learning Services Architecture (OLSA) initiative.
What Return on Investment does e-Learning Provide? [PDF 214 KB]
Organizations make investments in e-learning
solutions with the expectation that the solutions will
have a measurable impact on performance by
achieving specific business outcomes. Measuring the
value of learning solutions enables organizations to
demonstrate the return on investment they make in
training. In addition, organizations that measure
training are able to increase the contribution of their
learning solutions using continuous improvement
processes that drive higher levels of return through
enhanced performance over time.
The SkillSoft Learning Growth Model [PDF 654 KB]
The SkillSoft Learning Growth Model describes the predictable stages that all companies go through as they progress from their initial e-learning implementations to enterprise-wide, strategic e-learning.
Getting Started with e-Learning [PDF 163 KB]
The face of corporate learning has changed. It is no longer possible to develop your human capital with a single approach. Today’s corporate environment calls for out of the box thinking, incorporating the benefits of many types of learning to benefit your company’s single biggest investment – your people. Evaluating the ever-growing corporate learning solutions that are available enables you to obtain full benefit from your learning programs, by selecting the range of learning resources that best match your strategic corporate goals.
Eight Phases of Workplace Learning [PDF 707 KB]
Today’s learning organizations recognize the
prevalence of informal or just-in-time learning and
search for ways to support this type of learning in
tandem with more formal blended training programs.
This paper proposes a structure of eight phases of
workplace learning that can serve as a framework for
designing blended learning solutions with formal and
informal components.
Blended Learning Strategies [PDF 185 KB]
Instructional Design Model for Courseware [PDF 536 KB]
Just as fashion designers cannot create new lines of clothing without regard to principles of construction, shape, and form, designers of effective e-learning also require similar knowledge of foundational principles, theories, and models. This paper describes the instructional design model that is at the core of every course SkillSoft develops. The paper also discusses a variety of learning theories and instructional strategies that are used flexibly and creatively within that model to meet a broad range of learning requirements.
ID Model in IT Courseware [PDF 2.6 MB]
ID Model in Business, Compliance and ES&H [PDF 4.4 MB]
508 Accessibility [PDF 227 KB]
Providing accessible learning is a fundamental need as today’s
work force expands to include a more diverse population of
workers. This diversity includes the baby boomer generation that
continues to work later into retirement age; an educated group of
disabled workers who are now graduating from universities and
other establishments of higher education; and other workers who
have situational disabilities. Accessible learning allows organizations
to recruit and retain employees with disabilities and enables
the continued contribution of an aging work force. It allows
organizations to attract new talent and maintain their investment
in their high performance knowledge workers. In short, accessible
learning can be more than a compliance goal; it is also a competitive
advantage
EMEA e-Learning Benchmark Survey [PDF 289 KB]
Take an in-depth look at how employees use e-learning; when and where they do it; what specific skills e-learning has enabled them to develop; how these skills have been put into practice in the workplace; and whether the knowledge gained is widely shared. Most e-learning surveys are often limited in their scope. This study includes interviews with more than 200 employees from a wide range of organizations, across 14 countries. The scale of this participation ensures the results from this study are a true representation of the effectiveness of e-learning as a tool to increase skills and performance.
SkillSoft Dialog [PDF 1.5 MB]
