SELECTING A CBT PROVIDER FOR CUSTOMIZATION
Course Content
High quality customization providers deliver the following course content characteristics:
Provider is knowledgeable about the issues to be taught.
The provider should understand your subject matter. While providers do not have to be experts on your subject themselves, they need to understand it well enough to take content information provided by experts, and incorporate it into a computer-based training package.
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Provider can customize the course to meet the company's training requirements and instructional objectives.
The provider should know how to modify and be capable of modifying the product to meet your exact training needs for both the content and the instructional design characteristics.
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Provider understands the current skill level of intended trainees.
It is extremely important that a provider understand your trainees' skills before a customized product is developed. If the customized product is too elementary for your trainees they will be bored. If it is too advanced they will be frustrated.
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Course Delivery
High quality customization providers deliver the following course delivery characteristics:
You can test a provider's history by examining other products the provider has developed, by asking the provider for a list of former clients you can contact, and by checking how long the provider has been in business.
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Provider is skilled in developing appropriate instructional formats.
The provider's previous products should demonstrate expertise in the instructional formats (tutorial, drill and practice, training games, simulation, problem solving, and demonstration/presentation) you feel are appropriate for your proposed training.
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Provider is skilled in developing appropriate training features.
The provider's products should demonstrate expertise in the media (text, graphics, video, and sound) you feel are appropriate for your proposed training. For example, if you are training people to recognize equipment warning sounds, does the provider have products that use sound well?
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Provider develops user-friendly courseware.
The provider's products should demonstrate "look and feel" expertise. You should be able to maneuver through the products easily, choose a specific instructional sequence from all instruction available, and answer questions easily.
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Course Implementation
High quality customization providers deliver the following course implementation characteristics:
Provider can complete the course in time to meet company needs.
To check a provider's reliability, you may want to ask to see past development time lines for products the provider developed. Check to make sure the provider met these development deadlines. Ask the provider for a list of past clients you can contact about this issue.
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Provider can develop an easy-to-use student management system to trach student progress, print records, and prescribe instruction.
You can check the management systems in other products a provider developed to determine the provider's skill in this area. If you have specific requirements not handled by these systems, ask the provider how it will satisfy you.
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Provider can develop a system that accomodates multiple trainees simultaneously.
If you will be serving multiple trainees at the same time, it is important that the provider have a history of developing products that work well in networked environments, where the product is stored on a file server linked to many computers.
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Provider can develop a system that accomodates security needs.
If security is an issue for you, check the security systems in other products a provider developed. If your proposed training involves proprietary information, the product should be protected from unauthorized access via passwords or codes. Unauthorized people should not be able to access the product, nor should people using the product be able to enter other connected, restricted electronic areas. Unauthorized people should not be able to access any records kept on individual trainees.
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Course Design
High quality customization providers deliver the following course design characteristics:
Course will be field tested before it is released.
The product should be bug free when delivered to you. The only way any provider can ensure this is to test it on an audience similar to your trainees during the development process. This audience might well be your own employees. However, if your employees are used, the provider should make a commitment to refine the program based on a trial period of use.
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Not only should the product be free of sex/racial/age/ethnic stereotypes, it should be free of any biases that make it harder for some people to learn than others. These biases frequently arise when instruction is culturally based.
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Provider can develop additional courses the company may need in the future.
If you think you will want additional, related training programs in the future, it is important to examine the long-term viability of the provider and its ability to develop the other programs you may need. Think about your future development needs up front; make tentative plans for your future. If you decide to use the same provider to develop another course, that provider can use the same computer interface for the new training, and your instructors and trainees will need little or no training in using the instructional package.
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Instructional Support
High quality customization providers deliver the following instructional supports:
You should check the support materials in other products the provider developed to see if they meet your needs. Support materials are very important for a well-balanced product.
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Provider can develop a train-the-trainer program.
If you will want a train-the-trainer program, you should check the training programs for other products the provider developed to see if they meet your needs.
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Provider can develop course updates and at a reasonable cost.
You should examine the long-term viability of the provider and its history of providing updates to its previous clients. All software requires periodic updating. Operating system software and the capabilities of computers change constantly, and the course software must change accordingly. The provider must be available and able to make necessary changes in your course at a future date. Update costs should not be more than 30 percent of the original purchase price.
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Technical Support
High quality customization providers deliver the following technical supports:
You should check the technical manuals in other products the provider developed to see if they are detailed, and include hardware and configuration requirements, installation instructions, and trouble-shooting suggestions.
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Provider will supply a maintenance agreement.
A maintenance contract between you and the provider of the product should be available as an option. Maintenance should include updates, bug fixes, and technical support.
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Technological Compatibility
Appropriate customization providers deliver the following technological compatibility characteristics:
If you already have a computer system in place, the provider must be able to develop the product so it runs on that hardware, unless you are willing to purchase new hardware. For example, if you have PCS you don't want a provider that specializes in courses for Apple computers.
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Provider can develop a course compatible with the company's existing storage capacity.
The provider should be able to provide you with a product you can store on your computer system without overtaxing your storage requirements, unless you are willing to purchase more storage capacity. Because many new products are now available on CD-ROM (the CD-ROM disk itself holds all the information -- you do not need to copy it onto your storage systems), and the storage capacities of modern computer systems have increased dramatically, this is not nearly as much of a concern as it used to be.
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Provider can develop a course compatible with the company's existing memory capacity.
The provider should be able to provide you with a product that will run on your current computer system with no additional memory requirements, unless you are willing to buy more memory. Most products today express their memory requirements in terms on megabytes (MB) of random access memory (RAM).
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Provider can develop a course compatible with the company's existing peripherals.
The provider should be able to provide you with a product that will not use extra devices you don't currently have, unless you are willing to purchase them.
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Review Options
High quality customization providers offer the following review options:
Previous work is available for review and is satisfactory.
Reviewing previous work will help you determine whether a provider develops quality products that will meet your needs. Reviewing previous work is the best way to determine whether the provider can meet many of the requirements discussed earlier.
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References are available and satisfactory.
It is important to check with previous clients of the provider to obtain several opinions on the quality of the provider's work.
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Resumes of designers are available and satisfactory.
Checking designer resumes is another way to ensure the product developed by the provider will be top quality.
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Questions? Contact Brett Bixler.