Corporate learning has grown by 900 percent in the last 16 years, according to Curatti.1 Each year, companies spend billions of dollars on eLearning content, and “this segment of the eLearning market is considered to be the largest contributor of corporate eLearning revenues. What has been driving this segment in recent years are companies utilizing self-paced learning for their employees,” stated eLearning Inside.2
Online training content is not cheap. Many companies are making significant financial investments in it and understandably want to get the biggest bang for their buck. One way your company can do this is to update the eLearning content it already uses. This is the next best thing to purchasing or creating brand new content, and can significantly cut down the time and resources you need to create relevant, helpful content for learners. 
4 Practical Ways to Refresh Your Company’s eLearning Content in 2019
Updating content helps organizations make the most of the online training materials they already have, optimizing current training programs and preventing unnecessary spending on fresh content.
Here are a few ways your organization can refresh its eLearning content for 2019:
1) Ensure current training content is relevant -- The most basic and important way to refresh your content is to ensure it is relevant to learners. Is your existing content still setting learners up for success in their careers roles? Is there new information you could add that would make the content richer or more effective?
Also, it’s easy to let company mission statements, facts, and figures become outdated. Consistently refresh this information so learners are aligned with your organization and its needs, or to ensure that your members are getting the most recent and accurate information.
2) Give current eLearning templates a makeover -- Old, outdated eLearning templates are probably not helping your current training programs. eLearning expert Christopher Pappas described these templates as “the framework that ties everything (in an online training course) together.”2 He wrote,
“Replacing (eLearning templates) with more modern layouts breathes new life into the outdated online training content.”
Use your LMS authoring tool repository to find newer, more suitable layouts, or look into free eLearning template resources online. By updating templates, you’ll improve the user experience and make it easier for learners to concentrate on your content, instead of getting distracted by an outdated layout.
3) Change the order of delivery of eLearning content -- Has the eLearning content your company uses been delivered to employees in the same order for a significant amount of time? Is this approach to delivery effective?
If you aren’t getting great results from training, it might be time to refresh online learning content simply by changing the order of its delivery. Your learning management system’s learning paths feature will allow you to do this easily by changing when learners encounter courses, videos, microlearning segments, and social learning activities.
Collect feedback from your employees, members, partners, or other learners. Ask them how the learning paths are working for them and what the most useful information is. If most learners found the best information in course 3, you may want to consider changing the order so that information is presented first. You’ll be more likely to grab attention and encourage learners to pay attention - and finish courses - if they see immediate value.
4) Make text-based content interactive -- Most employees would rather watch a training video, take a quiz, play a game, or participate in a simulation than read a training document. To upgrade your content and increase employee engagement with it, make text interactive. A contributor to eLearning Industry wrote,
“If you already have a text-based story, you can simply pair it with images, background music, and sound effects to turn it into an immersive eLearning scenario. Another way to boost the interactivity factor is to design an online training infographic based on stats and facts, instead of opting for a bullet point list.3
You can also add quizzes or practical activities. For example, if your text document teaches an essential customer service skill, ask employees to apply that skill on a customer support call, then return with feedback on how their learning changed the interaction. This not only gets employees involved, it also encourages them to actively apply what they’ve learned before moving forward in their learning.
Related Reading: Learning Management System Provides New Year’s Resolutions
When Your Company Should Switch eLearning Platforms
If refreshing online learning content doesn’t deliver the results your organization is hoping for, take a deeper dive into your content. Is the material still relevant? Has your business or industry changed? Updating content may not be the best way to address either issue, and it may be time to invest in new content for 2019.
If your content still solves learner problems and receives positive feedback, however, then the issue could be the learning management system your company uses, not the content. Outdated LMS software can be difficult to use, distracting, or error-prone, causing learners to focus less on your content and more on wrangling the system. If that’s the case, then the new year is the perfect time to look into different learning management systems that may better meet the needs of your organization.
References:
1. Curatti. eLearning trends to watch out for in 2018. https://curatti.com/e-learning-trends-2018/.
2. eLearning Inside. Who is pocketing all the money spent in the corporate eLearning market? https://news.elearninginside.com/corporate-elearning-market/.
3. eFront Learning. 8 tips to update your outdated training content today. https://www.efrontlearning.com/blog/2018/02/tips-update-outdated-online-training-content.html.
4. eLearning Industry. 7 tips and tricks for repurposing eLearning content. https://elearningindustry.com/7-tips-tricks-repurposing-elearning-content.
