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Fireside Chat: Society E Learning Platforms
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Fireside Chat: Society E Learning Platforms
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Upload Date:
2023-08-14T00:00:00.0000000
Transcript:
Language: EN.
Segment:0 .
SAM BURRELL: Hi, everybody. Thanks for joining us today. We've got some great speakers who are coming to talk to us about e-learning platforms and their experience of them. Now, this was an idea that came to us from our community, actually. We were approached to go, this would be a really good topic for you guys to talk about.
SAM BURRELL: And in our precall, we've talked about it, and it is a great topic. So we're going to try and stick to time, but there's a lot to say. So I'm going to shut up and let our speakers introduce themselves. And they'll just tell you who they are, where they're from, and what they-- why we've invited them to come and talk to us.
SAM BURRELL: Sophia.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: Hi. I'm Sophia Anderton. I'm chief executive of BJU International. We're a small medical organization. We publish some journals, and we've got an online learning platform for urologists. It's a pretty extensive platform. We've got over 450 different modules, each of about 30 to 40 minutes long, self-directed learning. It's been a bit of a labor of love and been built over about the last decade, we've been working on that.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: But I'm here with a couple of other hats on as well from other experience. I previously worked at the British Institute of Radiology where I was Director of Publishing, and we set up an online learning program while I was there. That was video courses. So each course was much longer, about three hours broken down into smaller bits. But videos is-- there's animations, illustrations, all with a narrative over the top.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: So a different kind of online learning, but I was involved right from the setup of that whereas I've inherited a pretty mature product at BJU International. But I've also got a third hat as well. So I am chair of the Training Committee of ALPSP-- Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers. And we have a pretty extensive training program, which, at the point of the pandemic, flipped from being in person of about 20 people to online courses of around 20 people.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: So a group of people all on a Zoom call like this chatting really replicating what we did face to face. So three different types of online learning. So that's what I'm here with my experience about.
SAM BURRELL: On a different stages as well. That's really interesting, the-- brilliant. And I'm sorry I mispronounced your name, I should have checked.
SAM BURRELL: Right Helen, tell us about you.
HELEN DAVIES: Hi. I'm Helen Davies. I work for the Healthcare and Infection Society. I'm Head of Membership and Professional Development, which essentially means I look after everything to do with membership, events, training, and now e-learning, which when I joined the Society six years ago wasn't really in my plan. So we are a membership organization of -- quite small, around 1,300 members and 9 staff.
HELEN DAVIES: We run membership events, online training courses, we publish guidelines. We have two journals. And our journey-- we're much earlier in the e-learning journey than Sophia. So we haven't yet quite launched our platform, and that should be happening in the next few weeks. So we are very, very excited about that. And we're launching with one product initially, one quite big course that's going to have five modules.
HELEN DAVIES: So we're planning to sell that as a program, and then broken down into five modules, which we'll also provide as individual courses. Just my journey and the Society's journey, a bit similar to the one Sophia described. We delivered face to face events and training courses, and then the pandemic came along and we very quickly had to flip that to online via Zoom. We used Zoom.
HELEN DAVIES: And this particular course that we're going to launch on our learning platform was delivered in a five day online course via Zoom, which was very full on with interactive workshops and videos. And then because of the demand for that course, that really took off in an online format. And because of the demand for that and our wish to make that more accessible, that's what's made us really look at an e-learning platform.
HELEN DAVIES: So what we're now doing is we're transitioning that across to our learning platform.
SAM BURRELL: Wow, so lots of things to share about experiences in terms of what you've learned. Melissa, tell us about you.
MELISSA SESERKO: Hi, everyone. I'm Melissa Seserko. I'm COO at Cadmore Media. So we are a small video technology vendor. So we work with societies and associations across different use cases where they might use video. So there's lots of different use cases, but e-learning is an important and growing one of those, which is really exciting to get to work across different societies and different spaces, see where they're at stage wise as this mature product is this brand new idea that someone wants to bring to the forefront.
MELISSA SESERKO: So that's my current work with e-learning at Cadmore. I also have generally a background in online product development, so a lot of experience with just the concept of using technology to bringing content to people. Again, e-learning is a big piece of that. And then lastly, academic experience. So I'm just finishing up my educational technology master's degree, and I've really been enjoying exploring the pedagogical perspective on why you would do e-learning,
MELISSA SESERKO: how to do it, different ways of engaging learners. So I think my big things that I'm interested in exploring are understanding the learners, which I think societies are in a really interesting space to understand who are they targeting with their e-learning, which isn't always the case sitting in class. Sometimes I'm like, oh, well, usually, people have a pretty good sense of these.
MELISSA SESERKO: And then also the content, so where does content and technology meet? A lot of things that I've worked on through my career, it's a balance. Technology is not the answer. It's certainly part of the solution, but technology does not do the teaching. And so making sure that the content is still engaging in all of the ways it needs to be for e-learning.
MELISSA SESERKO: So that's a bit about me.
SAM BURRELL: I've got a slightly off topic question for you.
MELISSA SESERKO: Yes.
SAM BURRELL: So this is setting the tone for what this conversation is going to be like. When you've just done this course, I'm really interested, was that all in person, was that blended learning, or was that-- I mean, as a "consumer"?
MELISSA SESERKO: Oh, yes.
SAM BURRELL: Tell us about that.
MELISSA SESERKO: Yeah. So my master's degree was all virtual. A fully remote master's degree. So Zoom lectures, using Canvas for interactive. A lot of peer review I think was the most important piece of the coursework, was you'd always get partnered up and give people feedback and engage with the assignments with a different perspective, so.
SAM BURRELL: Yeah. Oh, so you've walked it? You've actually done--
MELISSA SESERKO: Yes.
SAM BURRELL: --quite intense experience of doing it? I've just been doing a course outside of this world, and I had a choice of doing it online or doing it in person. And I surprised myself by going, I'm very strongly wanting to do this in person. I think that's probably post-pandemic thing because I think there's a two sided-- I mean, I think all of us are here and our experience of the pandemic and needing to deliver stuff differently.
SAM BURRELL: Both of them have become more-- I don't know, better shaped somehow in that actually, the way people deliver e-learning is maturing, but also, I think there's some people really valuing the in-person side. Sorry, we didn't talk about that in our prep call at all. It's just something that--
SOPHIA ANDERTON: Yeah, I think that that's a really good point, people have different preferences. But at the same time, whilst a lot of people would like to do the in-person bonding with other people on the course, actually, our lives are getting busier and busier. And there isn't necessarily the financial resource around to send people on courses in the same way as it was in the past. We work with doctors, and the amount of study leave that is available for them isn't perhaps as it once was.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: So having something that people can do in short chunks a little bit while you're on the bus, a little bit here and there, we have ours available on a mobile app as well. So people can just log in, do 5 minutes, 10 minutes. And I think that's also really important for fitting in around people and making it more affordable. But at the same time, you're right, it is a balance.
HELEN DAVIES: Yeah, I agree. I think we also work with doctors, and the feedback we're getting is that actually, they are given-- suddenly, their employers have realized that they can do their training online, so they've changed the way they're allocating the study leave, which I think in some cases is quite frustrating for them. Because where they enjoyed the getting together in person, they're now perhaps not allowed to do it anymore.
HELEN DAVIES: So that's quite difficult. So we're looking at different types of training. And some of it we have continued face to face depending on the nature of that training, but largely now, ours has gone to e-learning.
MELISSA SESERKO: I think that's really interesting. Oh, sorry.
SAM BURRELL: No, go. Go.
MELISSA SESERKO: I think it's really interesting that you're doing different types of things. And I think it's the intentionality behind it. It's, OK, we have one day in person with these people or two days in person with these people. What are the things that are most beneficial to do with that in-person: more networking or more activity based, and then focus either with pre-training or post training, you can do with an e-learning design.
SAM BURRELL: So Helen, I was going to pick on you first because-- [LAUGHTER] --because Of where you are in your product life cycle stuff. It's at a really interesting stage. Because you said you were just about to launch, which means that this is something you've invented relatively recently and you've been through the birthing process. Do you want to pick some things out that you've experienced of thinking about someone who's listening who might be in a society that's just beginning to engage with this kind of need, basically?
HELEN DAVIES: Yes. So I think the biggest thing for-- there was a couple of things when I was thinking about preparing for this that really struck me. The process itself of going from the point where you decide you're going to look for a platform to the point where you're going to launch has taken us so much longer than we ever thought it would. So I think you need to really, really think about that and probably double it.
HELEN DAVIES: So think about how long you think it will take, and then double it. We have been saying to our learners we're going to launch this course in this month, and then it's delayed and it's delayed. And we've actually now just announced a more realistic timescale to manage expectations. So that was the one thing. And one of those problems was that we integrated our-- so our platform is Moodle Workplace, and we decided that we would do the purchasing of the courses through our CRM.
HELEN DAVIES: So we did the full integration with our CRM, and that's allowed us to do things like set course rates, members and nonmember fees, and do all that sort of thing. So that all that will all be nice and smooth once it's launched, but getting that integration done has taken us so much time. And I think the other thing that I didn't really think would be a problem was if you're moving from the traditional type of online learning, so via Zoom-- so we still do deliver some of our training online via Zoom.
HELEN DAVIES: And the way we do that is 20 minute presentations that we pre-record on video, and then we have our speakers on live for a Q&A. So a bit like this. And the trainers have found it really, really difficult to understand how e-learning needs to be different. So on demand e-learning needs to be different, and that's been a real struggle for us to get that concept across to them of why on demand learning has to be different.
SAM BURRELL: So how does it have to be different?
HELEN DAVIES: Well, I mean, Sophia mentioned, one of the things will be short, snappy bits of learning, different formats. At the moment-- I will be honest, the first course we deliver will be mainly video with pieces of information around that provided to the learner. So things like learning outcomes that they can read and then they can have reading lists and extra bits of information that we'll provide on the platform.
HELEN DAVIES: Working with our e-learning manager, we're hoping that over time, our formats will evolve. But for the first one, it will be a lot of video content. And some of the videos are probably going to be too long. And what we'll do is we'll evidence the feedback, and we'll send that back to our trainers and say, you see now why we were saying it needs to be short chunks? They just cannot seem to get that concept.
SAM BURRELL: So before we move to the others, which I do have burning questions for both of them, I want wanted to pick up about the delay piece of it taking much, much longer than you were expecting it to. I'm assuming actually that some of that is around the integrating the technical infrastructure stuff that needs to be integrated and working smoothly. Was the bulk of the-- I mean, is that where the bulk of the delay has sat or has it been across a number of things?
HELEN DAVIES: So I think two things Yes, related to that. So the way we managed our project is we had a consultant who we brought in, and he has got Moodle Workplace expertise in terms of setting up and working with our partner to set that up. However, we were really staff limited because we're so small, so we've got one e-learning manager. And she's been working largely on content development, and then we've got the consultant who's been doing of technical setup.
HELEN DAVIES: The technical setup with the CRM provider was the thing that took a long time trying to get the two organizations, so the CRM provider and our e-learning provider, to understand each other. They were great. Both of them spent a lot of time on meetings talking to us. But I think getting them to understand how each other needed to work and get that interaction was really difficult. So the Moodle Workplace provider just knew how Moodle Workplace needed to work, and the CRM provider knew from their side.
HELEN DAVIES: And getting them to understand, well, if we do this, that will happen on the other side was quite difficult. So yeah, that took about probabl about six months. Did not expect that to take as long. The other thing has been getting that extra content in from the trainers. So as I say, because we changed the format of an existing course, getting them to understand what content we needed to provide to the learners and getting them to work on that.
HELEN DAVIES: And they're very time poor. The trainers are doctors themselves or scientists themselves, so getting them to find the time to be able to work with us on that has been really tricky. And we're still not quite there.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: I would totally echo everything Helen has said. I mean, you could have been talking about my experience. The integration really does take an awful lot longer because as you said, people are experts in their own thing. But also, add to that, neither really understands the context of a society and how we want it set up for our learners. We also found that picking the right technology took a very long time.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: There are so many solutions out there, and they all do very slightly different things. If someone is embarking on this, I would say, do an awful lot of research into what tech that you want. And do you want it to talk to your CRM? Ideally, go with an organization that is already integrated with that type of CRM that you have, whether it's Salesforce or whatever. Because even if people have done it before, it will be completely differently set up in your context.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: And just trying to understand how it all works all the parts in the jigsaw, yeah, it takes a very long time. And yeah, do the market research as well as for what does your community want? What does your community need? Are they actually going to-- do they want it or do you just think they want it? Are they going to pay for it?
SOPHIA ANDERTON: What sort of price point might they be willing to pay? When I was at the British Institute of Radiology, we spent a lot of time doing that prework. And it felt a bit frustrating that it was taking so long, but it was worth it. And we had to delay and things were-- things we launched much later than we intended to because as I say, everything you said, Helen, sounds very familiar.
SAM BURRELL: Interesting, that question isn't it about what-- because what I'm hearing is that there's a huge array of options out there, so there's quite a lot of investment in terms of time and exploration before you even start on the journey about which bits you're going to use. And think, Sophia, that's such an interesting point, that are you actually building something that people want? Because you're putting so much effort into it that actually getting it wrong.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: Start small. Do a pilot project, then get loads and loads of feedback. I mean, classic agile methodology. But don't let that finish once you've launched, that's just the beginning. Keep reviewing. Yeah, we have a very, very large amount of content, and it's great that we've got this huge resource at BJUI But keeping that up to date is now the challenge we're in. But not just content wise, but technology wise.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: If our provider turned around and said, we don't actually support that anymore, it would take us years to rebuild it. So it's a little bit of one of those things--
SAM BURRELL: Don't you worry about that right now. [LAUGHTER]
SOPHIA ANDERTON: But thinking forward. And something that I've certainly found is, a lot of these technology solutions are designed for very large corporate organizations doing internal training for their thousands and thousands of staff. So they don't necessarily have the Add-on for a control of e-commerce or who is going to-- who can do the course because obviously, if it's members, they're all on different networks.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: It's designed for a single network. So you have to have all these bolt-ons and getting all those to talk to each other.
SAM BURRELL: Yeah.
HELEN DAVIES: Yeah, completely.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: But it's really worth doing, but it's hard.
MELISSA SESERKO: [LAUGHS] And I think it's an interesting point about deciding what you want to do ahead of time, being flexible obviously because it could change, but and then really thinking about how you're going to implement it with either beta or prototype or some sort of initial go so that then you can go back and-- because I think one of the mistakes that I've seen with this is overdoing it on the first, and then it takes way too long to get to market. And by the time you've gotten there, all of that initial research you've done -- is it still true?
MELISSA SESERKO: was there a global pandemic? et cetera?
MELISSA SESERKO: You want to make sure you're protecting the future and spending the time on getting the technology right to the ultimate point. But I think it's great, Helen, that you're saying, OK, these videos aren't the perfect length, but let's start there. We've got good content. Let's just go and we can keep making revisions. It's not set in stone how we get the first day out.
HELEN DAVIES: I think that's-- it's made me feel very uncomfortable, but I think I've had to get to the point where we're accepting that we will potentially get some negative feedback, and that's fine actually. And I think the product we will be providing for this course will be so much better, actually, than anything they've received in the Zoom online format. I think they'll all be quite impressed with what they're seeing on the platform, but I do think we will get feedback saying this, was really intense to go through these videos and there's so much material.
HELEN DAVIES: So I think we just need to accept that and then move forward and tweak and edit ready for the next thing. So maybe that's another learning thing, learn to accept that it won't be 100% right when you first launch.
SAM BURRELL: So I've got another question for you guys, which I haven't prepared you for because it's only just this minute popped into my head, which is around designing and planning the actual content because it seems like there's two issues here, both of which are really challenging. There's the technology piece and how you build that infrastructure to deliver what you want to deliver. But there's another piece around making sure that the actual content is in a format that works for your target audience.
SAM BURRELL: Can I ask you, in fact, all of you to talk a bit about separate from the technology, the actual content and how that's been generating that and driving that through?
SOPHIA ANDERTON: I mean, that was something that we also spent quite a lot of time when I was at the BIR in the market research of how would people like it delivered? But we've done elements of instructional design at both BJUI and at the BIR. We got subject specialists to basically write a narrative and then some instructional design or content developers taking that raw material and turning it into e-learning.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: And that is a skill. It's a real skill, and it's hard. And recruiting people to do that who understand enough about the subject area and the educational techniques is hard, and it's quite likely that it's not the skills that you would normally find within the people who work at an association or a society. So yeah, take time on that as well.
SAM BURRELL: So did you recruit-- have you recruited people in specifically? Did you use freelancers? Have you developed your own staff? Combination of all of those? How did it-- like practically speaking?
SOPHIA ANDERTON: All of the Above?
SAM BURRELL: Yeah.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: So here at BJUI, a whole team was recruited with specialists. And because the product is now mature, we have fewer of those people than we had. We had about six full-time people a number of years ago. We're now down to three. So it ebbs and flows. And at the BIR, we were lucky to have someone who did actually have instructional design experience, so they were moved on to the project to deliver.
SAM BURRELL: Can I ask you a quick question about revenue in terms of-- were just explaining the size of the team. And because I'm a business person, I'm sitting there going, oh. [LAUGHS] That's really expensive. Has the e-learning platform been a-- without giving away too much, but substantial revenue generator for you guys or has it more been about mission or--
SOPHIA ANDERTON: Mainly mission, I think, was-- and that's where it came from, we're essentially a society, but we don't have the membership element of it. So we do a lot of the other things that a traditional society would do. And a number of years ago, we had quite a lot of revenue coming from journals, and the trustees wanted to take some of that and invest it in an educational product, which is what our mission is: education for urologists.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: And a huge amount of money has been invested in it, but we do sell it. We do bring in income. But I'd say overall, it's a mission led activity. But the fact that we were able to do that when publishing revenues were very high, and as publishing revenues are going down for everybody, it does mean that we have got this extra bow to our string and a bit of diversification that we wouldn't have had if former trustees hadn't been foresighted enough to do this.
SAM BURRELL: Yeah. Helen, do you want to build on any of that really?
HELEN DAVIES: Yes. So I think the staff issue is very interesting one. So I have no-- I had no experience in this at all. And as I said at the beginning, we are nine staff in total, including our CEO. So we looked to hire one person who would be an e-learning manager, and that role would be responsible for looking at the platform, working with the partner to implement the platform, and then doing the content development.
HELEN DAVIES: And it became clear to us, its inexperience or lack of knowledge, that that wasn't going to work. So middle of last year, we recruited a consultant. Now, he does actually have content development and the tech experience, but I would say his strength has been much more around the technical platform side of it. And then what we did was, we went back out and recruited a permanent member of staff to do our-- who is now e-learning manager in the team, and she's working on the content.
HELEN DAVIES: She is less focused at the minute on the technical side of things, but intends to get herself up to speed. So that really-- again, I think that's led to us it taking longer because we've not really had many people. I was very envious Sophia of your team of people because our team is one-- really at the moment, the consultants just finishing.
HELEN DAVIES: So that's the staff side of it. Yeah, we'll have to see how that goes really.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: What we did at BIR was slightly different in we created a team from existing staff, but there was a couple of people from publishing, a couple of people from the events team, someone who was-- we were all on this project team together, and it was from all areas of the business. That did try and-- it brought in different skills in that respect. So yeah, there were about six of us who were all seconded onto this as part of our role.
HELEN DAVIES: Yeah.
SAM BURRELL: Melissa, as someone who's seen a range of organizations trying to deal with these issues, what have you seen that's worked and have you seen anything hat was a bit of-- without naming names, was a bit of a car crash and you went you went, oh, they should have done it differently? Do you want to-- because you've got an interesting position because you've seen it in a number of different contexts.
MELISSA SESERKO: And I think this is actually one of the key pieces of like just following on that the content and technology. They're historically different skill sets, different people have worked on them before, and then e-learning is really the-- both sides need to come together to deliver one thing. And I think organizations that figure that out and figure out how to make the different groups talk to each other, which could be just a pre-existing coherent team, it could be just a acknowledgment, OK, these teams have been in silos, let's bring them together because we need to do this, is a signal of-- But when people say, oh, I don't know how the technology is going to work.
MELISSA SESERKO: I'm just working on the content or vice versa, I don't care about what the content is, I'm just building the technology, that's a bit of a red flag. And people need to-- even if they are not working, it sounds like, Helen, there's been a division of labor. It's not that the content person doesn't have any interest in the technology, it's literally there's only so many hours in the day, so many days in the month, let's focus.
MELISSA SESERKO: And so you need both pieces that people are still paying attention. Because the last thing you want to do is have some milestone, OK, we're putting the content into the platform or into whatever it is, and it doesn't match up, and it's not what you thought it was going to be, and there's a lot of rework. And I think that's one of the really key things to success.
MELISSA SESERKO: The other piece I would say-- not in terms of failure but can slow you down is getting-- oh, sorry, my watch thought I was talking to it. [LAUGHTER] Speaking of technology that doesn't work the way we thought it was going to all the time. I think it is really around this technology piece not getting too fancy with it at first. This is coming from a technology vendor, but I really think that products, groups, teams get into trouble when they think that the technology is going to answer.
MELISSA SESERKO: And if we just put this feature here, everything will be better and really losing sight of the content, which I think I said earlier. But I do think that's really important, that you can't expect the platform to do the work of--
SAM BURRELL: That's kind of where you started, yeah.
MELISSA SESERKO: Yeah. So--
SAM BURRELL: And I think that's-- yeah, go on. Go.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: So to build on something like that, I would really recommend not doing too much customization because that comes with a price tag, especially if you don't know how it's going to work or if it's going to be successful. But more to the point, when the systems develop because the technology vendors will develop, the platforms, your customization will probably get forgotten. And then things become buggy, and then don't work, and it becomes even more expensive.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: So we've certainly seen some problems with things that were really customized years back, and we're stuck.
MELISSA SESERKO: And really thinking about what's the purpose behind it because there is sometimes a simple version of how you can do it. Do you need a special learning objectives introduction thing that flashes up on the screen that's not some sort of interactive learning objectives or do you just need to have standards that you have that as part of your standard video that it's a slide that always gets shown at the beginning. And that's not a technological solution.
MELISSA SESERKO: That's a, what are we trying to achieve here? Is technology the best way to solve that problem. Sometimes yes, we're talking about e-learning, but sometimes also, there's other ways that are more simple. And so keeping in mind the actual goal of what you're trying to do.
HELEN DAVIES: So I have an example of that. We spent a long time looking at the landing page for our platform and trying to decide how the shopfront would look. And honestly, we spent ages talking about this. And then one day, we had a realization that our e-commerce was going to be done through our CRM, and we sell all of our events straight directly from our website. And why don't we just do the catalog side of things from the website, which I can do very easily because I've set this up already for our event sales on our website?
HELEN DAVIES: And we'd spent such a long time trying to work out with the Moodle Workplace provider how this would look and how we could get it exactly, and then we said, actually, let's just not use that page at all. Let's just ditch it. And think that's one of those-- and I was really grateful to our consultant because he said, take a step back.
HELEN DAVIES: Let's take a step back, why are we trying to do it this way? Why can't we just do it through the web page? And we all sat there and had this epiphany and realized that it would be so much simpler just to have the catalog on the website in the format that we know before. So--
SAM BURRELL: I think it can be quite hard though to see those things--
HELEN DAVIES: Yes
SAM BURRELL: --particularly when you're under pressure. You've got a lot going on. You're doing something that's new.
HELEN DAVIES: Yes.
SAM BURRELL: It feels like there's a lot of complexity. It's sometimes really hard to step back from that and go, is there another way to do this? Because you're so focused. So that's great that you guys did. I mean, that sounds like a exactly what Melissa was talking about.
HELEN DAVIES: Exactly. And I think that's a really good example of where the provider of the platform does it that way mostly with their clients. So they were expecting us to have a catalog and a shop front on there, and they just kept telling us the way they normally do it. And then we realized, actually, we don't need to do it the way they normally do it. There's no need to do it that way.
HELEN DAVIES: So it's really important-- and sometimes you just don't know what you don't know either, that's one of the problems. So they tell you this is how it's done, and you accept this is how it's done. And I think you just need to take a step back sometimes and consider.
SAM BURRELL: So I knew this would happen. But unbelievably, we have been chatting for a while now. And I do have a question that I want to get to all of you so that we can-- this was one of the things I wanted to get out of today, which was, out there listening, either in person or potentially on demand, because I think this is one that people are going to listen to later as well. If you've got-- there's another society out there who is fairly early on in this journey of going, we need to either completely refresh what we've got or we need to start doing something other than whatever scrappy solution we've had to date because I think most people are doing something.
SAM BURRELL: What would you advise them as people who have been through this process either more than once or seen other people do it or actually in the thick of it in Helen's case. What would you advise those societies to be thinking about and looking at? I'm going to start with Melissa this time.
MELISSA SESERKO: Sure so I think my biggest-- the thing that popped into my head when you asked the question is just to write a list. It sounds very basic.
SAM BURRELL: OK, write a list.
MELISSA SESERKO: Write a list. I'm all about the list. And sketch it out a bit, and really be clear internally about what you are trying to do and accomplish from the start. So sometimes all-- sometimes I feel like that's all I do every day is just write bullet point lists of what other people said. So get a group together, talk about what you're trying to accomplish, and then agree on these are the bullets, these are the things we really want to do.
MELISSA SESERKO: And don't be afraid to actually draw it out. So draw out either, this is how we think the e-commerce system. Just a circle with some lines. You don't have to show anybody else outside of it, but really think about a big picture before you dive into the details even if you already have something there at first.
SAM BURRELL: That is such a great piece of advice for all kinds -- because I'm sitting here going, that's what I do for a living. I don't do this for a living, but actually, I go in and I go, so what are you trying to achieve? That's my question. And you'd be surprised at how often there's lack of clarity on that. And it helps.
SAM BURRELL: Once you've got it clear, you can then take a decision and put it against your what are we trying to achieve? And go this matters, this doesn't matter, there might be a different way to do this. So yeah, Melissa, very good. Helen, what would you advise somebody?
HELEN DAVIES: Well, I've already said it but allow a lot more time than you think you'll need, and probably also, don't worry if your first launch product is not perfect. So I think those are my two things that are the main pieces of advice--
SAM BURRELL: Is that your current mantra to yourself?
HELEN DAVIES: Yes.
SAM BURRELL: I've got to feeling. It has that level of weight to it. [LAUGHTER]
HELEN DAVIES: It had to be.
SAM BURRELL: This is my advice to myself.
HELEN DAVIES: Yes. [LAUGHTER] We are so close, but yeah, you just have to not think it's got to be perfect, so--
SAM BURRELL: It helps actually. So that's that thing, isn't it? I mean, you said something earlier that I thought was-- it was when you were talking about your trainers are really struggling with this and how, to reflect back what I heard, is that you've concluded to go with what you think is not necessarily the perfect format. Because actually, you get it out there, you get people using it, they will give feedback, and that will help inform the next version.
HELEN DAVIES: Exactly, yeah. And think it will be much easier then to develop that version of that-- even that initial pilot project-- the product, sorry. And I think so developing future products will be able to feed that information back in, but also, we can tweak the current product, I think, once we have that feedback, so.
SAM BURRELL: One question I haven't asked you is-- before I go to Sophia, is your product a charged for product? Is that-- yeah.
HELEN DAVIES: Yes. And I didn't actually jump in earlier, but one of the reasons we are doing this is income generation. Because similarly, our journal revenue is decreasing as is everybody's. And there is a real demand for our training. So I think we are seeing it as an income generation project.
SAM BURRELL: Yeah. Sophia, you've got three hats that you could advise from. [LAUGHS]
SOPHIA ANDERTON: I would say-- joining together what Melissa and Helen, said take time to plan. I mean, as you said, lots of people are doing something in one form or another. And a lot of that was out of necessity. When COVID hit, there was a very, very quick pivot to delivering things that had been done face to face to online. And I suspect a lot of people are still using those systems that they put in place probably over the space of a week or so.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: But if they're going to do something a bit different and start from a blank sheet of paper, don't just write a list of what you think you want. Go and talk to your community. We did some focus groups. We did some-- this is with the BIR. We got various people together, gave them cake, and got them to talk for a few hours. We also did huge surveys.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: We got several hundred responses, but that also helped us to drive our strategy because we put different content ideas into some of those surveys and got people to rank what was the most important to them. And so based on who they were, what their-- I mean, it was quite-- I mean, we were pleased. We got so many very useful responses. But that helped to drive, which were the most important topics.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: And we did spend a long time doing that prework, and it was really, really worth it.
SAM BURRELL: I was just about to ask that, were there any surprises-- I mean, quite often, when you start on one of those types of exercises, there are certainly people within the organization who go, this is a waste of time because I already know what people are going to come back with. So out of curiosity, were there any surprises or did it just give you data to reinforce things that were already in planning?
SOPHIA ANDERTON: That's a good question. It's going back quite a number of years now.
SAM BURRELL: Sorry.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: I can't quite remember. But I think it was probably-- there was a bit of both. I think some of the topics we thought were going to be the most popular weren't. So that helps prioritize what we did first, as our pilots. But also, it was really good confirmatory data that we could then put in plans and take to council to get approval because we could justifiably say, we want to do this and this is why we want to do it.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: And that really helped in that respect.
SAM BURRELL: Oh, is there anything else that I haven't-- we've got a minute or two if you want, Helen, go.
HELEN DAVIES: I just wonder, Sophia, out of interest, when you did your research, did you ask the direct question-- I think one of the problems is your members or your learners don't know-- they might not want e-learning. They might think they don't want e-learning. So I wondered if you asked any of that sort of question or was it more around the topics and things like that you asked the-- did the research?
SOPHIA ANDERTON: I think it was quite-- we asked a lot of different things and I think we did ask that as well and what-- yeah, we did we did ask them, did they want e-learning and what format as well as what type of topics, yeah.
SAM BURRELL: Helen, why--
SOPHIA ANDERTON: There were a lot of people who came back and said, oh, no, no, of course, we don't. Of course, we do. But then there are other people's who's like, yes, that would be great. That'd be great. And then possibly never use it. But--
HELEN DAVIES: So I'm asking only because we did it as part of our membership survey actually. We asked about it. But I think one of the responses you tend to get is, oh, no, I wouldn't like to have on demand learning. I like the live e-learning, but I don't want on-demand. And they think because they won't have time to do it. And I think that's quite difficult because they've never had it in our society, so they're not really sure what they're saying no to.
HELEN DAVIES: That's why I'm asking.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: I think people did want it because they knew they didn't have the time and resources to be able to go to in person stuff. And actually, we did a lot of work with managers. So not necessarily the people who would be the learners, but the people who might be paying for the course. Because ultimately, people could say they want it. But if the purchaser isn't going to buy it, then that's not helpful. So we did tap into radiology managers and get their input, which was really valuable.
MELISSA SESERKO: And do you think it's just a caution about the binary do you want e-learning yes or no is more digging into what are the learning goals that you have? How much time do you think you have? Asking a little bit one step removed from the yes or no, do you want e-learning? Because there is still a little bit of a-- people just-- Sam was saying earlier, I really wanted to do in person.
MELISSA SESERKO: So you just definitely have that too, but ask the other questions that can support a different answer than they give you ultimately.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: Yeah. And the usual Zoom fatigue, that is a real thing.
HELEN DAVIES: Yeah.
SAM BURRELL: And I think there's so many-- sorry, I'm going to freewheel a bit here. I think there's so many different ways of solving the problem. I'm sitting here thinking about a conference I went to before pandemic, and I think it was JAMA who were doing small podcasts that then had quizzes associated with them afterwards. And so if you did a certain number of them, that gave you some points towards your CME type thing.
SAM BURRELL: So I think the concept of learning and how we deliver it can be broader than perhaps people think when they first look at this question.
HELEN DAVIES: Yes, I agree.
SAM BURRELL: Because I think about the way that I learn, and I'm-- despite doing this and loving what I do here, I don't engage with video very much. So when you're thinking about your learning community-- and I do do podcasts, and I do do audiobooks, and I do do-- yeah, it's a bunch of stuff I do do, but it's that thing of going-- and I think, Sophia, that comes back to something you started with, which was all the different types,maybe have some video content, but it shouldn't all be video content maybe.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: Yeah, mixing it up a bit. And that's what we're trying to do now with our quite mature product. The bulk of it isn't videos. It's self-directed. The learner reads a screen. There are pictures or interactions you click on a box, another other thing opens more information, there are questions throughout, so quite interactive.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: But we've also just started doing some videos. And we've got a video library of procedures for people to watch and some podcasts, breaking down some of those bigger things into quick checks. So we're trying to use the content. We've already built a massive library into different ways as technology changes, as people's habits change, and that's the ongoing challenge of how do you keep it current?
SAM BURRELL: So I know that all the people listening to this are going to be burning with questions and they're going to be going, oh my God, I want to ask them this, and I want to ask them this. And the good news is that as soon as we finish this, a Zoom link pops up, and you can come and join us and bring all those questions to talk to us all. So for now, I want to say thank you very much to Melissa and Sophia and Helen for coming to talk. I feel like we could have talked about this for a whole other hour to be honest.
SAM BURRELL: And I really appreciate your time and coming to share your insights with us. So thank you very much, and we'll see you see you in just a minute on the other call. All right, see you in a bit.
Segment:0 .
SAM BURRELL: Hi, everybody. Thanks for joining us today. We've got some great speakers who are coming to talk to us about e-learning platforms and their experience of them. Now, this was an idea that came to us from our community, actually. We were approached to go, this would be a really good topic for you guys to talk about.
SAM BURRELL: And in our precall, we've talked about it, and it is a great topic. So we're going to try and stick to time, but there's a lot to say. So I'm going to shut up and let our speakers introduce themselves. And they'll just tell you who they are, where they're from, and what they-- why we've invited them to come and talk to us.
SAM BURRELL: Sophia.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: Hi. I'm Sophia Anderton. I'm chief executive of BJU International. We're a small medical organization. We publish some journals, and we've got an online learning platform for urologists. It's a pretty extensive platform. We've got over 450 different modules, each of about 30 to 40 minutes long, self-directed learning. It's been a bit of a labor of love and been built over about the last decade, we've been working on that.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: But I'm here with a couple of other hats on as well from other experience. I previously worked at the British Institute of Radiology where I was Director of Publishing, and we set up an online learning program while I was there. That was video courses. So each course was much longer, about three hours broken down into smaller bits. But videos is-- there's animations, illustrations, all with a narrative over the top.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: So a different kind of online learning, but I was involved right from the setup of that whereas I've inherited a pretty mature product at BJU International. But I've also got a third hat as well. So I am chair of the Training Committee of ALPSP-- Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers. And we have a pretty extensive training program, which, at the point of the pandemic, flipped from being in person of about 20 people to online courses of around 20 people.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: So a group of people all on a Zoom call like this chatting really replicating what we did face to face. So three different types of online learning. So that's what I'm here with my experience about.
SAM BURRELL: On a different stages as well. That's really interesting, the-- brilliant. And I'm sorry I mispronounced your name, I should have checked.
SAM BURRELL: Right Helen, tell us about you.
HELEN DAVIES: Hi. I'm Helen Davies. I work for the Healthcare and Infection Society. I'm Head of Membership and Professional Development, which essentially means I look after everything to do with membership, events, training, and now e-learning, which when I joined the Society six years ago wasn't really in my plan. So we are a membership organization of -- quite small, around 1,300 members and 9 staff.
HELEN DAVIES: We run membership events, online training courses, we publish guidelines. We have two journals. And our journey-- we're much earlier in the e-learning journey than Sophia. So we haven't yet quite launched our platform, and that should be happening in the next few weeks. So we are very, very excited about that. And we're launching with one product initially, one quite big course that's going to have five modules.
HELEN DAVIES: So we're planning to sell that as a program, and then broken down into five modules, which we'll also provide as individual courses. Just my journey and the Society's journey, a bit similar to the one Sophia described. We delivered face to face events and training courses, and then the pandemic came along and we very quickly had to flip that to online via Zoom. We used Zoom.
HELEN DAVIES: And this particular course that we're going to launch on our learning platform was delivered in a five day online course via Zoom, which was very full on with interactive workshops and videos. And then because of the demand for that course, that really took off in an online format. And because of the demand for that and our wish to make that more accessible, that's what's made us really look at an e-learning platform.
HELEN DAVIES: So what we're now doing is we're transitioning that across to our learning platform.
SAM BURRELL: Wow, so lots of things to share about experiences in terms of what you've learned. Melissa, tell us about you.
MELISSA SESERKO: Hi, everyone. I'm Melissa Seserko. I'm COO at Cadmore Media. So we are a small video technology vendor. So we work with societies and associations across different use cases where they might use video. So there's lots of different use cases, but e-learning is an important and growing one of those, which is really exciting to get to work across different societies and different spaces, see where they're at stage wise as this mature product is this brand new idea that someone wants to bring to the forefront.
MELISSA SESERKO: So that's my current work with e-learning at Cadmore. I also have generally a background in online product development, so a lot of experience with just the concept of using technology to bringing content to people. Again, e-learning is a big piece of that. And then lastly, academic experience. So I'm just finishing up my educational technology master's degree, and I've really been enjoying exploring the pedagogical perspective on why you would do e-learning,
MELISSA SESERKO: how to do it, different ways of engaging learners. So I think my big things that I'm interested in exploring are understanding the learners, which I think societies are in a really interesting space to understand who are they targeting with their e-learning, which isn't always the case sitting in class. Sometimes I'm like, oh, well, usually, people have a pretty good sense of these.
MELISSA SESERKO: And then also the content, so where does content and technology meet? A lot of things that I've worked on through my career, it's a balance. Technology is not the answer. It's certainly part of the solution, but technology does not do the teaching. And so making sure that the content is still engaging in all of the ways it needs to be for e-learning.
MELISSA SESERKO: So that's a bit about me.
SAM BURRELL: I've got a slightly off topic question for you.
MELISSA SESERKO: Yes.
SAM BURRELL: So this is setting the tone for what this conversation is going to be like. When you've just done this course, I'm really interested, was that all in person, was that blended learning, or was that-- I mean, as a "consumer"?
MELISSA SESERKO: Oh, yes.
SAM BURRELL: Tell us about that.
MELISSA SESERKO: Yeah. So my master's degree was all virtual. A fully remote master's degree. So Zoom lectures, using Canvas for interactive. A lot of peer review I think was the most important piece of the coursework, was you'd always get partnered up and give people feedback and engage with the assignments with a different perspective, so.
SAM BURRELL: Yeah. Oh, so you've walked it? You've actually done--
MELISSA SESERKO: Yes.
SAM BURRELL: --quite intense experience of doing it? I've just been doing a course outside of this world, and I had a choice of doing it online or doing it in person. And I surprised myself by going, I'm very strongly wanting to do this in person. I think that's probably post-pandemic thing because I think there's a two sided-- I mean, I think all of us are here and our experience of the pandemic and needing to deliver stuff differently.
SAM BURRELL: Both of them have become more-- I don't know, better shaped somehow in that actually, the way people deliver e-learning is maturing, but also, I think there's some people really valuing the in-person side. Sorry, we didn't talk about that in our prep call at all. It's just something that--
SOPHIA ANDERTON: Yeah, I think that that's a really good point, people have different preferences. But at the same time, whilst a lot of people would like to do the in-person bonding with other people on the course, actually, our lives are getting busier and busier. And there isn't necessarily the financial resource around to send people on courses in the same way as it was in the past. We work with doctors, and the amount of study leave that is available for them isn't perhaps as it once was.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: So having something that people can do in short chunks a little bit while you're on the bus, a little bit here and there, we have ours available on a mobile app as well. So people can just log in, do 5 minutes, 10 minutes. And I think that's also really important for fitting in around people and making it more affordable. But at the same time, you're right, it is a balance.
HELEN DAVIES: Yeah, I agree. I think we also work with doctors, and the feedback we're getting is that actually, they are given-- suddenly, their employers have realized that they can do their training online, so they've changed the way they're allocating the study leave, which I think in some cases is quite frustrating for them. Because where they enjoyed the getting together in person, they're now perhaps not allowed to do it anymore.
HELEN DAVIES: So that's quite difficult. So we're looking at different types of training. And some of it we have continued face to face depending on the nature of that training, but largely now, ours has gone to e-learning.
MELISSA SESERKO: I think that's really interesting. Oh, sorry.
SAM BURRELL: No, go. Go.
MELISSA SESERKO: I think it's really interesting that you're doing different types of things. And I think it's the intentionality behind it. It's, OK, we have one day in person with these people or two days in person with these people. What are the things that are most beneficial to do with that in-person: more networking or more activity based, and then focus either with pre-training or post training, you can do with an e-learning design.
SAM BURRELL: So Helen, I was going to pick on you first because-- [LAUGHTER] --because Of where you are in your product life cycle stuff. It's at a really interesting stage. Because you said you were just about to launch, which means that this is something you've invented relatively recently and you've been through the birthing process. Do you want to pick some things out that you've experienced of thinking about someone who's listening who might be in a society that's just beginning to engage with this kind of need, basically?
HELEN DAVIES: Yes. So I think the biggest thing for-- there was a couple of things when I was thinking about preparing for this that really struck me. The process itself of going from the point where you decide you're going to look for a platform to the point where you're going to launch has taken us so much longer than we ever thought it would. So I think you need to really, really think about that and probably double it.
HELEN DAVIES: So think about how long you think it will take, and then double it. We have been saying to our learners we're going to launch this course in this month, and then it's delayed and it's delayed. And we've actually now just announced a more realistic timescale to manage expectations. So that was the one thing. And one of those problems was that we integrated our-- so our platform is Moodle Workplace, and we decided that we would do the purchasing of the courses through our CRM.
HELEN DAVIES: So we did the full integration with our CRM, and that's allowed us to do things like set course rates, members and nonmember fees, and do all that sort of thing. So that all that will all be nice and smooth once it's launched, but getting that integration done has taken us so much time. And I think the other thing that I didn't really think would be a problem was if you're moving from the traditional type of online learning, so via Zoom-- so we still do deliver some of our training online via Zoom.
HELEN DAVIES: And the way we do that is 20 minute presentations that we pre-record on video, and then we have our speakers on live for a Q&A. So a bit like this. And the trainers have found it really, really difficult to understand how e-learning needs to be different. So on demand e-learning needs to be different, and that's been a real struggle for us to get that concept across to them of why on demand learning has to be different.
SAM BURRELL: So how does it have to be different?
HELEN DAVIES: Well, I mean, Sophia mentioned, one of the things will be short, snappy bits of learning, different formats. At the moment-- I will be honest, the first course we deliver will be mainly video with pieces of information around that provided to the learner. So things like learning outcomes that they can read and then they can have reading lists and extra bits of information that we'll provide on the platform.
HELEN DAVIES: Working with our e-learning manager, we're hoping that over time, our formats will evolve. But for the first one, it will be a lot of video content. And some of the videos are probably going to be too long. And what we'll do is we'll evidence the feedback, and we'll send that back to our trainers and say, you see now why we were saying it needs to be short chunks? They just cannot seem to get that concept.
SAM BURRELL: So before we move to the others, which I do have burning questions for both of them, I want wanted to pick up about the delay piece of it taking much, much longer than you were expecting it to. I'm assuming actually that some of that is around the integrating the technical infrastructure stuff that needs to be integrated and working smoothly. Was the bulk of the-- I mean, is that where the bulk of the delay has sat or has it been across a number of things?
HELEN DAVIES: So I think two things Yes, related to that. So the way we managed our project is we had a consultant who we brought in, and he has got Moodle Workplace expertise in terms of setting up and working with our partner to set that up. However, we were really staff limited because we're so small, so we've got one e-learning manager. And she's been working largely on content development, and then we've got the consultant who's been doing of technical setup.
HELEN DAVIES: The technical setup with the CRM provider was the thing that took a long time trying to get the two organizations, so the CRM provider and our e-learning provider, to understand each other. They were great. Both of them spent a lot of time on meetings talking to us. But I think getting them to understand how each other needed to work and get that interaction was really difficult. So the Moodle Workplace provider just knew how Moodle Workplace needed to work, and the CRM provider knew from their side.
HELEN DAVIES: And getting them to understand, well, if we do this, that will happen on the other side was quite difficult. So yeah, that took about probabl about six months. Did not expect that to take as long. The other thing has been getting that extra content in from the trainers. So as I say, because we changed the format of an existing course, getting them to understand what content we needed to provide to the learners and getting them to work on that.
HELEN DAVIES: And they're very time poor. The trainers are doctors themselves or scientists themselves, so getting them to find the time to be able to work with us on that has been really tricky. And we're still not quite there.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: I would totally echo everything Helen has said. I mean, you could have been talking about my experience. The integration really does take an awful lot longer because as you said, people are experts in their own thing. But also, add to that, neither really understands the context of a society and how we want it set up for our learners. We also found that picking the right technology took a very long time.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: There are so many solutions out there, and they all do very slightly different things. If someone is embarking on this, I would say, do an awful lot of research into what tech that you want. And do you want it to talk to your CRM? Ideally, go with an organization that is already integrated with that type of CRM that you have, whether it's Salesforce or whatever. Because even if people have done it before, it will be completely differently set up in your context.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: And just trying to understand how it all works all the parts in the jigsaw, yeah, it takes a very long time. And yeah, do the market research as well as for what does your community want? What does your community need? Are they actually going to-- do they want it or do you just think they want it? Are they going to pay for it?
SOPHIA ANDERTON: What sort of price point might they be willing to pay? When I was at the British Institute of Radiology, we spent a lot of time doing that prework. And it felt a bit frustrating that it was taking so long, but it was worth it. And we had to delay and things were-- things we launched much later than we intended to because as I say, everything you said, Helen, sounds very familiar.
SAM BURRELL: Interesting, that question isn't it about what-- because what I'm hearing is that there's a huge array of options out there, so there's quite a lot of investment in terms of time and exploration before you even start on the journey about which bits you're going to use. And think, Sophia, that's such an interesting point, that are you actually building something that people want? Because you're putting so much effort into it that actually getting it wrong.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: Start small. Do a pilot project, then get loads and loads of feedback. I mean, classic agile methodology. But don't let that finish once you've launched, that's just the beginning. Keep reviewing. Yeah, we have a very, very large amount of content, and it's great that we've got this huge resource at BJUI But keeping that up to date is now the challenge we're in. But not just content wise, but technology wise.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: If our provider turned around and said, we don't actually support that anymore, it would take us years to rebuild it. So it's a little bit of one of those things--
SAM BURRELL: Don't you worry about that right now. [LAUGHTER]
SOPHIA ANDERTON: But thinking forward. And something that I've certainly found is, a lot of these technology solutions are designed for very large corporate organizations doing internal training for their thousands and thousands of staff. So they don't necessarily have the Add-on for a control of e-commerce or who is going to-- who can do the course because obviously, if it's members, they're all on different networks.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: It's designed for a single network. So you have to have all these bolt-ons and getting all those to talk to each other.
SAM BURRELL: Yeah.
HELEN DAVIES: Yeah, completely.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: But it's really worth doing, but it's hard.
MELISSA SESERKO: [LAUGHS] And I think it's an interesting point about deciding what you want to do ahead of time, being flexible obviously because it could change, but and then really thinking about how you're going to implement it with either beta or prototype or some sort of initial go so that then you can go back and-- because I think one of the mistakes that I've seen with this is overdoing it on the first, and then it takes way too long to get to market. And by the time you've gotten there, all of that initial research you've done -- is it still true?
MELISSA SESERKO: was there a global pandemic? et cetera?
MELISSA SESERKO: You want to make sure you're protecting the future and spending the time on getting the technology right to the ultimate point. But I think it's great, Helen, that you're saying, OK, these videos aren't the perfect length, but let's start there. We've got good content. Let's just go and we can keep making revisions. It's not set in stone how we get the first day out.
HELEN DAVIES: I think that's-- it's made me feel very uncomfortable, but I think I've had to get to the point where we're accepting that we will potentially get some negative feedback, and that's fine actually. And I think the product we will be providing for this course will be so much better, actually, than anything they've received in the Zoom online format. I think they'll all be quite impressed with what they're seeing on the platform, but I do think we will get feedback saying this, was really intense to go through these videos and there's so much material.
HELEN DAVIES: So I think we just need to accept that and then move forward and tweak and edit ready for the next thing. So maybe that's another learning thing, learn to accept that it won't be 100% right when you first launch.
SAM BURRELL: So I've got another question for you guys, which I haven't prepared you for because it's only just this minute popped into my head, which is around designing and planning the actual content because it seems like there's two issues here, both of which are really challenging. There's the technology piece and how you build that infrastructure to deliver what you want to deliver. But there's another piece around making sure that the actual content is in a format that works for your target audience.
SAM BURRELL: Can I ask you, in fact, all of you to talk a bit about separate from the technology, the actual content and how that's been generating that and driving that through?
SOPHIA ANDERTON: I mean, that was something that we also spent quite a lot of time when I was at the BIR in the market research of how would people like it delivered? But we've done elements of instructional design at both BJUI and at the BIR. We got subject specialists to basically write a narrative and then some instructional design or content developers taking that raw material and turning it into e-learning.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: And that is a skill. It's a real skill, and it's hard. And recruiting people to do that who understand enough about the subject area and the educational techniques is hard, and it's quite likely that it's not the skills that you would normally find within the people who work at an association or a society. So yeah, take time on that as well.
SAM BURRELL: So did you recruit-- have you recruited people in specifically? Did you use freelancers? Have you developed your own staff? Combination of all of those? How did it-- like practically speaking?
SOPHIA ANDERTON: All of the Above?
SAM BURRELL: Yeah.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: So here at BJUI, a whole team was recruited with specialists. And because the product is now mature, we have fewer of those people than we had. We had about six full-time people a number of years ago. We're now down to three. So it ebbs and flows. And at the BIR, we were lucky to have someone who did actually have instructional design experience, so they were moved on to the project to deliver.
SAM BURRELL: Can I ask you a quick question about revenue in terms of-- were just explaining the size of the team. And because I'm a business person, I'm sitting there going, oh. [LAUGHS] That's really expensive. Has the e-learning platform been a-- without giving away too much, but substantial revenue generator for you guys or has it more been about mission or--
SOPHIA ANDERTON: Mainly mission, I think, was-- and that's where it came from, we're essentially a society, but we don't have the membership element of it. So we do a lot of the other things that a traditional society would do. And a number of years ago, we had quite a lot of revenue coming from journals, and the trustees wanted to take some of that and invest it in an educational product, which is what our mission is: education for urologists.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: And a huge amount of money has been invested in it, but we do sell it. We do bring in income. But I'd say overall, it's a mission led activity. But the fact that we were able to do that when publishing revenues were very high, and as publishing revenues are going down for everybody, it does mean that we have got this extra bow to our string and a bit of diversification that we wouldn't have had if former trustees hadn't been foresighted enough to do this.
SAM BURRELL: Yeah. Helen, do you want to build on any of that really?
HELEN DAVIES: Yes. So I think the staff issue is very interesting one. So I have no-- I had no experience in this at all. And as I said at the beginning, we are nine staff in total, including our CEO. So we looked to hire one person who would be an e-learning manager, and that role would be responsible for looking at the platform, working with the partner to implement the platform, and then doing the content development.
HELEN DAVIES: And it became clear to us, its inexperience or lack of knowledge, that that wasn't going to work. So middle of last year, we recruited a consultant. Now, he does actually have content development and the tech experience, but I would say his strength has been much more around the technical platform side of it. And then what we did was, we went back out and recruited a permanent member of staff to do our-- who is now e-learning manager in the team, and she's working on the content.
HELEN DAVIES: She is less focused at the minute on the technical side of things, but intends to get herself up to speed. So that really-- again, I think that's led to us it taking longer because we've not really had many people. I was very envious Sophia of your team of people because our team is one-- really at the moment, the consultants just finishing.
HELEN DAVIES: So that's the staff side of it. Yeah, we'll have to see how that goes really.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: What we did at BIR was slightly different in we created a team from existing staff, but there was a couple of people from publishing, a couple of people from the events team, someone who was-- we were all on this project team together, and it was from all areas of the business. That did try and-- it brought in different skills in that respect. So yeah, there were about six of us who were all seconded onto this as part of our role.
HELEN DAVIES: Yeah.
SAM BURRELL: Melissa, as someone who's seen a range of organizations trying to deal with these issues, what have you seen that's worked and have you seen anything hat was a bit of-- without naming names, was a bit of a car crash and you went you went, oh, they should have done it differently? Do you want to-- because you've got an interesting position because you've seen it in a number of different contexts.
MELISSA SESERKO: And I think this is actually one of the key pieces of like just following on that the content and technology. They're historically different skill sets, different people have worked on them before, and then e-learning is really the-- both sides need to come together to deliver one thing. And I think organizations that figure that out and figure out how to make the different groups talk to each other, which could be just a pre-existing coherent team, it could be just a acknowledgment, OK, these teams have been in silos, let's bring them together because we need to do this, is a signal of-- But when people say, oh, I don't know how the technology is going to work.
MELISSA SESERKO: I'm just working on the content or vice versa, I don't care about what the content is, I'm just building the technology, that's a bit of a red flag. And people need to-- even if they are not working, it sounds like, Helen, there's been a division of labor. It's not that the content person doesn't have any interest in the technology, it's literally there's only so many hours in the day, so many days in the month, let's focus.
MELISSA SESERKO: And so you need both pieces that people are still paying attention. Because the last thing you want to do is have some milestone, OK, we're putting the content into the platform or into whatever it is, and it doesn't match up, and it's not what you thought it was going to be, and there's a lot of rework. And I think that's one of the really key things to success.
MELISSA SESERKO: The other piece I would say-- not in terms of failure but can slow you down is getting-- oh, sorry, my watch thought I was talking to it. [LAUGHTER] Speaking of technology that doesn't work the way we thought it was going to all the time. I think it is really around this technology piece not getting too fancy with it at first. This is coming from a technology vendor, but I really think that products, groups, teams get into trouble when they think that the technology is going to answer.
MELISSA SESERKO: And if we just put this feature here, everything will be better and really losing sight of the content, which I think I said earlier. But I do think that's really important, that you can't expect the platform to do the work of--
SAM BURRELL: That's kind of where you started, yeah.
MELISSA SESERKO: Yeah. So--
SAM BURRELL: And I think that's-- yeah, go on. Go.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: So to build on something like that, I would really recommend not doing too much customization because that comes with a price tag, especially if you don't know how it's going to work or if it's going to be successful. But more to the point, when the systems develop because the technology vendors will develop, the platforms, your customization will probably get forgotten. And then things become buggy, and then don't work, and it becomes even more expensive.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: So we've certainly seen some problems with things that were really customized years back, and we're stuck.
MELISSA SESERKO: And really thinking about what's the purpose behind it because there is sometimes a simple version of how you can do it. Do you need a special learning objectives introduction thing that flashes up on the screen that's not some sort of interactive learning objectives or do you just need to have standards that you have that as part of your standard video that it's a slide that always gets shown at the beginning. And that's not a technological solution.
MELISSA SESERKO: That's a, what are we trying to achieve here? Is technology the best way to solve that problem. Sometimes yes, we're talking about e-learning, but sometimes also, there's other ways that are more simple. And so keeping in mind the actual goal of what you're trying to do.
HELEN DAVIES: So I have an example of that. We spent a long time looking at the landing page for our platform and trying to decide how the shopfront would look. And honestly, we spent ages talking about this. And then one day, we had a realization that our e-commerce was going to be done through our CRM, and we sell all of our events straight directly from our website. And why don't we just do the catalog side of things from the website, which I can do very easily because I've set this up already for our event sales on our website?
HELEN DAVIES: And we'd spent such a long time trying to work out with the Moodle Workplace provider how this would look and how we could get it exactly, and then we said, actually, let's just not use that page at all. Let's just ditch it. And think that's one of those-- and I was really grateful to our consultant because he said, take a step back.
HELEN DAVIES: Let's take a step back, why are we trying to do it this way? Why can't we just do it through the web page? And we all sat there and had this epiphany and realized that it would be so much simpler just to have the catalog on the website in the format that we know before. So--
SAM BURRELL: I think it can be quite hard though to see those things--
HELEN DAVIES: Yes
SAM BURRELL: --particularly when you're under pressure. You've got a lot going on. You're doing something that's new.
HELEN DAVIES: Yes.
SAM BURRELL: It feels like there's a lot of complexity. It's sometimes really hard to step back from that and go, is there another way to do this? Because you're so focused. So that's great that you guys did. I mean, that sounds like a exactly what Melissa was talking about.
HELEN DAVIES: Exactly. And I think that's a really good example of where the provider of the platform does it that way mostly with their clients. So they were expecting us to have a catalog and a shop front on there, and they just kept telling us the way they normally do it. And then we realized, actually, we don't need to do it the way they normally do it. There's no need to do it that way.
HELEN DAVIES: So it's really important-- and sometimes you just don't know what you don't know either, that's one of the problems. So they tell you this is how it's done, and you accept this is how it's done. And I think you just need to take a step back sometimes and consider.
SAM BURRELL: So I knew this would happen. But unbelievably, we have been chatting for a while now. And I do have a question that I want to get to all of you so that we can-- this was one of the things I wanted to get out of today, which was, out there listening, either in person or potentially on demand, because I think this is one that people are going to listen to later as well. If you've got-- there's another society out there who is fairly early on in this journey of going, we need to either completely refresh what we've got or we need to start doing something other than whatever scrappy solution we've had to date because I think most people are doing something.
SAM BURRELL: What would you advise them as people who have been through this process either more than once or seen other people do it or actually in the thick of it in Helen's case. What would you advise those societies to be thinking about and looking at? I'm going to start with Melissa this time.
MELISSA SESERKO: Sure so I think my biggest-- the thing that popped into my head when you asked the question is just to write a list. It sounds very basic.
SAM BURRELL: OK, write a list.
MELISSA SESERKO: Write a list. I'm all about the list. And sketch it out a bit, and really be clear internally about what you are trying to do and accomplish from the start. So sometimes all-- sometimes I feel like that's all I do every day is just write bullet point lists of what other people said. So get a group together, talk about what you're trying to accomplish, and then agree on these are the bullets, these are the things we really want to do.
MELISSA SESERKO: And don't be afraid to actually draw it out. So draw out either, this is how we think the e-commerce system. Just a circle with some lines. You don't have to show anybody else outside of it, but really think about a big picture before you dive into the details even if you already have something there at first.
SAM BURRELL: That is such a great piece of advice for all kinds -- because I'm sitting here going, that's what I do for a living. I don't do this for a living, but actually, I go in and I go, so what are you trying to achieve? That's my question. And you'd be surprised at how often there's lack of clarity on that. And it helps.
SAM BURRELL: Once you've got it clear, you can then take a decision and put it against your what are we trying to achieve? And go this matters, this doesn't matter, there might be a different way to do this. So yeah, Melissa, very good. Helen, what would you advise somebody?
HELEN DAVIES: Well, I've already said it but allow a lot more time than you think you'll need, and probably also, don't worry if your first launch product is not perfect. So I think those are my two things that are the main pieces of advice--
SAM BURRELL: Is that your current mantra to yourself?
HELEN DAVIES: Yes.
SAM BURRELL: I've got to feeling. It has that level of weight to it. [LAUGHTER]
HELEN DAVIES: It had to be.
SAM BURRELL: This is my advice to myself.
HELEN DAVIES: Yes. [LAUGHTER] We are so close, but yeah, you just have to not think it's got to be perfect, so--
SAM BURRELL: It helps actually. So that's that thing, isn't it? I mean, you said something earlier that I thought was-- it was when you were talking about your trainers are really struggling with this and how, to reflect back what I heard, is that you've concluded to go with what you think is not necessarily the perfect format. Because actually, you get it out there, you get people using it, they will give feedback, and that will help inform the next version.
HELEN DAVIES: Exactly, yeah. And think it will be much easier then to develop that version of that-- even that initial pilot project-- the product, sorry. And I think so developing future products will be able to feed that information back in, but also, we can tweak the current product, I think, once we have that feedback, so.
SAM BURRELL: One question I haven't asked you is-- before I go to Sophia, is your product a charged for product? Is that-- yeah.
HELEN DAVIES: Yes. And I didn't actually jump in earlier, but one of the reasons we are doing this is income generation. Because similarly, our journal revenue is decreasing as is everybody's. And there is a real demand for our training. So I think we are seeing it as an income generation project.
SAM BURRELL: Yeah. Sophia, you've got three hats that you could advise from. [LAUGHS]
SOPHIA ANDERTON: I would say-- joining together what Melissa and Helen, said take time to plan. I mean, as you said, lots of people are doing something in one form or another. And a lot of that was out of necessity. When COVID hit, there was a very, very quick pivot to delivering things that had been done face to face to online. And I suspect a lot of people are still using those systems that they put in place probably over the space of a week or so.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: But if they're going to do something a bit different and start from a blank sheet of paper, don't just write a list of what you think you want. Go and talk to your community. We did some focus groups. We did some-- this is with the BIR. We got various people together, gave them cake, and got them to talk for a few hours. We also did huge surveys.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: We got several hundred responses, but that also helped us to drive our strategy because we put different content ideas into some of those surveys and got people to rank what was the most important to them. And so based on who they were, what their-- I mean, it was quite-- I mean, we were pleased. We got so many very useful responses. But that helped to drive, which were the most important topics.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: And we did spend a long time doing that prework, and it was really, really worth it.
SAM BURRELL: I was just about to ask that, were there any surprises-- I mean, quite often, when you start on one of those types of exercises, there are certainly people within the organization who go, this is a waste of time because I already know what people are going to come back with. So out of curiosity, were there any surprises or did it just give you data to reinforce things that were already in planning?
SOPHIA ANDERTON: That's a good question. It's going back quite a number of years now.
SAM BURRELL: Sorry.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: I can't quite remember. But I think it was probably-- there was a bit of both. I think some of the topics we thought were going to be the most popular weren't. So that helps prioritize what we did first, as our pilots. But also, it was really good confirmatory data that we could then put in plans and take to council to get approval because we could justifiably say, we want to do this and this is why we want to do it.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: And that really helped in that respect.
SAM BURRELL: Oh, is there anything else that I haven't-- we've got a minute or two if you want, Helen, go.
HELEN DAVIES: I just wonder, Sophia, out of interest, when you did your research, did you ask the direct question-- I think one of the problems is your members or your learners don't know-- they might not want e-learning. They might think they don't want e-learning. So I wondered if you asked any of that sort of question or was it more around the topics and things like that you asked the-- did the research?
SOPHIA ANDERTON: I think it was quite-- we asked a lot of different things and I think we did ask that as well and what-- yeah, we did we did ask them, did they want e-learning and what format as well as what type of topics, yeah.
SAM BURRELL: Helen, why--
SOPHIA ANDERTON: There were a lot of people who came back and said, oh, no, no, of course, we don't. Of course, we do. But then there are other people's who's like, yes, that would be great. That'd be great. And then possibly never use it. But--
HELEN DAVIES: So I'm asking only because we did it as part of our membership survey actually. We asked about it. But I think one of the responses you tend to get is, oh, no, I wouldn't like to have on demand learning. I like the live e-learning, but I don't want on-demand. And they think because they won't have time to do it. And I think that's quite difficult because they've never had it in our society, so they're not really sure what they're saying no to.
HELEN DAVIES: That's why I'm asking.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: I think people did want it because they knew they didn't have the time and resources to be able to go to in person stuff. And actually, we did a lot of work with managers. So not necessarily the people who would be the learners, but the people who might be paying for the course. Because ultimately, people could say they want it. But if the purchaser isn't going to buy it, then that's not helpful. So we did tap into radiology managers and get their input, which was really valuable.
MELISSA SESERKO: And do you think it's just a caution about the binary do you want e-learning yes or no is more digging into what are the learning goals that you have? How much time do you think you have? Asking a little bit one step removed from the yes or no, do you want e-learning? Because there is still a little bit of a-- people just-- Sam was saying earlier, I really wanted to do in person.
MELISSA SESERKO: So you just definitely have that too, but ask the other questions that can support a different answer than they give you ultimately.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: Yeah. And the usual Zoom fatigue, that is a real thing.
HELEN DAVIES: Yeah.
SAM BURRELL: And I think there's so many-- sorry, I'm going to freewheel a bit here. I think there's so many different ways of solving the problem. I'm sitting here thinking about a conference I went to before pandemic, and I think it was JAMA who were doing small podcasts that then had quizzes associated with them afterwards. And so if you did a certain number of them, that gave you some points towards your CME type thing.
SAM BURRELL: So I think the concept of learning and how we deliver it can be broader than perhaps people think when they first look at this question.
HELEN DAVIES: Yes, I agree.
SAM BURRELL: Because I think about the way that I learn, and I'm-- despite doing this and loving what I do here, I don't engage with video very much. So when you're thinking about your learning community-- and I do do podcasts, and I do do audiobooks, and I do do-- yeah, it's a bunch of stuff I do do, but it's that thing of going-- and I think, Sophia, that comes back to something you started with, which was all the different types,maybe have some video content, but it shouldn't all be video content maybe.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: Yeah, mixing it up a bit. And that's what we're trying to do now with our quite mature product. The bulk of it isn't videos. It's self-directed. The learner reads a screen. There are pictures or interactions you click on a box, another other thing opens more information, there are questions throughout, so quite interactive.
SOPHIA ANDERTON: But we've also just started doing some videos. And we've got a video library of procedures for people to watch and some podcasts, breaking down some of those bigger things into quick checks. So we're trying to use the content. We've already built a massive library into different ways as technology changes, as people's habits change, and that's the ongoing challenge of how do you keep it current?
SAM BURRELL: So I know that all the people listening to this are going to be burning with questions and they're going to be going, oh my God, I want to ask them this, and I want to ask them this. And the good news is that as soon as we finish this, a Zoom link pops up, and you can come and join us and bring all those questions to talk to us all. So for now, I want to say thank you very much to Melissa and Sophia and Helen for coming to talk. I feel like we could have talked about this for a whole other hour to be honest.
SAM BURRELL: And I really appreciate your time and coming to share your insights with us. So thank you very much, and we'll see you see you in just a minute on the other call. All right, see you in a bit.
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