Testing your knowledge

How do you measure what you have achieved with eLearning ? Do you expect your students to take a classroom test, or do you just put it up there and assume that because the content is available that people will use it ?

One approach is to put the content into a library and wait for students to come along. But you are only as good as you last access - so unless you have a promotional program to build loyalty, then volumes may disappoint you. That applies equally in in-house corporate eLearning progams as much as commercial eLearning portals.

Another approach is to tie the eLearning to something else. That could be a dedicated website of reference learning. Or it could be more eLearning ! But for me the optimal strategy is to follow the eLearning with a test (hopefully randomized) - and possibly even precede the learning with different one. That can serve multiple objectives :-

• the student gets to see whether their knowledge has progressed, and
• the manager gets to measure the worth of the program

Plus, if the test can be taken more than one time, the student can seek to improve their performance.