Top 4 Rapid eLearning Implementation Challenges That are Often Overlooked

Training in today’s modern world has changed a lot from what it used to be. Everything is fast-paced these days. To meet the expectations of this dynamic world, the rapid eLearning approach has found its place as an effective solution to roll out eLearning courses quickly without compromising their quality. While implementing rapid eLearning, organizations eventually face certain challenges, and these challenges can’t be ignored. Here, I will share 4 rapid eLearning challenges that shouldn’t be overlooked and ways to mitigate them.

Top 4 Rapid eLearning Implementation Challenges and Their Solutions

1. Working with Either Complex or Excessive Quantity of Content

Organizations have plenty of content with them such as PPTs, training manuals, and handbooks. So, it’s natural for them to think that their entire content cannot be delivered in the form of efficient and compact courses for their employees. But that’s not the case with rapid eLearning thus, this narrative isn’t quite a challenge, but a misconception.

Solution – Rapid eLearning is all about developing eLearning courses that can be completed in less time and provide noteworthy value to the learners. When you are designing rapid eLearning courses, try to make your instructional designers understand the complexity and quantity of content accordingly. Instructional design strategies such as personalization, scenarios, and gamified elements can be used to develop interactive courses. After the rapid eLearning course content is finalized, that content can be converted to multiple eLearning courses through rapid eLearning development leveraging authoring tools and modern learning management systems (LMS).

Explore the best practices of rapid eLearning design for quick course rollout.

2. Choosing The Right Authoring Tool

Rapid eLearning courses are developed through rapid authoring tools, but there are a lot of tools that serve the purpose. So, choosing the correct tool is always a challenge because every tool has its own specifications and limitations.

Solution – There are 3 types of authoring tools, they are standalone tools, powerpoint-based tools, and cloud-based tools. Each type of tool has its own specifications, benefits, and pitfalls. Understanding each of these types in brief and relating it with the primary goal of your course, can help you choose the correct tool for your rapid eLearning course development.

3. Thinking Rapid eLearning Equally Fits Everywhere

Rapid eLearning might solve a lot of problems but it’s not a healthy practice to depend on rapid learning for every problem at your disposal. Rapid eLearning doesn’t categorize under the “one-size-fits-all” narrative due to the limitations put up by either the authoring tools or the source content itself.

Solution – Understanding the limitations and strong points of rapid eLearning can help you create effective rapid courses but try to be aware of other formats as well. There are training sessions such as sales and leadership training where face-to-face interaction is required to some extent, rapid eLearning doesn’t seem to be a relevant use case here. Other formats such as blended learning or scenario-based training are a better fit for these types of training programs.

4. Allowing Access to Resources Remotely

Unlike traditional times, a lot of learners demand access to their learning resources outside of their workplace that allows them to learn things at their own pace. Employees don’t really have much spare time to consume training courses as they are busy keeping up with their daily work schedules. Even if they can’t be available for training sessions due to the type of their work which requires them to be on the move most of the time, there is a need to train them either way.

Solution – Organizations have introduced the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy and have started to prefer mobile devices as the primary medium to access learning resources. Rapid eLearning authoring tools have an option to develop courses that are responsive, which means the display content will adapt itself as per the screen size and resolution of the user. This allows the learner to use their favorable device whether it is a smartphone, laptop, tablet, or even a desktop, the content will provide an optimal learning experience.

There are a few more challenges that can occur at times but are relatively specific in nature so I might discuss them later. They are: –

• Irregular involvement of SMEs (Subject Matter Experts)
• Improving the interactivity of courses
• Meeting project timelines with limited resources
• Finding the right and relevant resources

Wrapping It Up!

Rapid eLearning has its own set of specific challenges as I discussed above, but it’s still a great eLearning strategy to roll out quick and effective courses that cost relatively less than developing traditional eLearning courses. Understanding the challenges associated with rapid eLearning development and acting accordingly can help you create engaging eLearning courses, and your learners can retain what they learn. If you still have doubts regarding the development of rapid eLearning courses, I would like to suggest you this free eBook that might help you sail the tide.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in September 2022 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.