Tag: LMS

10 Aug 2022
accessible-training
Blogpost, eLearning creativ technologies 0 comment

Why is accessible training crucial during the recession?


The employers must realize more than ever the benefit of hiring disabled workers.

It’s because, in this job market where there are not sufficient jobs for everybody, such people are likely to be more unemployed. They are ignored for jobs over their more “competent” counterparts, even when the former have college degrees like them.

The companies can also benefit by providing accessible training to such resources when they are facing a labor shortage caused by the Great Resignation. There are positions open with companies, but they cannot close them due to rising wages and the lack of talent in the labor market.

Moreover, the recession has hit America, so employers can’t afford to pay exorbitant salaries. Hence, people with disabilities can’t be ignored and should be given equal opportunities to get hired. Organizations also benefit from the different opinions of such workers on business matters and make effective decisions.

Companies must look forward to having the most accessible training for their learners. All the employees should be able to benefit from this training.

Employers must take enough steps to ensure that the company hires disabled people. Hence, the other employees must be compassionate towards such employees to create an inclusive ambiance for the latter.

Accessible training can benefit a company by ensuring that it makes use of unutilized disabled resources. The managers must recruit such employees, which is possible when websites that provide opportunities for such resources are consulted. The employers must ensure that when hired, these resources are given ample opportunities to prosper in the company. There should be awards meant exclusively for disabled people so that they feel appreciated for being a part of the company.

Accessible training also benefits employees without disabilities. It’s because they develop confidence by helping employees who have problems comprehending English. After all, it’s not their native language. Explaining things to such staff improves the communication skills of employees.

Companies that provide accessible training earn more goodwill than others.

But, how to make the workplace accessible for those with a physical disability?

Employees with movement issues often need a service animal to execute simple commands, like bringing lunch from the refrigerator. Hence, they should be allowed to bring them to the office for an easier work routine.
When companies have ramps so that employees with wheelchairs can quickly move around, they are also used by parents who have to bring their toddlers to such places due to a lack of a babysitter.

What is accessibility learning?

Accessible training and tests for physically disabled people:

There can be employees with a physical disability who consistently can’t commute to a training location. It’s better that virtual training is provided to enhance their capabilities.


Such a disability can be since birth or arise after an accident. It means that the person can’t move his limbs completely, which causes him to require help while holding and lifting things. Since this kind of disability affects limbs, it can also cause problems with motor movements.

Employees with disabilities also have problems taking written exams due to the inability to type.

Hence, it’s better if the companies provide such employees with speech-to-text devices for entering answers in exams in accessible training.

Such employees can also be given touch screen keyboards and PCs to eliminate the use of the mouse. They can also be given additional time to complete such tests, but it’s better to attempt it in front of the webcam to thwart any cheating.


Training for those who have low vision:

People with visual disabilities also include those with low vision problems. So, such people can’t see text unless it is of a particular font size, which should be taken into account while designing accessible training. Hence, screen enhancement software should be enabled in the LMS so that they can increase the text size while reading it. This software increases a part of the screen, so the user can see it clearly.

With such software, the employees can sit straight in front of a screen without bending to read the text. They also can see the text even if they are viewing it from a certain distance. It’s because sitting too close to the computer to read the text can affect their eyesight.

Screen enhancement software is sufficient for employees with low vision, but those who can’t see need a screen reader that reads out anything written to them. This software can also read out the questions to such people, expediting their completion of tests.

Hence, this is how companies can provide accessible training to people with disabilities.

19 Jul 2022
web based training
Blogpost, eLearning creativ technologies 0 comment

What is meant by accessibility in web based training? 

Web-based training is now happening everywhere. Its rise can be attributed to a lack of time with people. LMS is the key component that determines the accessibility of such training.

The inaccessibility can arise with web-based training when the users can get stuck on certain aspects of the LMS, like how to perceive objects due to color blindness or any other disability.

Furthermore, due to mobility-based impairment, the users can’t use the mouse due to their inability to exercise motor movement and want to browse the content through keyboard shortcuts. W3C accessibility initiative has also advised using keyboard navigation to increase the usability of the course by such people.

The learners should have a global navigation menu enabled through a keyboard shortcut to go to all the pages easily without accessing the menu through the home page. Users can easily jump back and forth between pages when such a menu opens up in a popup on every page after using the keyboard shortcut.

Quick links are also there, so users don’t have to go to the top of the page to access different sections. The quick links make sure that users can easily reach the common sections. You can access these links by using the keyboard shortcuts on any page.

Adding the quick links option to a page is only possible when different headings have been added to a page. Quick links open in a popup window when the user uses the keyboard shortcuts to access them. With headings, the clutter on a page is reduced because they come before every piece of content.

LMS is providing the admins with the capability to enable the user to use these links while browsing through the content. The user can easily see the content outline of a page through its quick links and access any one of them through the up and down keys.

The LMS accessibility also has to be simple for the disabled learner. As per WHO, they constitute a significant proportion(15%) of our population. A user with cognitive, hearing, visual, or hearing or motor disability can affect his ability to use the LMS.

Hence, elearning course creators must check whether a course is 100% accessible or not for people with different disabilities. If it is not, removing all the content, causing it to become inaccessible, is better.

Web-based training must take care of Visual disability: 

Visual disability also refers to color blindness, which is a common condition.

Since colorblind people can’t differentiate between colors, they can’t make out an object from its background, even though they have different colors. This problem becomes troublesome when the colorblind users can’t see the navigation buttons.

Colorblindness can’t be ignored while designing web-based training content because 253 million people have this problem. In its worst form, colorblind people suffer from monochromatism, where they can’t see any color except its brightness. So, for them, every color is either black or white, depending on its luminosity.

Hence, this is a problem for the visual designers of the web-based training content. They must use contrast to make the objects in the content visible to such people. The difference in the luminosity of the colors must be high for the colorblind to perceive them.

The visual designers should discolor the interface to grayscale and check whether it has any contrast. This is crucial so that the LMS is accessible for colorblind people.

Using the web-based training course can be problematic for the learners when it does not have any alt text for the visually impaired learners.

It’s important to ensure that the course has the headings because if it does not have them, the screen reader can’t announce them to the learners. The learners who can’t see need headings to make some sense of the document. Also, all the learners need headings so they can skip the easier parts and jump to the tougher content. With content structured through headings, a lot of time can be saved for the learners.

Similarly, table headers with the scope attribute are also crucial because the screen reader can’t differentiate between table rows and columns without them. Therefore, all the header elements in a table should have the scope attribute defined, to reveal whether it’s a row or a column.

When the content is uploaded to the LMS, it should be perfectly accessible. For example, if a course contains attachments, the screen readers should be able to announce their names because if they can’t, it’s troublesome for visually impaired learners.

Although using the screen readers makes browsing the content easy for visually impaired students, they must be aware of their usability with certain browsers. All the screen readers are not compatible with all browsers.

Hearing Disability

People also like to have captions in videos because sometimes the narrator’s accent is not understandable; hence, subtitles are important. Sometimes, such captions are necessary for people who have hearing issues.

Economic disability

LMS accessibility can also be increased by ensuring users get notifications or due dates for test submissions and posts in discussion forums. So, even when a user is not using his system, he can be alerted about any new content updates. Such notifications are useful for learners who are not using their PCs because they are travelling to their offices.

All the learners are helped through the modern-day LMSs, who can even hear chats when they cannot read them. Some students also need extra attempts to complete a quiz because they might be working alongside studies and hence lack time to study. Therefore, the LMS allows an option for the teachers to tune the quiz settings in such a way and also get noted about the highest score in all the quiz attempts. A teacher can also set the date before a student is allowed all such attempts.

12 Jul 2022
Blogpost, eLearning creativ technologies 0 comment

What are the problems for an elearning in business vendor? 

The elearning is now a preferable mode of training all over the world. But there are some problems which have made its implementation quite tough.

What are the problems for an elearning in business vendor? 

High costs of an LMS: The employees must use the latest technology in elearning. But it’s not so easy when the company is just relying on an internal team for everything. Most workers today are millennials and Gen Z who prefer software like LMS, but hosting it can be a problem.

A company conducts multiple training processes, such as compliance training and process-based courses, to ensure that employees have the best work cum learning experiences. The employees must also be scheduled for courses through an LMS, doubling up as training software. A training manager must keep a note of who is attending which training. 

The training software has exorbitant costs because the license has to be renewed monthly or annually. Hence, the companies must have significant elearning in business requirements for such costs to be explicable.

Apart from the licensing fees, the cost of LMS/training software includes installation costs at your premises. The maintenance of such software requires paying extra fees to the LMS vendor every time a new user gets on board.

It can be paying for a new course accessed by an existing user(Pay-Per-Use) or a new user enrolling in the LMS(Pay-Per-User), but such models don’t include a license fee.

Impossible to meet deadlines: An Elearning in business organization has a major problem when the L&D professionals are given unattainable deadlines.

This happens because the client does not want to spend much if such employees have been hired in contractual roles. Hence, such teams should be realistic about the time needed to deliver the desired results from the start.

Inexperienced team: There can also be issues when there’s too much content that it can’t be covered in a short elearning module. In that case, it’s better to get an SME who can help streamline the content, depending on the employees and their time availability. That brings us to the problem of cognitive overload, giving the audience information they don’t need and can’t even remember.

Hence, it’s better to have a training-needs analysis done with the senior management before planning any module for elearning in business. 

Elearning in business also faces issues when the subject-matter expert hired for the project has no clue about instructional design. He might have a wealth of information about his subject, but does not know how learning theories work to create result-oriented content for elearning in business.

The SMEs can be asked to take instructional designing courses in that case, so they have sufficient knowledge about elearning in business. They can also contribute their knowledge as videos which can be added to the LMS.

Because they will be creating content for adults, they have to take care of things such as cognitive burdens. Employees constantly get distracted while using elearning content by work or family members. Elearning could be the last thing on their mind, so the content has to be arranged in brief modules which they can understand easily.  

Solution for an elearning in business company

Prepare a proposal 

It is better to discuss beforehand because problems can occur when the training module does not satisfy the client’s expectations. They might not have expected the course to be so comprehensive or short. When the vendor for elearning in business knows the requirements for employee training, it knows what the project must entail. Hence, he will come up with a proposal to show to the client depending on his idea of a successful executable.

If a client does not agree to any technology included in such a proposal, it can lead to an acceptable end product.

Any elearning module should be receptive to the target demographics’ needs. If their digital literacy levels don’t match your course’s technicalities, it’s better to make it simpler.

You can create survey forms that generate information about digital literacy and the experience levels of the median employee in the company. You might also get information about whether the company has adept staff to handle the course enrollment for various users. If it does not have any person who can suffice as an LMS admin, you will have to train someone for the job. 

07 Jun 2022
LMS
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How has the pandemic made implementing LMS necessary for drug manufacturers?

The pandemic has made it necessary for pharma companies to deal with clients on a special basis. The pharma industry has indeed faced a lot of pressure due to the pandemic over the years.

Because of the coronavirus, the role of the medical sales staff became quite challenging because the drugs requested by a doctor have to be delivered by courier. In fact. Once the delivery was done, it had to be confirmed through the doctor’s credentials like his name, signature, and address. The doctor also had to submit a written request for getting a drug.

Challenges before the pharma industry

The pandemic exposed the pharma industry to face unanticipated challenges like never before. There were restrictions on medical trials to ensure that the researchers were not exposed to the Virus.

But apart from that, the salespeople also had to follow regulations like they could not sell medicines by meeting doctors in person.

Hence, there was a shortage of people willing to work in this industry, due to which companies had to ensure that the existing labor was retained.

Due to this, there was a large-scale use of pharma LMS to ensure that the labor employed in sales and manufacturing departments was made abreast of the new laws and regulations.

The companies have to ensure that an LMS is implemented to upload any updates made in the compliance laws immediately. If such content is not provided to healthcare workers by pharma companies, they can face heavy penalties caused to violation of such laws.

LMS helps in RIE

For example, during the Covid-19 problem, pharma companies could not cut down on their output because the authorities were not available for in-person drug approval as they could not visit the drug manufacturing sites in person. Hence they approved drugs through the process of remote interactive evaluations. Hence the employees have to be trained on how to ensure that the drug is approved in an RIE. The LMS can be used to train employees with the requisite knowledge for this purpose.

FDA grants drug approval before it is manufactured and marketed. The FDA conducts PAIs(Pre Approval Inspections) to ensure that the manufacturing of a specific drug is approved. But due to Covid-19, such in-person site inspections were not possible. Such critical inspection ensures that the drug can be manufactured at the concerned site as per CGMP practices or whether the drug is safe for human consumption through clinical trials.

But during the pandemic, such inspections are conducted in remote interactive evaluations(RIE) because travel restrictions have been imposed due to this virus. The authorities at the site must know how to ensure complete cooperation with the FDA staff during such inspections. The FDA also uses its own technical equipment for conducting such RIE, including the FDA Microsoft teams, FDA adobe Connect, and FDA Zoom for Government. The FDA requires a lot of evidence about the safety of manufacturing practices, including showing proper records to them. Apart from that, the staff must ensure that the FDA gets an idea about the site’s manufacturing and testing facilities.

How does an RIE happen?

The drug manufacturing site has to consent to its capability to participate in such an evaluation and must be willing to share documents through a teleconference or screen-sharing facility. The site will indicate its consent for such an evaluation in response to a request filed by the FDA.

FDA conducted the PAIs through RIEs, and once the sites were found to be eligible for this process, the site operators are notified through emails. A site cannot request an RIE and it’s at the discretion of the FDA to request the procedure. The FDA uses the registration file of the site to establish any correspondence with it.

What happens during an RIE?

The employees of such a facility can show a live video of their facilities during working hours, including how the types of equipment are cleaned and how the samples of a drug are taken and tested, the setting up of medical equipment, and the sanitization practices, etc.

Hence before the remote interactive evaluation, the staff at such facilities should ensure that there are no connection issues, and the FDA should be able to watch the working practices at the facility with ease. Once the FDA has assessed the manufacturing processes, it will approve the drug.

The staff of such facilities must take such inspections quite seriously. Its because such inspections determine the fate of a drug. During a Remote interactive evaluation, the FDA can ask for documents via email it has requested before. The pharma company must share such documents via email during an RIE or share them through a screen-sharing tool. Such documents are protected by password as they are confidential and should be disclosed to authorities for their review. If a pharma company can’t provide any requested document in English during RIE, it should provide a translator to aid the FDA officers in understanding the document.

How does an LMS help in an RIE?

An LMS can be a source of communication for the site officers to communicate about the impending RIE and ensure that it goes as per procedure and that there are no lapses. An RIE is not a substitute for on-site inspection because if any problems are detected during the former, the latter can still happen.

However, when a warning letter is issued to the pharma company after any faulty manufacturing methods are discovered during an RIE, they can be uploaded on an LMS for immediate action. The warning letters could be issued to drug manufacturers when they refuse to comply with records requests during an RIE. i. e if they fail to show any requested document.

An LMS keeps the medical employees of a pharma company updated about the consequences of an RIE because it includes an RIE report that includes all the FDA authorities’ observations during it. This report can be shared with the pharma company employees when it has been taken from the FDA through a disclosure request filed by the company.

Pharma companies have to use an LMS because the FDA is not facing any pandemic-related travel restrictions but has to use RIE to deal with the extraordinary application backlog created because of the Virus.

27 May 2022
elearning app
Blogpost, eLearning creativ technologies 0 comment

How can developers prevent the hacking of an elearning app?

An elearning app is a major resource for businesses today when they have to ensure that the employee always keeps on grasping information. Mobile apps can also be hacked, and it can make a company suffer from a loss of goodwill apart from compensating clients because their data has fallen into the wrong hands. These are the ways that can be used by elearning app developers for preventing from it getting hacked:

    • Use SSL certificates:

 

Once an elearning App has an SSL certificate, it can ensure that hackers can’t touch its code.

Hackers can access the code of an app when it’s installed on a user’s mobile phone.

SSL certificates are valid certificates issued by the certificate authority, and every app must have the installation of an SSL certificate on the server. So an SSL certificate makes sure that no malicious person can access the app. When a server has an SSL certificate, the user can easily trust that the data sent to the server is encrypted and viceversa.

The hackers can access all the data sent via HTTP Requests from an app to the server when there’s no SSL certificate installed. Hence, it’s the developers’ job to see that the SSL certificate is installed on its server before an app is launched.

These certificates are necessary for apps that take payments from users because when a certificate is not present, the data exchange between the app and the server is not concealed/encrypted.

    • Use code signing certificate:

The code could have been altered by someone, but a developer can ensure that it does not happen with a code signing certificate. When such a certificate has been issued, it states that a genuine software developer has created the code.

These certificates include the timestamp when the code was converted into a .exe file and the developer’s signature and are used to sign apps by the developers before they are handed over to the client. Anyone should not install software that does not have a code signing certificate because it means it could be malware that has been used to modify the code of the elearning app.

Any software which does not have the code signing certificate will show a warning message on the user’s phone when it’s installed.

Moreover, with a timestamp, if the app was sold with a certificate, it will not show a warning message when the app is installed, even though the code signing certificate has elapsed. The code signing certificate can only be generated when the code is transformed into an executable file. Anyone using the app knows it from a trusted publisher even if the certificate has expired.

The timestamp is no longer valid when an error message is shown because someone has altered the source code and generated a new .exe file later than the original timestamp. If the user installs such a modified app containing malware on his system, it can access the server.

The developers can ensure that there is no chance of the server getting hacked by accessing the app. Hence the app should be tested right from the beginning of its development. When the server can be accessed through the app, many problems can creep in when the malware can be installed on the app, and then used to attack the server. Hence when malware gets installed on the server, it can block access to the secure files containing the data of so many clients. The developer should use the scanner to know whether the app is prone to hacking.

    • Check the code for security:

Code scanning is used to check whether an elearning app’s code has any security-related problems. It’s because it can cause problems later, and hence it’s better to rectify them in the beginning only. But sometimes scanners are not such a great option, and hence manual assessment with regards to any security threats is also needed. There can be any attack on a server when it’s on the internet because its caters to HTTP requests. When a hacker has accessed the server, he can get sensitive data. The attacks can happen when a user enables those features which are not essential for the elearning app’s functioning.

  • Have a trustworthy LMS:

An LMS is the core of an elearning app. It makes sure that only authorized users can access it. Hence a company should get an LMS from reliable providers and avoid open-source LMS. They can ensure that the users are only allowed to log into the app after two-factor authentication, making them enter an OTP besides their password to log in to the elearning app.

An LMS with a good API will ensure that the user is only allowed access to the app through precise verification. Users must only be allowed to set strong passwords on the app, which is impossible without a good LMS. When the passwords are weak, hackers can use them to break into the app and access the server.

 

 

 

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He was a German psychologist who is known for discovering the forgetting curve. According to this curve, the biggest decline in memory happens within 20 minutes, and then 1 hour.