A year in the life of an e-learning project

This article is advance reading for the TechKnowledge(SM) 2000 pre-conference workshop, A Year in the Life of an E-Learning Project, sponsored by Training & Development and presented by The Redmon Group. Everyone involved with an e-learning project, from the corporate training executive to the end user, has a unique set of requirements to determine success. Redmon and Salopek say that with the right start, your e-learning project can be-well, not all things to all people-but almost. Getting off to the right start involves working through these major steps: determining if and why you need e-learning getting buy-in-from management, team members, other departments, even suppliers conducting a well-planned proposal and bidding process (for the purposes of this article, we're assuming you're working with an external vendor to design and develop your e-learning project). Once the decision is made to migrate to e-learning, you'll need to select a vendor to design and develop your courses. The first step to identifying potential vendors is preparing a request for proposal, a document that lays out in clear terms all of your organization's requirements and expectations. The main part of your RFP must provide prospective vendors with information in these areas: audience what information you will provide, and how a instructional methodologies content functionality and technical specifications a deadlines and budget selection criteria.