Project Showcase:
Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW)
Adoption Acceleration eLearning Solution
Context
In order to secure funding and monitor the effectiveness of services for thousands of students with complex special needs, the Chester County Intermediate Unit (CCIU) Student Services Division administers a wide variety of diagnostic assessments. These assessments produce a complex set of student performance, program utilization, and compliance data, spread across numerous disconnected systems. An Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) solution was implemented to consolidate data from over 30 distinct sources into a single, centralized platform.
Problem
While automated connections to many assessment suites through APIs and bot processes quickly provided stakeholders with accurate, real-time insights, several crucial legacy assessment products were built out manually in the EDW and required data entry. The direct service providers who administer these assessments (e.g., physical therapists, speech-language pathologists, reading specialists, etc.) struggled with data entry consistency as evidenced by system audits and supervisor reports, leaving key data stranded in silos.
Solution
As part of an adoption acceleration process, I deployed a targeted eLearning program rooted in iterative design using the Successive Approximation Model (SAM). The supervisors of various departments function as business owners in this scenario; based on their vision and focus group data from the targeted learner group, I developed interactive videos at the core of a mobile-native lightweight course design with LMS accountability functionality.
Responsibilities:
Stakeholder needs analysis
Focus group facilitation
UX/UI Wireframing
Graphic and video editing
Prototyping
eLearning development
Solution Development: Preparation Phase Artifacts
Needs Analysis
A live, large group, in-person facilitated session with principals and supervisors (i.e., business owners) revealed common patterns among their staffs in terms of adoption and lag.
User Journey Mapping
A focus group was conducted with direct service providers (i.e., employees, users, data enterers) to understand their user journeys in the EdInsight system. The group responded very positively to the idea of a quick, lightweight, multimedia job aid.
Eisenhower Matrix
The same group of principals and supervisors (i.e., business owners)
was included in a facilitation of an Eisenhower Matrix to prioritize stakeholder needs. These needs were translated into the core learning objectives to be addressed.
An eLearning solution targeting the objectives identified in the above Eisenhower Matrix was alpha prototyped in Adobe Xd utilizing wireframes, requiring minimal effort and time to produce a live, “app-like” experience for stakeholders to critique. Each learning objective from the Eisenhower Matrix is a new board, functioning like an individual module in a course, and Camtasia-style mockup graphics convey the feeling of step-by-step video. The functional experience, inset on this page in the interactive mobile frame (click to use!), was circulated to supervisors and direct service providers to demo on their own personal devices for feedback. Feedback confirmed the video-based approach. The interactive experience of seeing ideas from our facilitated in-person sessions quickly come alive in an “app” they could use on their own phones generated early interest and confidence in the project.
Solution Development: Design Phase (Functional Alpha Prototypes)
The eLearning solution was then beta prototyped in Camtasia and Articulate Rise 360. One learning objective is addressed in the hifi beta prototype, and again, the functional experience, inset in the interactive mobile frame (click to use!), was circulated to supervisors and direct service providers to demo on their own personal devices for feedback. Sample video can also be viewed in this section (click to play!). This feedback confirmed that the video-based approach as executed in Camtasia would be an effective way to deliver the content across the course’s learning objectives. Camtasia’s slick AI voice functionality and Rise’s intuitive, lightweight and mobile-native experience combined with quick turnaround delivery sustained a sense of management taking a real interest in the needs of the direct service providers.
Solution Development: Design Phase (Functional Beta Prototypes)
Deliverable Solution: eLearning Course and Impact Analysis
eLearning Overview
The course was developed according to the feedback from the alpha-stage and beta-stage feedback noted above. The eLearning was introduced in an in-person session with providers, and completion was tracked utilizing Articulate 360’s Reach learning management system platform. New providers would now be required to complete the course, and the Camtasia instructional videos were also made available to providers in multiple formats (e.g., played during meetings to reinforce certain concepts, assigned via email when data was observed to be missing). Data entry processes improved measurably as noted below, indicating that the problem itself was more rooted in professional learning and user experience than insubordination.
eLearning Screenshots
Impact Analysis
Raw numbers of diagnostic assessments entered into the EdInsight platform increased by 1.7x over a similar timeframe after the rollout of the course and videos.
A subsequent iteration of the course will include true software simulation, done in Storyline, to address certain specific fields in the system that have proven resistant to training efforts to date.
1.7x increase
in diagnostic assessment
Data Depot entries
Takeaways
Video is the undisputed heavyweight champ.
Video on mobile is the undisputed heavyweight champ taking a victory lap.
Interactivity during iterative design cycles encourages additional feedback. Users and business owners think of additional angles on the deliverables when they get to move things, try things, press things, and bounce things around. Interactive wireframing builds buy-in and deliverable quality at the same time.
When analyzing lack of follow-through by end users on dictated tasks, there is an inherent relationship between the person’s ease of facility with the platform in question and the likelihood they will complete the task, especially when there is priority competition. No amount of authority can change the direction of this tide.