Elearning blog: Learning re-imagined

Skillsoft Introduces Virtual Practice-Labs for Hands-On, Secure IT Training

We are excited to announce the availability of Skillsoft Virtual Practice-Labs! Presented in response to customer demand for virtual lab learning, this new technology-enabled learning solution provides IT professionals with hands-on experience with real equipment and applications through a secure, web-based learning environment. Practice-Labs are available on-demand anytime and allow learners to gain practical experience with a broad range of technologies in a safe and risk-free environment.

Skillsoft Virtual Practice-Labs feature a large library that includes 245 modules aligned with 43 IT certification exams from vendors such as Microsoft, CompTIA, Cisco and VMware. The labs completely immerse learners in software and hardware environments, providing a high degree of interactivity to reinforce core and advanced skills with the ability to repeat tasks as necessary. Content is presented using hosted technology that provides an experience similar to a production system, allowing IT professionals to learn and avoid time-consuming and dangerous rework necessary in an actual environment. 

We are excited to provide our customers with an additional modality of learning content delivered in a flexible format as we assist with their continuous learning journey. Skillsoft Virtual Practice-Labs can mirror almost any hardware or software configuration, enabling IT professionals to build critical technology skills in safe, virtual environments. By experimenting with live applications, learners retain valuable skills and deliver maximum value to their organizations.

Virtual Practice-Labs provide students with 24x7 remote access to a sandbox environment on live equipment and are available on Skillport 7.2 and higher and on other learning management systems using Skillsoft’s Open Learning Services Architecture (OLSA). The practice labs can be used as standalone learning assets or integrated into blended learning programs as a complement to Skillsoft’s IT courseware, Skillsoft Books24x7 ITPro collection and SkillChoice IT collections. 

For more information about Skillsoft Virtual Practice-Labs, please visit http://www.skillsoft.com/assets/brochures/datasheet_virtual_practice-labs.pdf.

Check out our New Look!

Skillsoft is excited to announce the launch of a newly designed and re-architected website.

The site’s homepage features an inviting color palette, a clean, uncluttered design, simplified navigation and sample learning content. To help our clients and prospects find what they’re looking for, the new site is organized primarily around the three brand pillars—Content, Service and Experience—and secondarily around Business Solutions, Products and Resources. A login menu conveniently allows our customers to find the Skillsoft® Books24x7® login page or support for their Skillport login URL.

Resources such as white pages, case studies, webinars on demand and demos are all readily available and relevant to each page. This saves our visitors from sifting through the site to locate what’s of interest to them. To support visitors on-the-go, our website features a responsive design, ensuring they have an optimal experience whether they’re on a tablet, smartphone or a desktop.

To celebrate this milestone, employees in the corporate headquarters enjoyed a special, festive cake.  

Throw back Thursday: the learner user experience

We receive so much valuable content from our customers, partners and internal subject-matter experts. On Thursdays, we thought it would be fun to do a “throw back” and bring back an older post that was valuable to our audience. Today’s throw back is about the user experience for learners.

Designing Skillport® 8: notes from the trenches

By Stephanie Pyle

At the 2012 Skillsoft Perspectives conference, we unveiled an advanced look at our upcoming Skillport® 8 release. Skillport 8 brings together all formats of learning content, integrating books, courses and videos in the same library, giving the user a single, seamless experience. To support users on-the-go, Skillport 8 is cross-platform and cross-device – it works as well on a tablet as on a desktop. Many customers asked how we arrived at such a dramatic (and effective) design. There’s a story there and we’re pleased to share it.

Early on, the team went back to basics to ask ourselves just what is Skillport’s “role” in the customer relationship?  Is Skillport why they do business with Skillsoft in the first place? After much discussion, we arrived at the collective realization that though Skillport was our own passion (because we work on it every day), it is really more of a supporting player to most of our customers. For them, Skillsoft content is the driving force behind the business relationship, with Skillsoft’s service and experience sealing the deal.

Reflecting further, we realized that while the various features and functions of an LMS are important, it is the optimization of the user experience with the content that’s key. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about Skillsoft content or an organization’s proprietary content.  By focusing on the content, we’ve designed Skillport to be a richer total user experience. The visual design features a more streamlined look to allow the content to be the focus. The navigation and actions are readily apparent and intuitive because of the use of established standards and consistency within the application. Our team took the latest web design principles into consideration for Skillport 8. With mobile on the brain, we made sure it would be suitable on a tablet by optimizing it for a gestural interface.

Our team’s second epiphany was to again go back to basics and ask ourselves just exactly what do the vast majority of Skillport users wish to do. It’s simple − 90% of the time they arrive on a mission to:

•  Find appropriate learning, and
• “Transact” that learning (take it, enroll in it, or flag it for later).

Digging a little deeper, we defined two different models for how people like to “find” information. Using the example of shopping in a department store, we identified two basic seeker-type personas.

• The “Shopper” loves to walk the aisles, examine the merchandise to see what catches their eye and make purchase selections that way.
• The “Hunter” enters the store, knows just what he/she wants, uses the store directory to make a bee-line to the desired item and make the purchase; in-and-out.

Then we asked ourselves which popular websites support both the Shopper and the Hunter today? To gain insight, we identified consumer websites that people use every day. By making Skillport resemble these popular consumer websites, this means much less of a learning curve for our users.  

For the “Shopper,” consumer websites have intuitive category/department browse capabilities with supporting filters (like color, price, size, etc.) to narrow-down selections as desired. In Skillport 8, we revamped the content catalog to combine all assets (including Books24x7 titles) into one complete subject matter library. Plus we provide customers the ability to build alternate views − organizing content as they wish, such as by competency.

Flawless team motivation

We’re pleased to bring you a guest post by Dennis Walsh, a Manager of Inside Sales at Skillsoft.

By Dennis Walsh

Running any sort of department or team has its inherent challenges and soulful rewards. While there is no simple formula for keeping your team motivated and productive, I’ve followed a few simple guidelines that were effective with my own team.

Stay connected.
In my experience, building a team to peak performance requires members to be dialed in.  In today's workplace where so many employees are remote, we rely on phone, chat, chatter, email, past conversations and a plethora of supporting cast to ensure the momentum always continues to build and move forward. This type of communication is key for producing clarity. Our social learning layer, Skillsoft® inGenius® fosters informal learning and gives teams the opportunity to share knowledge and collaborate. In early 2013, customers will be able to take social collaboration and learning a step further with our Skillport® 8 platform.

2012 Mid-Atlantic User Group

By Ann Collins

We’re pleased to bring you a guest post by Ann Collins, a Skillsoft Learning Strategist.

The Skillsoft Mid-Atlantic region recently hosted a user group event at the Pragmatics, Inc., headquarters in Reston, VA.  We were thrilled to have almost 60 existing and potential customers — representing 40 different companies in attendance!

We were equally as thrilled that Jerry Nine, our Chief Operating Officer, was able to attend and kick off the session with an overview of current trends in e-learning and how Skillsoft is optimizing our own investments, such as Skillport® 8.

Two of our customers shared their stories with the group. CACI’s session highlighted how they are leveraging Skillsoft’s services group and a customized Skillsoft® KnowledgeCenter™ Portal to connect formal and informal learning and align learning to core capabilities and leadership competencies. CSC presented their solution for managing large-scale certification programs for PMP® and ITIL®. Through Skillsoft’s certification management services, CSC is able to experience tremendous cost savings while maintaining a “best of breed” program with significantly high pass rates.

Sun Life Financial takes a blended approach with Skillsoft resources

Robin Mahadeva, Sr. Consultant, Global Talent Development, Sun Life Financial, disusses how her team uses a variety of Skillsoft resources to support core competencies, including leadership development.

Sun Life Financial leverages a variety of Skillsoft resources from Skillsoft on Vimeo.

2012 Skillsoft Perspectives Australia – It just keeps getting better!

By Tim Hildreth, Director, Product Marketing, Skillsoft

2012 Skillsoft Perspectives Australia will mark my third trip to Australia to update Skillsoft Perspectives attendees on our strategic content and product direction for the year. And while each trip has had its highlights (2010 was my first trip “down under” ever, during my 2011 travels, I finally saw a kangaroo!), I can honestly say that this year is the year I’m most excited about. Not only is Skillsoft Perspectives Australia going to be bigger this year, but the news we have to share is bigger.

I’m being joined this year by my colleague, Stephanie Pyle, and we are going to introduce the audience to the all new Skillport® 8.0, a revolutionary cloud-based learning experience that can help improve organizational agility. Skillport 8 puts the user at the center of the experience and allows learners develop their skills in an attractive and intuitive environment. Skillport 8 is more visual, more intuitive, and more learner centric than we’ve ever seen before. It marries formal and informal, social and mobile into a rich, unified learning experience.  It delivers when, where and how people want to learn. In doing so, it transforms web-based learning from a solitary event to a richer community based experience with strong cross-generational appeal. 

2012 Skillsoft Perspectives London

Forget the Olympic fanfare − Perspectives 2012 was the event on everyone’s lips in London on 12 July.

Bigger and better than ever before, more than 200 HR, training, L&D and IT delegates flocked to the capital for Skillsoft’s annual customer event. Skillport® 8, Skillsoft’s groundbreaking cloud-based LMS platform, proved a big hit and more than half of the attendees got hands-on with product demos of the social learning environment.

Customers on the day certainly thought the new interface was a breath of fresh air, and learning leaders are eagerly awaiting the scheduled release later in the year. Attendees loved Skillport 8’s crisp, clean appearance and were thrilled with the new recommendation feature, which introduces the most positive aspect of social networking to an elearning platform for the very first time.

Speakers at the event were among the top ten most influential in the UK, including David MacLeod, chair of the Taskforce on Employee Engagement, who reminded businesses they are in charge of their own destinies and that engaged workforces can achieve so much more. Another popular speaker with the crowd, David Fairhurst, Chief People Officer, McDonald’s, told attendees that employees are likely to stay with a business that invests in their future.

Finding a little Perspective this summer

Summer is an exciting time in the Skillsoft offices! Not only do we look forward to the long evenings and optimistically hope for sunshine – summertime also marks the arrival of our annual Perspectives event in London.

Perspectives is one of the few times of the year in which all of our customers, employees and industry experts come together under one roof to discuss our plans for the future,  talk about hot topics within the industry and listen to some of our expert speakers. 

This year’s event will be no different, and is set to feature the expertise of former cabinet member and author of The Extra Mile, David MacLeod. David, whose book explores how to engage staff in large organisations, will address key leadership principles such as the importance of employee engagement – traits which are invaluable to any business leader.

2012 Skillsoft Perspectives will also act as a launch pad for Skillsoft to introduce its new learning platform Skillport® 8 – a Learning Management System which has been heavily influenced by society’s increasing use of social media platforms in day-to-day business. 

Alongside David’s speaker slot, we will also be joined by Gill Holehouse, Systems Development Methods Manager at John Lewis Partnership. Gill will be discussing the company’s elearning strategy and how the business has benefitted from working with Skillsoft.

2012 Skillsoft Perspectives Highlights, New Zealand – another successful event!

We’re pleased to bring you a guest post from our APAC region − Kath Greenhough, a Learning Strategist in New Zealand.

By Kath Greenhough

We have just farewelled the last of the Skillsoft New Zealand customers after our two-day Perspectives Highlights event in Auckland and Wellington on 21 and 22 June. It was great to see all of our customers
gathering together to “Motivate, Innovate, Learn” and to “Drive Value Through Learning.” 

As in previous years, we welcomed new organizations on their elearning journey. We are privileged that our customers chose to spend time with us to help develop their thinking and strategy in learning for business results and learning from each other. Attendees represented a range of industries – Manufacturing, Construction, Education, Government, Health, ICT, Telco and Financial Services.