A long-term e-learning relationship with EBRD
About the project
Our relationship with this high-profile European financial institution developed in several stages, starting at the beginning of 2009. The first small step was their commissioning us to create several e-tests for employees and, a little later, to create e-learning course content. After a few such projects, our client was ready for a leap of confidence and chose to adopt our learning management system, Melon LMS, and our authoring tool, Melon Author. Ultimately, our client signed us up to provide ongoing support that continues to date. What convinced this major financial institution to make such a leap?
Challenges
When our client initially contacted Melon, our first task was to design a series of graded training tests, which tested employees on the organization’s business processes and financial skills. We created six tests using Melon Quiz, our test-authoring tool based on Flash 10. The main challenge was to ensure there could be no cheating in these self-attended online tests, so they could offer a good measure of employee knowledge and encourage competitiveness. To achieve this, we implemented several kinds of protection: test timer that could not be paused; shuffling of question and answer order, and also random selection of test questions from a larger database so no two tests were completely alike.
Once they were ready, our SCORM-compatible tests had to be deployed to our client’s own LMS, which at the time was provided by another external vendor. This deployment was challenging as the vendor did not cooperate and test integration turned out to be difficult and costly. This led us to suggest an alternative that would save our client money and time – adopt Melon LMS, our own SCORM-compatible e-learning solution.
Evolution
Satisfied with our approach and professionalism so far, our client made a decision to give Melon a shot as their LMS vendor. A major role in their decision to switch was the product value they saw in Melon LMS and the benefit of easy integration with the content we had created for them previously. The organization was so satisfied with the results of the initial trial that a year after starting on a limited 200-user license, they upgraded to a full site license for unlimited use of Melon LMS. This service change necessitated content migration, which went smoothly due to Melon LMS’s flexibility. In 2010, our client commissioned a series of feature requests, adding business-specific functions to the system. We were aided in this task by our system’s easy customization. As of 2012, our client is still actively using and relying on our e-learning system.
These two steps (data migration and customization) were crucial in our client’s adoption of Melon’s e-learning solution and we are happy to say we passed this test without experiencing difficulties. In fact, at the end of 2010, we were also commissioned to integrate Melon LMS to our client’s SAP HR system to streamline new employee data import and test results access. As for our content creation projects, we remained our client’s partner of choice and after finishing all requested tests, we were hired to create three new employee recruitment tests as wells several training courses using Melon Author, our e-learning authoring tool.
Results
Over 750 employees currently use Melon LMS in the financial institution’s entire organization (headquarters and country offices). We are our client’s preferred e-learning partner and continue to provide training development and support services as needed. So far we have implemented 10 tests and four courses and we provide ongoing support and hosting for the LMS.
Our work together continues presently, as we are integrating the LMS to the client’s SAP learning portal to combine online and offline trainings and aggregate reporting.