May, 2003 Josh Bersin, Principal

One of the most important decisions you will make in any blended learning program is selecting the "right media" for the problem at hand.  From our research with more than 30 different companies, we have developed methodologies to make this decision easy.  (See Blended Learning:  What Works™ for all the details!)

What do we mean by media?  Media refers to all the various delivery types you can select for a particular e-learning program.  The available media are:

Quite a variety, eh?  Of course they do not all serve the same purpose, but experience has shown that you should select two or three different media for any given program.

Step 1:  Decide which Type of Learning Problem you are Solving

The first thing you must do is to decide what type of learning problem are you trying to solve.  From our May 5 tips&techniques article ("When should you Breeze?") we discussed the four different categories of e-learning:   broadcasting information, important knowledge transfer, new skills, and certified competencies.   It is the business problem which will drive the category you pick.  For Six-Sigma quality training, for example, you will want a certification program.  For a pricing change in the sales force, you may just want to broadcast information.

Step 2:  Examine The Audience Size and Connectivity

Is your audience small (< 1000 people), medium (1000-5,000), or large (5000+).  Are they all in the US where bandwidth is easy to find?  Or are they all over the world and in rural areas where there is no bandwidth?  Are they in remote branches with shared internet connection?  Connectivity will drive your media selection. 

One of the biggest mistakes companies make in e-learning is assuming that learners can run the content.  You must be conservative here:  assume that the lowest common denominator will affect a lot of learners.  If bandwidth is limited, you cannot use Video, for example.

Step 3:  Examine  your Resources

How much money can you spend?  How much time can you get from the "subject-matter-experts?"  The SMEs will become the critical bottleneck, believe me.  Write down your budget and the amount of expertise you have access to.  Do you have instructional designers and web-designers or not?  These are significant issues to address before you decide to build "the world's best e-learning course."

Step 4:  How "perishable" is your Content?

This is a very important but simple question.  For how long will this particular material be valid?  If the course material is "objection-handling skills" then you can be assured that it will be current for many years.  If the material is "how to price Version 3.5.1 of our new software product," you may only be able to use it for 6 months. 

Why is perishability important?  Two reasons.  First, you may not want to use a highly expensive media for content which goes out of date quickly -- unless the rollout is really mission-critical.  Second, it takes time to build different types of media -- and the last thing  you want to do is spend 5 months building a fantastic CD-ROM when the material is out of date in 6 months.  Common sense?  Yes, but believe me many people overlook this simple issue.

Step 5:  Examine your Measurement and Tracking Needs

This is a hot topic with me.  Some learning programs do not require any tracking at all -- just "throw them out there."  But think about it.  How will you know if the program is really being used?  How will you know if people are completing?  How will you know if people are learning anything?  You may need more tracking than you thought.  Of course all tracking and measurement adds cost, but think about how much tracking you need.  ("none," "some," or "a-lot!").  Do you need to track completion?  Elapsed time?  Different media provide different levels of tracking.  (lots more info on measurement in our analytics area)

Media Selection Process

We have developed a series of materials designed to help you understand all these issues, in our "Media Selection Guide."  More details on the Media Selection Guide is available in Blended Learning: What Works™.

MEDIA SELECTION GUIDE GRAPHIC : 

"We find that once we develop a clear methodology for selecting the instructional elements, developing content becomes much much easier."
                                                               Manager of Instructional Design, Kinko's

After you have a chance to review the media selection guide, you will start to understand the trade-offs between different media elements.  If you have a very large audience, for example, you need a highly scalable media.  But if you have an "informational" problem and do not need a high degree of tracking and assessment, the right core media may be a job aid, web-page, or even a conference call!  What we have found through our research, is that the best e-learning programs consists of a blend of two or three different media elements -- selected using the criteria in the selection guide to deliver the best results for the lowest possible cost.

The days of "pure e-learning" are over.  The highest-impact programs consist of several different media and delivery modes -- to accomodate the different needs of learners and the different steps in the learning program.  Start with a conference call, for example -- then conduct a webinar, then roll out a small Breeze-based course -- then complete with job-aids delivered to your learners where they work.

The total answer to selecting media is much more complex than we can describe here -- buy our What Works™ study to learn more, or attend one of our webinars.  We look forward to working with you to make your e-learning programs a success.