(Nearly) Instant IT Training

Problem Statement

You have a new software package with more menus, tools, windows and recipes than you can count (e.g., Photoshop, SAP or Eclipse), but the learning curve is steep. You open help files, close help files, leaf through outdated books, and constantly switch from one window to another. You copy and paste snippets and commands and you always seem to lose your place. Arggh.

Three Underutilized Technologies

This diary explores three well-established technologies that are grossly underutilized in IT training. It will share some design solution ideas later in the diary, but let's start with the technologies as they are currently being used.

Screencasts (aka screen capture movies)

Screen capture movie software (screencast recorder) has been around for at least a decade. In essence, screencast recorders are virtual computer-screen camcorders. You install them and let them run in the background. When you want to record your onscreen activity, you press 'record' (usually a hotkey) and continue working. When you're finished, you press 'stop' (another hotkey) and a full-motion movie of your activity is stored to disk. If you wish, you can record sound as well, most likely in the form of a running commentary spoken into the PC's microphone. While there are many screencast programs on the market, iPOV has had good experience with the value offered by BBFlashback (and its new v2.0 looks even more impressive).

Public screencast examples are everywhere. YouTube is full of them (e.g., here and here and here and ...). So, wouldn't you expect to see widespread use in large organizations for internal IT training? I suspect that there are at least 4 contributing reasons why it doesn't seem to be as common as we would expect:

• Lack of Awareness - Screencast software is a surprising well-kept secret. We can't count the number of times that we have spoken to programmers, program managers, and CIOs that don't know even they exist. If we point them to examples on YouTube, they say: "I wondered how that was done".
• Camera Shyness - It takes a certain amount of guts to record a movie that has your voice on it. What if you misspeak? What if you have a squeaky voice? What if you have a thick accent? All sorts of things can go wrong that will make you more nervous. Then you will make more mistakes and get even more nervous. Then you will give up.
• Lack of searchability - It takes time to demonstrate a complex software operation. Ten, twenty or thirty minutes is not uncommon. How many potential users have the patience to watch that much video to get an answer to a question? The problem is not getting to the right spot (most screencasts have tracker bars), the problem is knowing there is a right spot to get to. If only you could search the screencasts the way you search Google.
• No place to store them - Screencast movie files have gotten a lot smaller - but many are still to big to attach to corporate emails. That means that you need to put them on a web server or CD. If you accumulate a large collection, you will be talking gigabytes. Then how do you move them or find them. That brings us back to the searchability concern.

Apart from the awareness issue, these are valid concerns. Until someone finds a way to overcome them, they will delay the adoption of this powerful and exciting technology.

Dual Monitor

With dual monitor support, you can hook up a second monitor and expand your desktop to double its size. This will give you enough screen real estate to support two applications that are fully open and functional. The application to the problem statement at the start of this diary should be obvious. With two monitors, you can open your application on one screen and the help window on the other. You can view both simultaneously. You can copy and paste from one to the other in one quick motion. You can read instructions in the help file as you follow them in the application.

Every notebook computer built in the past 5 years has built-in support for an external monitor. For desktop computers, you may have to add an inexpensive video card and a second monitor. The total cost is typically less than $150 per seat. The return on that investment for a learner will be huge. Nonetheless, this capability is just starting to get the attention it deserves. You will find dual monitor setups in many software development shops, but not in most offices. Since there is no obvious drawback, it seems to be mainly an issue of awareness - and occasionally bureaucracy. One large company told me that all their IT support was outsourced to a 3rd party computer services firm. The service firm charged $100 per month for each monitor that it deployed! - Oh, nevermind.

Video Sharing Server

By now, everyone is familiar with YouTube and its brethren. It may be less well-known that there are some terrific open-source (i.e., free license) cousins of YouTube that can be installed on almost any web server. iPOV has explored a number of these software tools and has currently settled on a lightly customized application based on the Gallery2 project.

A Pragmatic IT Training Solution

What would happen if you combined screencasts, video-sharing and dual monitors to deliver IT training? If we can overcome the current concerns, the result would be pretty appealing. What would it take to make this happen? Consider two approaches.

Informal Solution

The first idea is targeted at internal, informal tech support and training. In this scenario, software implementers make 'casual' screencasts of transactions, problem areas, solutions and the like. There is an explicit contract that absolves the originators of responsibility for 'cosmetic' flaws. In a small organization, that usually isn't a problem. Everyone knows everyone. If Marco stutters a bit, that's no surprise. Everyone knows that Marco is the go-to expert and that outweighs the cosmetic flaws in his demonstration. A prototype workflow for this scenario is shown in the following diagram:

A software implementer (1) makes screencasts as they finish testing a transaction or module. They upload the video file to a YouTube-like video sharing website (2) like the one in this demo. End-users can view the demos directly from the video sharing sites on one of their dual monitors (3). The end-user can seek through the random-access video clips on one monitor and follow the instructions in the production software on the other monitor. An end user can search the video sharing site for relevant demos or tutorials. Alternatively, the developer can email the link to a relevant video to an end-user with a problem. The entire system is informal, responds quickly, and costs very little to operate.

While the informal solution is easy and cost effective, it doesn't overcome the fundamental problems that discourage developers and users from using video for formal documentation. The informal approach avoids camera-shyness by making the entire process casual and non-threatening. It relies on direct communication between the developers and the users to make material findable. Finally, it deals in fairly small amounts of video that are easy to store and manage. It can work well for project teams and small business units, but it won't hold up on enterprise-class projects.

Enterprise Solution

As the scope of the documentation, training and support challenge expands, the informal approach will break down. The problems that can be glossed over with a few people will become insurmountable with large groups. To succeed at this level, the system needs another element - one that can deal with the issues of quality, camera-shyness, searchability and storage. A design solution for that problem is shown in the diagram that follows.

The enterprise version of this system adds two new elements. In addition to screencasts, video-sharing and dual-monitors, this system adds services to ensure the quality of the delivered instruction (4) and a more robust video repository and learning management system (5). In a large application, the use of dual monitors would be cost-effective, but it may not be practical to provide them for everyone. Employees with laptops only need access to a spare monitory. For deskbound employees, a reasonable compromise would be to set up a couple of dual-monitor 'learning stations' in each office.

For the developer, this system operates like the informal approach. They record tutorials and submit them to the video sharing repository. End-users may view these 'draft' materials if they need rapid response - for example to solve a localized problem. However, the enterprise approach goes a step farther. It takes the developer's imperfect demonstrations out of the video sharing site and passes them through a formal process to generate polished, professional tutorials. iPOV offers services for this task in its standard: restatement and (optionally) enhancement transformations. The restatement process converts the developer's imperfect commentary into a carefully validated, articulate voiceover. Since their commentary is discarded, developers have no reason to be self-conscious. The enhancement process can emphasize key points and mask blemishes. This makes it less likely that the developer will have to redo their work. Combined, these transformations mean that developers can record tutorials in one or two takes, making video the fastest, easiest way for them to discharge their documentation obligations.

Once the validated tutorials are prepared, iPOV can package them for use in a SCORM-compliant LMS as building blocks for lessons in an integrated course catalog. If other types of teaching materials are required, they can be added to the LMS from other sources. It is also possible to systematically reverse-engineer (extract) printed manuals, quizzes and job aids from the information contained in the video demonstrations.

This process can be completed with surprising speed. iPOV can routinely transform an hour of raw demonstration videos into an hour of polished, validated tutorial in 2 or 3 weeks - faster if it is a rush job. If that is too long, the video-sharing site can be ready to deliver an imperfect, but potentially useful version in a matter of minutes. These time frames compare favorably with most contemporary eLearning production processes.

Bottom Line: It's easier and cheaper than you think

As with all of the processes at iPOV, this approach to eLearning production and distribution starts with a movie. However, these movies can be made on any laptop or desktop PC. They can be made anywhere that the target software will run. They can be made when a developer comes back from lunch. They can be made in the hotel on a business trip. They can be made at home in the evening. They can be made ... anywhere and anytime. Once the movie is made, the expert may have just one more task. They may be asked to review the written draft script to make sure it says what they want it to say. Other than that, it is fire and forget.

How much does this cost? It depends. Most software development operations are capable of setting up the informal system without iPOV's help. iPOV's services for the enterprise model are likely to range between $4000 to $8000 per finished hour of video tutorial and may be even less on very large projects. If you are faced with the need to produce lots of eLearning and documentation on software projects, call iPOV. We can show you how to set up a surprisingly fast, low-cost solution.