Amitabh Sharma
Features Coordinator

Enhancing skill sets is a pertinent exercise for professionals and employers alike. Faced with a competitive environment, the need for keeping abreast with volatile technological changes has necessitated companies to impart training for their employees. The paucity of time for executives to ‘go back to classrooms’, has given way to the unique concept of e-learning as an effective tool for education.

What is e-learning?
E-learning means different things to different people. It could be consensually defined as the usage of network technologies to create, foster, deliver and facilitate learning anytime, and anywhere.

E-learning gained global momentum in 2000 and is today acknowledged to be more about enabling learning and driving performance than training. In fact, it is increasingly being recognised as a competitive edge that would allow organisations to survive and grow in a complex and dynamic global business environment.

The job opportunities
There are four broad skill sets or clusters that are required for most e-learning jobs. Depending on the position, the weighing of these skill sets will be different, but generally all four are present. These clusters are instructional design, technology, consulting, and business.

E-learning job model
The job model is divided into three categories: executive and consulting roles; design, development and production team roles; and learning software, tools and application roles. It is not necessary that these roles be exclusive; in fact, a particular job may include several, if not many of these roles and skills. The job model however describes 80 to 90% of the most important activities in the field of e-learning.

Where do the opportunities lie

Graphic Designer / Interface Designer
Responsibilities:
· Creating graphics, colours, layouts and styles
· Creating multimedia content

Skill sets required:
Formal education in the graphic design field coupled with extensive experience and knowledge in design for interactivity, interface design and multimedia authoring.
Extensive knowledge with some or all of the following software and related skills:
· MacroMedia, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw etc.
· Fonts, images, high resolutions, EPS files & image management
· Good understanding of colour
Instructional Designers
Responsibilities:
· Understand the need and design the flow of the content
· An interface between the subject matter expert and interface designer
· Analysis of clients’ needs

Skill sets required:
· Basic education in Psychology /Industrial Psychology /Philosophy /Literature
· Excellent written and oral communication skills
· Familiarity but need not be an expert with web based authoring tools
· Knowledge in creating storyboards and design documents
Content Writers/ Course Developer
Responsibilities:
· Writing and editing of training materials
· Work closely with subject matter experts to design, develop and write effective core training solutions

Skill sets required:
· Good writing skills
· Experience in education sector
· Certificate/diploma in adult education
· Verbal and written communication skills should be exemplary
Programmers
Responsibilities:
Creation of Learning Management System (LMS)/ Content Packaging

Skill sets required:
· Strong understanding of Operating Systems and Web Servers eg Windows Servers, IIS, SMTP and Networking, Apache Server
· Knowledge of RDMS
· Knowledge of Programming languages eg ASP, ASP.net, VB, or Java, J2EE etc
· Writing queries and stored procedures is a must
Management
Implementation Consultant
Responsibilities:
· Thorough understanding of the issues in operating a training organisation in a large company.
· One or more years of experience in the implementation of media-based training would be an added advantage
· Understand training programme evaluation and measurement
· Understanding Skill Gap Analysis

Skill sets required:
· Knowledge of end user desktop applications
· Knowledge of installing Windows and web-based applications
· A theoretical understanding of client-server technologies and networking, the Microsoft Windows NT network operating system, installing and configuring web server software package like Microsoft Internet Information Server or Netscape Enterprise Server, Java applets and applications

LMS Administrator
Responsibilities:
· Administering the LMS
· Publishing, testing, deploying, and maintaining training content and class schedules
· Manage the publishing of file or web-based training content.
· Publish, test, and deploy training content.
· Coordinate course/class creation through evaluation, scheduling and on-going customer support.
· Assist and educate instructors on pre- and post-class delivery administrative functions
· Technical support for LMS, sharing information about features, limitations and periodic changes and LMS reporting

Skill sets required:
· Software and/or networking technical support
· Proficient (advanced/expert level) in OS and Browsers
· Understand Networking and Network equipment
· Experience with best practices, workflows, and documenting procedures preferred.

This vibrant source of different perspectives and talents is enriching e-learning. As the traditional methods of training are being replaced with E learning; it is opening up numerous opportunities for people with varied skill sets within this rich and often exciting environment.

amitabh.sharma@gleanerjm.com