V&A opts for ICE
After many years of keeping its staff's skills and learning records on a specially constructed database, the V&A family of museums is trialing a learning management system (LMS). The LMS - known as the In Tuition Customer Extranet (ICE) - has been designed by In Tuition and is being supplied on a trial basis free of charge to selected clients.
Veronika Harris, head of training and development at the V&A, explained: "Training and development activities for our staff has expanded a great deal in recent years - and we're now developing a virtual learning and training website, in partnership with Ashridge, the world-renowned business college.
"This website will allow any - and all - of the V&A's 750 employed staff and 250 or so contracted staff including the museums' volunteers to access a wide range of e-learning materials. In addition, we are still offering a range of classroom-based training," she said.
"Not only do all our staff have access to all the training materials that Ashridge provides through the portal but we are mapping these training materials to industry-standard and V&A qualifications.
"We realised that, with this increased level of learning activity among our sizeable number of staff, we needed more than a proprietary database to record who has learnt what from which course - and what knowledge and skills each employee currently has," Harris added.
The V&A expects ICE to meet that need. Not only does it show users what courses and learning material is available, it also takes course bookings, generates and issues course confirmation letters and manages individuals' learning records.
According to In Tuition's managing director, Lee Hassan: "ICE provides a learning management system for organisations to manage, deliver and track training projects of any size or geography for employees, stakeholders and suppliers."
In Tuition's ICE sales manager, Dev Prashad commented: "ICE can be used to schedule courses and courseware - which can be produced by any supplier. It can combine these into a curriculum, a syllabus and/or a schedule for individuals - as well as allow individuals to search for the courses they need. In addition to keeping training records for employees, it can provide users with assessment tests and questionnaires".
"ICE also maintains waiting lists for courses, allows users to register their interest in attending particular courses and also logs attendance on each course. It can also be used for knowledge management, disseminating news across the organisation and providing a repository for the organisation's 'knowledge'.
"ICE allows not only the efficient management of skills and competencies within an organisation such as the V&A, but it also reduces the time and costs involved in training administration and gives training performance a higher visibility - through more efficient reporting - with the organisation's senior and middle executives."
In Tuition has been working with the V&A for some years - supplying core IT as well as some soft skills training. The training encompasses introductory, intermediate and advanced courses in software packages such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Presentation skills.
Harris commented: "In Tuition has exceptional trainers and is flexible to provide the training that the V&A wants as and when we want it. In Tuition is very much on our wavelength - understanding our preferred ways of working and being highly responsive to the learners we provide them with.
"Mapping the organisation's IT competencies is a major, on-going project," she explained. "ICE, which has competency criteria within it, will help us to build up a dynamic picture of these and other competencies.
"The V&A organises both classroom-based training and 'virtual training' or e-learning for its staff," Harris added. "The pace of working life is changing fast and, in order to keep pace with this, we need to provide our staff with increased accessibility to training and self-paced learning materials.
"Moreover, these people's time is valuable. So we are tending to run shorter, more focused training events, where the trainees will have worked through pre-course e-learning materials to bring them to a common standard before attending the training course.
"We are also making electronically delivered support materials and assessment tests available to them after they have completed the course," she continued. "All this is coordinated by the ICE system - which also allows learners to email personal tutors and coaches for further help and performance support."
"We believe that ICE will not only allow a quicker roll-out of any training programme throughout the V&A's staff but it will also bring real cost savings in the process. ICE is instantly deployable, requires no upfront investment and is subscription based on the number of active users." said Hassan.
"Hopefully, increased access to more - and higher quality - training material will be seen by staff as the V&A increasing its investment in them, their skills and knowledge. In turn - as in other organisations where this strategy has been followed - this will result in improved staff morale and improved staff retention."
End