Position Paper

Value of E-learning and Technical Publications in the Training and Education Industry

Introduction

This position paper presents the value and need for qualitative e-learning and technical publications in the training and education industry. In e-learning, learners decide how, what, and when they access information. E-learning is a dynamic process that is platform independent and provides users with the advantage of reusing content depending upon the environment and functional needs. E-learning provides an effective classroom alternative to increase employee knowledge and skills. Industry reports show that by implementing e-learning, may organizations have experience 50-75% reduction in training costs as compared to classroom training. However, may organizations have fallen short of achieving effective e-learning training due to difficulties in implementing and lack of expertise in integrating technology. Effective implementation of e-learning necessitates the creation of training materials such as workbooks, exercises, assessments, and demos for students and employees. Meta-analysis states that the students in e-learning perform better than those in classroom courses. Overall usage of e-learning in Asia is expected to reach a compound annual growth rate of 25% to 30 % through 2010, according to a survey. Worldwide that rate should hit between 15 percent and 30 percent, the report states. The rapidly growing need for effective e-learning education makes quality documentation important for employees and students. The training documents need to be effective and interactive to the learners, which necessitate the involvement of Instructional Designers who specialize in creating these materials. In this paper, we will discuss the importance of technical believes that providing effective learning TWB publications in technology cannot exist with respect to growth, implementation, and without being communicated effectively. solutions. The global market for corporate e-learning will grow nearly 27% compounded annually. McGee, 2004.

TWB Leading Technical Documentation Outsourcing Company

TWB is a leading technical communication outsourcing company that provides services in technical documentation. TWB is the pioneer and a leader in providing worldclass e-learning services in technical communication. TWB helps customers with all their e-learning needs such as ILTs, WBTs and CBTs, along with process and workflow documentation. TWB works closely with client teams located globally, and assists them in meeting their worldwide product announcements and launch deadlines. We work round-the-clock with client teams and help them with quick responses that facilitate timely distribution of documents around the globe. Knowledge is people, money, learning, flexibility and competitive advantage. Knowledge is more relevant to sustained business than capital or labor. And yet knowledge remains the most neglected asset of a business. TWB helps you unlock and share your technical knowledge with the world.

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E-learning Industry Technical Publications

Growth of the E-learning Industry

Organizations are increasingly shifting their staffing models away from a dominant focus on trainers and are now more focused on e-learning services and support activities. Governments and schools have added more online courses due to the fall in the cost of implementing e-learning tools. IDC forecasts that the e-learning market, which was about $21 billion in 2008, will increase to more than $52.6 billion by the end of the year 2010.

Challenges and Solutions

Some of the greatest documentation challenges faced by organizations today include:

Creating effective training and keeping the audience engaged Creating compelling and convincing training material Enhancing the audience interest while explaining complex topics TWB provides e-learning solutions with professional quality which makes learning simple. Interactive presentations are created to make the learning more effective. E-learning systems are standardized, which often require modification to suit the different types of training requirements of a specific organization. It is essential that the training materials are updated accurately and efficiently.

"According to Dr. Ronald Marks, marketing professor at the University of Missouri, studies claim that people learn up to 200% faster, pay 26% more attention, retain 38% more and reduce their learning time by 25-40%, since multimedia presentations engage all the senses." The ratio of moderate increase to moderate decrease in e-learning industry is 41:1 with significant increase of 23% annually.

Benefits
TWB provides effective e-learning material to transfer knowledge through simple training. Producing professional training materials benefit in:

Understanding complex technical data easily and quickly Visualizing concepts or working on newly developed products Significant interactive experiences

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Value of Technical Publications

Technical Communication for Transferring Product Knowledge

The purpose of technical communication is to transfer product knowledge to end users in a comprehensible manner. The strategies of communication and levels of information vary depending on the type of product and audience. Providing end users with information about a products operation and maintenance is critical to the market performance of the product. Hence, the need for quality documentation is imperative. In todays business scenario, technical publications are often developed as an afterthought. This usually results in inaccurate and incomprehensible documentation, which, in turn, renders the users incapable of using the products. Accurate, readily understandable, and quality documents determine how a product sells in the market and result in increased customer satisfaction.

Communication for Different Levels of Technical and Product Knowledge

In technical publications, audience is the focal point. Hence, the style, language, and content must vary depending on the type of audience being addressed. It is because every user has a specific role in the implementation and usage of the technology. Therefore, it is important that documents be created keeping in mind the role of the person who will use the document. For example, when you document a software application designed for highly technical users, it is sufficient to provide the users with quick reference information to use the application. For users who start without technical or product knowledge, it is important to provide detailed product information along with instructions on how to use the product.

Attractive Publications as Useful Marketing Tools

Besides transferring knowledge, technical publications are also used for marketing a product. Before a product is released in the market, information about the product needs to be effectively communicated to the customers. Well-designed, accurately presented, and attractive marketing collaterals increase the market prospects of a product and reduce support costs.

Faulty Assumptions that Result in Faulty Documentation

The faulty assumptions listed below result in incomprehensible documents:

Developers know their products better than anyone else due to time constraints and limited resources, many companies assign their documentation tasks to the programmers. This more often results in the creation of technologycentered information, while end users require task-oriented information.

Documentation of complex applications requires a longer learning curve for the writer - learning the product will not be a major obstacle for writers with the right technical background.

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Conclusion

Importance of e-learning: E-learning systems are often customized to meet the specific needs of organizations. With the reduction in implementation cost of e-learning tools, businesses, educational institutes, and government organizations have added more online courses and computer-based distance learning to their training needs. Effecting e-learning implementation helps users operate and maintain systems with ease, and improve work efficiency and business. Value of Technical Publications: Technical Publications are very essential for transferring product knowledge to end users. Provisioning of proper material to use the technology and products enables the user to accept and efficiently use the product. Faulty assumptions about documentation lead to inaccurate and incomprehensible information. This also decreases the chances of marketing the products in the global market. Role of Documentation Outsourcing: The complexity involved in implementing an e-learning system requires that vendors and purchasers consider outsourcing their development needs to well-established technical publications solutions providers. This helps the company cut costs and at the same time deliver their products with quality documents.

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TWB Services
TWB is Indias leader in technical communication outsourcing and education. TWB offers a complete suite of services that allows our customers to effectively publish their technical knowledge with their people and processes. TWBs customers range from Global 500 including Cisco, Accenture, McAfee, LG, Samsung, Citrix, SAP, Siemens, AOL, Intel; Indian technology majors including Infosys, Wipro; Global defense majors - Pratt & Whitney, Honeywell, DRDO, HAL; and exciting technology startups. TWB's expertise in technical communication ranges from IT Products and Outsourcing, ITES, Banking, Financial, Aerospace, Defense, Ship Building to Hi-tech Manufacturing, and Discrete and Process Manufacturing. TWBs services include:

Technical Marketing Solutions

Datasheets Cheat sheets Solution Briefs/Solution Brochures Presentations Products/Corporate Profile Brochures and marketing collateral Web content Audio and video scripts Press releases Direct mail Newsletter design copy Sales catalogues Sales sheets

Technical Product Documentation

Business Communication
Short Reports Proposals Case Studies Lab Reports Memos Progress/Interim Reports Writing for Electronic Media

Illustrations
Graphic Designing Info graphics 2D & 3D animation Line drawings and illustrations

Datasheets Administrators Guide API Document Configuration Guide Functional Specifications Document Installation Manual Interface Document Interactive Electronic Technical Manual (IETM) Maintenance Manual Online Help Operation Manual Product Demo Product Specifications Document Product Overview Document Quick Reference Guide Release Notes Requirement Analysis Document SDK Document Troubleshooting Manual User Manual Open Source Documentation Programmers Guides Functional Specifications Document Use Cases Online Help /Context Sensitive Help Troubleshooting Guides

Documentation Quality Management

Copy Editing and Proof Reading Managing Writing Editing Services Layout and Design Creating SLAs

Business Documentation
Business Proposals Legal Disclaimers Policy Manuals Style Guide Design Template Design

Content Management
Single Sourcing File Version Control Document Naming Conventions Consistent Document Formatting Data Transformation

Web site Development

Web 2.0 development Web content Web applications

Qualitative Analytics for Decision Support

Economic Business Research Industry Analysis Market Opportunity Analysis Competitive Business Analysis Company & Prospect Profiling Reporting Solutions Assessment of Unmet Market Needs Status and Potential of Technologies Benchmarking of Strategies Vs Competition Forecasting Sales Force Effectiveness Market Assessments Competitive Intelligence Opinion Leadership Emerging Markets - evaluation and research

Translation and Localization Services

Software Translation Services Document Translation Services Localization (L10N) Testing Internationalization (I18N) Testing

Process Documentation
Workflows Standard Operating Procedures ISO Documentation CMM Documentation

Records Management
Document Management Solutions Record Management Storage and Retrieval

Deployment and Support

Installation and Configuration Guides Operations Manual

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TWB Software Tools Expertise

Our technical proficiency software and authoring tools includes: Our technical proficiency inin software and authoring tools includes:

Unstructured Content Development

Microsoft Word Adobe FrameMaker Adobe InDesign QuarkXPress Adobe PageMaker

XML Structured Editors

Epic FrameMaker+SGML X-Metal

Multimedia/Authoring
Adobe Flash Adobe Dreamweaver Microsoft FrontPage Adobe Captivate

Macromedia Captivate Graphics/Animations

Adobe Flash Adobe Photoshop Adobe Fireworks

Illustrations
Adobe Flash CS4 Professional Adobe Illustrator CS3 CorelDRAW Microsoft-Expression Graphic Designer Xara Xtreme (Windows & Linux) CuteDraw Publisher3D(for animation) Sketsa SVG Editor (for vector graphics) Techsmith Camtasia Arbortext IsoDraw (technical illustrations for 2D and 3D)

Multimedia/Authoring/ Supporting tools

Adobe Flash Adobe Flex Adobe AIR Adobe Dreamweaver Adobe Acrobat Microsoft Silverlight Adobe Authorware Adobe Director Adobe Captivate Trivantis Lectora ASP.NET JSP JAVA

Online Help
JavaHelp Adobe RoboHelp 7.0 HelpScribble WebWorks Publisher PowerCHM Doc-To-Help WinCHM HelpSmith 2.1.1(Windows) Fast-Help MadCap Flare Help-Server NVU Help

Graphics/Animation
Adobe Flash Adobe Photoshop Adobe Illustrator Adobe Fireworks Microsoft Silverlight

Standards
SCORM 1.2 / 2004 AICC W3C Section 508 QTI XML

XML
XMetal Microsoft Word 2003, Microsoft Word 2007

Databases
Microsoft Access Microsoft SQL Server

CMS/ LMS
Sharepoint Moodle Joomla, WordPress Media Wiki CMS Builder Author-it (formerly AuthorIT) Alfresco

Development and Publishing tools

XSLT/XSL EDD

Flowcharting
Microsoft Visio iGrafx EDraw RFFlow Flowbreeze Smart Draw

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Technical Communic ation for Transferrin Industries g Product Knowledge

Served

TWB services a wide range of technology and knowledge-driven industries, helping them meet their markets better. These TWB services a wide range of technology and knowledge driven industries, helping them meet their markets better, these include: include:
Banking, Insurance and Financial Services Consulting and Business Services Defense, Aerospace and Hi-Tech Manufacturing Education and Learning IT, ITES ITES/ KPO/ BPO Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology Process Manufacturing and Allied Industries Steel, Ship Building, Construction and Aviation Telecom and Digital Communications

TWB has been the preferred technical documentation outsourcing company for: TWB has been the preferred technical documentation outsourcing company for:

The TWB Building

No: 4062, 19th Main Road, HAL 2nd Stage, Bangalore 560008 India. Landmark: Behind Carlton Towers Telephone: +91.80.40741400 / +91.80.41256367 Corporate Enquiries: corp@twb.in

US Office: TWB
11701 Norwegian Wood Drive Austin, TX 78758

Telephone: +1.512.586.8357

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