LEARNING TECHNOLOGY

Context-based
learning
Enabling staff to get the information they need to solve problems
as they arise is the key to sustaining learning, says Donald Doak
magine you are travelling somewhere
unfamiliar. You attended a lecture about
the area a year ago that gave you some
helpful information and you read a book
about it. Would you rely on that alone to
guide you during your trip? Probably not. When
you attended the lecture, you were not going
to travel for a year and more immediate issues
were probably on your mind. Now that you are
planning the travel, there is a lot of information
that could be helpful and when you are there,
having maps and guidebooks available would
allow you to make the most of your trip.

The ^ivho^in learning

is no longer just an
instruetor and a
student^ but extends
to the organisational
community

Now imagine that, instead of a trip, the

information you seek wiU help give you the skills
to improve or increase your knowledge of certain
aspects of your job and career. The training classes
you take and the books you read will be beneficial,
but will you be able to recall that information
when you need it most - when you are faced wdth
a challenge or problem?
In today's on-demand learning environment,
professionals are faced with the challenge
of sustaining learning concepts. Companies
are faced with the challenge of keeping their
employees current with the necessary LcD, whue
accommodating the varied learning needs of
individuals who range greatly in experience.
More formal learning environments, such as
instructor-led training classes, provide in-depth
information, but most people forget 60 per cent
of it in the 24-48 hours after tbe class. But if a
person goes into the class with a specific problem
in mind and can relate the information to it,
the retention rate improves dramatically. This is
because problem-based learning is how people
learn best.
So how do we sustain and extend learning
beyond the classroom and strengthen concepts

taught in formal training? And how do we create

an environment that allows learning to be the
most effective?
Companies are instituting informal ways of
learning in which content with best practices and
benchmarks for employees are available when
and where the opportunity to use it arises. This is
known as context-based learning.
Technology has made it possible to put a large
amount of content in a place where employees can
get easy access to it and to present it in a way that
makes it part of their everyday workflow, where
the problems occur.
This provides high-interest content that is easily
digestible where they need it, when they need it,
how they need it.
An online portal can be created providing
pre-populated, highly relevant content from the
industry's most respected thought leaders. It can
be customised and integrated into an existing
portal, LMS, SharePoint (departmental intranets),
mobile devices and more. This creates the ability
to provide multiple entry points into learning
content in addition to the LMS and brings
learning into the workflow, providing contextbased learning opportunities.

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January 2014 TJ

LEARNING TECHNOLOGY

For instance, an employee looking at a record for

a client that he will be engaging with sees a note
that the client can be difficult. If the company
has integrated competencies and best practice and
benchmark content from thought leaders on how
to handle difficult customers, he can directly enter
into a learning opportunity. The content would
open him up to a robust collection of journal and
magazine articles, books, videos, e-books and
business book summaries with information on
the topic.
One of the advantages of having such a resource
rather than relying on a general web search is that
the employee can be confident that the system is
accessing the most updated and valuable content
from leading resources instead of a search that
may produce less reliable and less authoritative
information. There is a risk and cost factor
involved with team members aimlessly searching
the web for ideas on 'how to handle a difficult
customer' for the content they may find may not
be reliable best practice.
The inclusion of top business sources is only one
component that determines the success this type
of resource can have in an organisational learning
environment. The tool must include rich metadata
across all the included resources so that the most
relevant information is presented if the team
member takes a self-directed learning approach to
finding content. This allows him to find the most
relevant information quickly. The metadata also
helps keeps users in context if they explore within
the collection for subjects, authors or publications.
Companies can amplify learning, especially
for high potentials and self-directed learners,
by linking the latest business thinking to
organisational competencies, allowing employees
to browse by the subjects that are most applicable
to that industry. This was an important part
of what Tessa Bedoya wanted to accomplish

This customisability
allows training
professionals to present
the most relevant
information in a way
that works best for
their company
TJ January 2014

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when she started at Rheem Manufacturing's

water heating division. As the human resource
development specialist, she wanted to be able to
offer managers the most up-to-date resources for
their development and that of their employees.
"My goal when I came in was to partner with
the management team to improve organisational
effectiveness," she said.
One issue that Bedoya recognised as needing to
be addressed was the risk of employees continuing
to do their jobs in the same way they had always
done because of the company's low employee
turnover rate. "One of the biggest benefits of
having these resources at our fingertips is that
our employees learn what is happening outside of
Rheem - where industries are going, what other
companies are doing, what leadership gurus are
saying about leadership in 2013 versus what they
were saying in 1979," she said. "It shows new ways
to do things, new ways to make profit, new ways
to innovate, new ways to create, new ways to do all
the things that we've been doing the same way for
many years."
Bedoya helped to create a custom portal that
could be accessed through the corporate intranet
site, which offers targeted, recommended learning
content that is prominently displayed for intuitive
and easy access. The content aligns with the
organisation's 13 performance competencies,
including adaptability, leadership, productivity,
teamwork, communications, initiative and selfevaluation. Resources are mapped to job function,
such as human resources, procurement, sales and
marketing, and users can click on any one of the
competency or function areas to find
related content.
Similar resources also let managers expand
learning opportunities and teamwork with a portal
that supports social collaboration, group learning
and sharing relevant books, abstracts and articles
to colleagues. With pre- and post-reading material
that presents key concepts and relevant business
thoughts, executives can customise company
initiatives to augment leadership development
curricula, to support learning activities, coaching
and individual development planning to yield
high-potential development.
Portals can be set up to feature particular
articles, books, summaries or videos of interest
chosen by the training professional, and supply
them via email alerts or RSS. They can, and
should, also include support for social media
within the learning environment to provide
peer-level contextual insights on specific assets
employees have found helpful. The 'who' in
learning is no longer just an instructor and a

student, but extends to the

organisational community.
Consider an employee who has been given
the task of giving an important presentation,
and wants to brush up on his presentation
skills. Ifthe company has integrated a learning
resource, learning competencies can be mapped
to information, directing him to best practices
and information on communicating effectively in
a presentation. Post-presentation, he can further
the discussion by adding comments to particular
content items to make the learning experience a
more collaborative one. By accessing the learning
content when he needs it, where he needs
it, and how he needs it, the learner
will improve his on-the-job
performance and retention is
likely to be increased.
This customisabity allows
training professionals to present
the most relevant information
in a way that works best for
their company. Companies
can then integrate the
content into an LMS as a
course providing multiple
entry points into this type of
learning content
Besides the improvement
in applying what has
been learned, there are a
number of other benefits
to using this approach.
Unlike classroom learning,
which may be limited
because of size or funding
constraints, there are no
limits to how many people
can use the system for
training purposes. In a world
of distributed workforces,
the information can be made
available to everyone in the
company in a cost-effective way.
Context-based learning does not seek to replace
formal learning efforts; instead, it complements
formal learning by providing a way to sustain it
throughout the year.
Dan Pontefract, senior director and head of
learning and collaboration at TELUS, a leading
Canadian telecommunications company, and
author of Flat Army: Creating a Connected and
Engaged Organization, instituted a context-based
learning resource to augment the company's
organisational model of interconnectivity and
unity. "Learning is not just an event in a
H

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January 2014 TJ

LEARNING TECHNOLOGY

Context-based learning
complments formal
learning by providing
a way to sustain it
throughout the year

Donald
Doak
is senior vice
president
at EBSCO
Information
Services.
He can be
contacted at
ddoak@ebsco.
com

classroom," he said. "Learning is part formal, part

informal and part social."
TELUS has incorporated the learning
resource into its corporate internet site. There
is a customised search box on the home page
and users can enter keywords that sift through
content specifically selected as relevant to TELUS'
learning needs. Content is also mapped according
to TELUS job families so an executive assistant
can click the 'administrative' link to peruse relevant
articles on topics such as time management.
Additionally, employees can select any one of 11
"values attributes" or defined leadership behaviours
such as collaborating, communicating and
initiating. For example, a manager who wants to
learn about coaching and mentoring his employees
can click the value attribute "developing team
members" for applicable articles.
This more informal approach must also be
accessible via mobile devices allowing instant
access to information wherever an employee
may be. This becomes more important when
a company has a distributed workforce. Take,
for instance, the oil and gas industry: providing
workers on off-shore rigs with formal learning
opportunities would be difficult and costprohibitive, but a tool for context-based learning
would give them access to the same information as
those working in the company's head office.
People who travel a lot also need to have a
reliable information resource. Bedoya recounted
the experience of an executive who frequently
travels: "When I told him he could download
articles onto his mobile device, he got really
excited. Now he emails me about what Harvard
Business Review article he read on the plane this
week. He just really loves it."
The convenience of content resources is
beneficial even for those who may be based at a
company's headquarters. "People like the fact that
they can read the article online or on their mobile
devices. They can print it out and take it home, or
plug their phone into their car and just listen to
it," says Bedoya.

TJ January 2014 www.trainingjournal.com

In addition to providing the content where an

employee is working and how he wants to access
it, this solution also gives options for what type of
content the person wants to view. The content can
include book summaries, journal and magazine
articles, e-books, videos and comprehension texts
so learning professionals and end users can choose
what works best for their particular learning style
whether they prefer to delve into articles about the
subject, watch a video or glean the key messages of
a top business book by reading a summary.
At TELUS, the implementation of the learning
portal has been a success. "Our resource helps
us extend our informal learning options to our
40,000+ team members by providing pertinent
articles, periodicals, journals and the like in
digital formats that are accessible at work, at
home or on the go," said Pontefract. "It's a
wonderful extension to our world-class line-up of
learning options."
All of this integration into workflow and
customisation can be done using a simple
application programming interface so there is
little engagement needed by a company's I T
department. Instead, learning professionals can
work with stakeholders to figure out exactly what
will work best for their employees, given their
departmental and company goals, and how best to
integrate it into their system.
This context-based learning approach is not
new in some professions. It is already in wide
use in the medical field. A doctor or nurse who
has a challenging case could certainly go to a
medical library and delve into the thousands of
studies on a given subject to learn what the latest
ones have shown but technology has integrated
the information into electronic medical records
systems. Since an electronic medical record is a
key element of a health provider's workflow, tools
that allow doctors and nurses to search within that
system, and receive alerts when there are potential
practice-changing studies available for a diagnosis,
promote better outcomes for patients.
This approach is accepted by the medical
professional associations such as the Royal
College of General Practitioners, the American
Medical Association, the American Academy
of Family Physicians and the American Nurses
Credentialing Center as well as training
organisations such as the International Association
for Continuing Education and Training as well as
others for credentialing.
As the need for on-demand learning increases
in a world that requires on-demand access to
information, imagine what this resource could do
for your company. T J

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