This overview provides a brief look at the process for creating your own LearnLinc
environment. It is not a comprehensive guide–that can be found later in this manual. Use the overview to get a general idea of what is involved in planning and implementing a LearnLinc environment.
Assemble your Team
Before you begin, decide who you will need help from to make your LearnLinc installation successful. Smaller organizations can use LearnLinc right out of the box. For larger
organizations, we recommend that you assemble a team that fills all the following roles. In some cases, one person may play more than one role, or one role may be divided among several team members.
• Project Manager
• IS Support Person
• LearnLinc administrator
• Content author
• Instructor Project Manager
The project manager is the coordinator for your LearnLinc rollout. He or she will not only coordinate with the people on your LearnLinc team, but with others in the company as necessary. The Project Manger is responsible for acquiring all necessary hardware and software, ensuring that proper support is available from your organization’s network manager and IS staff, and reporting to others in management who are concerned with the LearnLinc rollout.
In addition, the Project Manager may be responsible for managing the budget and schedule of the LearnLinc rollout and pilot program. Many organizations choose to begin using LearnLinc as a pilot–to introduce the system to others in the organization, to provide a staged, more comfortable, transition for the training department, and to ensure that they are ready to roll out LearnLinc to the entire organization.
IS Support Person
If you are rolling out LearnLinc on an existing corporate network, which almost all LearnLinc teams are, you will need support from your IS department. An IS support person can help you to assess your hardware needs and procure the necessary equipment, install and maintain that
equipment, determine your network bandwidth needs and ensure that your network can support them, and troubleshoot installations. While you may not need full time support from your IS department throughout the roll out, we recommend that you have one individual assigned to the project, who can be available as needed.
LearnLinc Administrator
The LearnLinc administrator is responsible for creating and maintaining all LearnLinc information, including users, test courses and classes, and resources. Your LearnLinc administrator should be adept at learning new software and capable of managing a large amount of information, but he or she does not have to be a training specialist. If, however, the LearnLinc administrator will be responsible for teaching others how to manage LearnLinc information, make sure that he or she is able and willing to transfer his or her knowledge to others later.
Content Author
The content author is responsible not only for developing content to use in your LearnLinc classes, but for determining which types of content best suit your organization’s training needs as well. The content author should be familiar with one or more of the following authoring tools:
In addition, the content author should be very familiar with the type of training you are planning to do with LearnLinc. Once you have installed LearnLinc, the content author should spend time evaluating each of the LearnLinc classroom tools, determining which are best suited to your training needs, and developing content for your pilot classes. The content author will likely work closely with the instructor in determining which tools and content types will work best in class.
Instructor
The LearnLinc instructor should be someone who is currently a trainer at your organization. If you choose to use a course that is currently being taught in traditional classes, the instructor for
that course might be an ideal candidate for your team. The instructor should be comfortable using a computer and learning new software–though he or she does not have to be an advanced computer user. Once you have installed LearnLinc, the instructor should spend time in a LearnLinc class, evaluating the tools, determining which he or she would be comfortable using in class, and working with the content author to convert any existing content to an online format that the instructor is comfortable using.
Plan your Environment
Before you install LearnLinc, make sure that your environment is ready. The following list covers the main areas of concern:
Network
Using the bandwidth guidelines in the System Requirements (outlined earlier in this chapter), work with your IS support person to ensure that your network can support LearnLinc.
Specifically, you need to make sure that your student and instructor computers can connect to the LearnLinc server, and that there will be enough bandwidth available for them to send and receive data from the LearnLinc server. In addition, determine if your organization uses a farewell, and decide if you want to use HTTP tunneling, or open a port on your farewell. For more information about farewell ports and HTTP tunneling, please see takes the floor, Getting Ready for LearnLinc.
Hardware and Software
Using the server and client guidelines in the System Requirements (outlined earlier in this chapter), work with your IS support person to ensure that you have all the necessary hardware and software in place for LearnLinc.
Schedule
Develop a schedule for your roll out. Include time to order and install any necessary hardware or software, and time for testing and experimenting with the system. Share your schedule with other departments who will be impacted by it (for example IS) so that you can count on them for resources when you need them. Of course, share the schedule with your LearnLinc team as well.
Include time and tasks for internal marketing on the schedule as well–to ensure that others are aware of your program and will be available to participate in your pilot classes.
Choose a Pilot Class
Work with your content author and instructor to evaluate your current courses even before you install LearnLinc, to determine which ones are good candidates for conversion to online courses. Some criteria to consider include: length and format of class, ease of conversion for hard copy materials, and the amount of hands-on activities in class.
Online classes differ from traditional classes in several ways, one of which is the amount of time you can expect to hold students’ attention during class. Generally speaking, online classes should be shorter than traditional classes, and have more breaks to allow students to stretch, rest their eyes, and then refocus on the content. In addition, classes that require frequent interaction from students are more likely to hold students’ attention. As a very general guideline, look for a class that can be taught in sessions that are about 45 to 60 minutes long, with student interactions every 10 minutes. Adjust these times to suit your training needs.
Consider the ease with which existing content can be converted as well. If your content author has significant experience with a CBT tool such as Authoring, or HTML tagging, you may be able to convert very complex content for your class. If, however, your content author will be learning to use new content tools as well as LearnLinc, look for content that can be easily converted. For example, Proponent presentations can be converted to HTML or Talbot using one of the LearnLinc content conversion tools.
Consider the amount of hands-on activity in a class as well. Classes that require students to build or take apart machinery, for example, might require you to develop complex simulations or shoot video footage of those actions. While effective, these types of content may be time consuming or expensive to develop. Consider your schedule and resources before choosing a hands-on class for your pilot.
Install the Server Software and your License Keys
Follow the instructions outlined in the LearnLinc Installation Guide to install the server. Be sure to fill out the LearnLinc Server Key tax back form to receive your license keys. Once your LearnLinc server software is installed and your keys are enabled, you should be able to log-in to the LearnLinc Virtual Campus from any computer, using the default LearnLinc administrator account. See the LearnLinc Installation Guide or takes the floor, “Installing LearnLinc#, for the default administrator account information and password.
The Virtual Campus contains several sample users, a sample course, and several sample classes.
You can use these samples to explore the Virtual Campus interface, and to test the Virtual Campus and the Virtual Classroom.
Install the Classroom Software
Install the classroom, or client, software on two computers. Use these computers to connect two of your team members in a LearnLinc classroom so that they can test your LearnLinc environment. Install LearnLinc on additional computers to enable your content author and instructor to explore the Virtual Classroom tools.
Test the Environment
Follow the test plan described in takes the floor of this guide to test your limited installation.
Test your LearnLinc server-client connection on a small number of computers to work out any hardware or software issues before you attempt a pilot or roulette.
Add Users
Once you have tested your limited installation successfully, create instructor, author, and administrator accounts as needed for your team. If you are creating accounts for your pilot students, create those as well and record the account information so that you can distribute it to your pilot students later.
Create Content
Even as you are testing your limited installation, your content author can evaluate and start developing the content for your pilot class. Refer to Chapter 8 in this guide, and the LearnLinc Authoring Kit for more information concerning authoring content for LearnLinc classes.
Schedule Courses and Classes
Once your testing is complete, your LearnLinc administrator can create your pilot course and classes in the LearnLinc Virtual Campus. By logging-in as an administrator, he or she can add a new course to the course catalog, and create classes in that course. Be sure to schedule your LearnLinc team instructor to teach the pilot classes, and assign another member of the team to act as an assistant instructor for the class. The assistant instructor can help students who are having problems, and help the instructor to manage the class.
Add Content to your Courses and Classes
Once the content author has completed the content conversion, or created new content, he or she can add the content as resources to the course contents list and class agenda as necessary.
To do so, he or she can log-in to the Virtual Campus using an account that has author permissions.
Rehearse the Class
Once all the elements are in place, ask your instructor to rehearse the class several times, until he or she is comfortable teaching in the LearnLinc environment. Make sure that other members of the LearnLinc team practice as well–as assistants and as instructor, in case your instructor is unavailable.
Make the LearnLinc Virtual Campus Available to Students
Once the course, classes, and content are available in the Virtual Classroom, and your team believes that they are ready to teach the class, make the Virtual Campus available to your students. To do so, publicize the address of the Virtual Campus, and provide instructions to your pilot students for accessing the Virtual Campus, downloading and installing the classroom software, and joining the class. Be sure to clearly state the date and time of the class.
Set time aside to test with your students once they have installed the classroom software. A quick test with each student to ensure that they can join a class, and that their audio or video conferences is working properly will ensure that your first class is successful.
We have included two documents on both the LearnLinc Server and Client Cads in the “docs”
folder, to assist you in publicizing your class. “Installing the LearnLinc client from the web”
(install.doc) provides instructions for downloading and installing the classroom software. “Your first LearnLinc class” (memo.doc) provides students with instructions for joining their first class.
You can modify these documents for your organization and distribute them to your students to ensure that they are ready for class.