Today, in the eLearning landscape, user-generated content is a burning topic. It is trending everywhere in the digital market. So let us try to understand what user-generated content is and how you can use it in eLearning.
What is user-generated content?
The content shared and published by the users themselves is called user-generated content or UGC. Here, users include both the learners as well as the content creators of eLearning courses. For instance, in a company, sales team members receiving training on sales management and taking the relevant training courses can record and publish their personal experiences of interacting with clients. This will help other online learners and employees to get a better idea of how things actually work and learn from these experiences. This can also help the users to build a learning community for better results.
UGC fosters a culture of learning where the passive recipients of training become active participants in creating content. Allowing the users to run the show can improve the engagement and retention rates of online learners.
For this, you need powerful LMS software that can help users get the best eLearning content. The Bridge training platform is a modern LMS that empowers intuitive learning anytime and anywhere.
Here are tips and tricks to incorporate user-generated content in eLearning:
1. Encourage video making
Today, the YouTube channel is the top-visited website. It is one such platform where the users can share whatever they want and hence facilitate the flow of information.
Similarly, you can also encourage online instructors as well as employees to share essential information with online learners using videos. For example, you can ask employees undergoing training to make their own pre-and post- chapter analysis videos. These can be added to future versions of the eLearning course or simply be swapped with the existing content. You must encourage videos in different languages to cater to a culturally diverse workforce.
Employees can also make videos where they can share their experiences and how a particular eLearning course helped them build skills. The staff can also make videos telling about the daily office routines.
2. Promote user-generated blogs-
You must promote user-generated blogs where the users can share their experiences and knowledge openly with everyone. It shows the value and story behind your eLearning courses. For instance, employees can write how your eLearning courses helped them, which eLearning courses should definitely be accessed, what kind of corporate and learning culture your organization supports, and so on.
3. Switch to the podcast-
The first thing that comes into your mind when you hear about podcasts is listening to music or radio shows on repeat. Though the initial use of podcasts began in the music industry, it today has colonized the eLearning market as well.
The introduction of podcasts in eLearning helps to build self-paced learning for online learners. It can be used in a variety of ways-
- The existing employees can answer the questions of their colleagues.
- Making bite-sized audios for revision increases memory retention.
- Storytelling or sharing real-life examples and experiences about how a particular strategy helped them in an eLearning project.
4. Gather user testimonials-
Testimonials help in increasing the credibility of your product or service. They come out as unbiased voice or comment that people can trust and rely on.
You can use customer’s or online learner’s testimonials at the end or beginning of eLearning content to make your eLearning courses more convincing. By seeing the testimonials, one would be more likely to trust your organization and its training abilities.
5. Reuse past online training assessments and assignments-
It takes a lot of effort on the part of the L&D team to make online training assessments and assignments successful. Once this exercise is done, those performance testimonials are hardly being referred. However, in the corporate training, every document has the potential to be repurposed i.e., utilizing past assignments and assessments exercises as training tools. For example, these scores and documents can be used for future online learners. The best performers can share their learning hacks. Taking cues from the past online training assessments and assignments, small discussions, and briefings can be done by online instructors to tell what is expected from online learners.
6. A flip flop using user-generated JIT tutorials-
Just-in-time (JIT) eLearning is largely sought during emergencies. An online learner always demands quick solutions with a single click of a button. Ideally, something they can digest within 4-5 minutes.
For instance, employees undergoing training in the manufacturing industry are better placed to design these moment-of-need “life rafts” for fixing a technical problem. Such JIT tutorials can come to the rescue of new learners who find themselves stuck in a similar situation.
Conclusion
By promoting user-generated content, you can build trust with the users. The wealth of information collected using UGC can influence your future eLearning content, and hence you can refresh and update the content accordingly.
Thus, UGC needs to be supported as an effective eLearning tool that can alter the learning dynamics.
