Last Update
22 October 2003
11 September 2001
What's New 12 November 2001
BOOKS (This link takes you to the EPSScentral bibliography.)
Beyond the Podium: Delivering Training and Performance to a Digital World by Allison Rossett & Kendra Sheldon
From a reviewer: " I loved the design of this book, with its multiple viewpoints and formats in each chapter. There's the short opening dialog illuminating the issues at hand, the standard narrative, lots of useful tables and visuals, a sample slide presentation to educate others, and profiles of practitioners. Very rich. Then there's the reference section with a cornucopia of additional resources organized around how much time you have available: An hour, a day, or a week. I had a great time exploring these. Finally, it's a very insightful report on the state of the field (human performance technology) and the most critical issues and questions we must confront going forward."
Homepage Usability by Jakob Nielsen and Marie Tahir
The premise of this book is simple: Examining the effectiveness of 50 top homepages, chosen for the popularity or prominence of the company, government agency, or nonprofit institution they represent. Each site is a separate chapter that includes an image of the homepage, an overview of its strengths and weaknesses, and an analysis map that gives the authors' detailed critique and strategies for improvement. Prior to coverage of the individual sites, however, are the authors' 113 guidelines for ensuring homepage usability and the conclusions they've drawn from comparing the 50 sites studied. This is the only book you need for measuring the success of your own homepage and those of your competitors.
While there is a plethora of books available that provide tips on Web design, most authors leave a significant gap between the theory and practice--a gap that is left up to the reader to fill. Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed boldly steps into that gap with specific observations and suggestions backed with solid quantitative analysis. This book focuses only on home page design as the most important point of presence for any Web site.
This definitive work is coauthored by Jakob Nielsen--the accepted industry expert in Web usability--and Marie Tahir, an expert in user profiling. Their collaboration has produced a guide of such rare practical benefit that Web designers will likely wear out their first copy scouring the pages to savor every last morsel of wisdom.
Topics covered: Design guidelines, convention usage, screen real estate, navigation, content presentation, search facilities, links, graphics and animation, advertising, news, customization, and customer feedback.
The Online Book on Knowledge Management by Yogesh Malhotra
"Having spent last 20 years or so in the design of technology-based systems, I believe that technology is the easier part of the KM equation... the more challenging parts are keeping technology, as well as the business processes and business models built upon it, aligned with the radically changing business environment. Important questions that most enlightened CEOs, CIOs and CFOs have been asking their delegates include: 'How are investments in new KM technologies justified?' 'Why our KM systems do not deliver the expected business performance outcomes?' 'What are the critical success factors necessary for technology based KM systems to deliver the expected business performance outcomes?' 'How can KM systems facilitate adaptability of business models and business processes to radical discontinuous change to prevent business failure?' This work in progress would hopefully help you carefully track these 'vital indicators' before, while, and after you implement the technology based KM systems to ensure that they do not get relegated to the heap of 'project failures' and 'missed targets' that often characterize the realm of information technology based KM systems implementation." -- Y. Malhotra
TOOLS (This link takes you to the EPSScentral list of performance support development tools.)
Talsico® offers two interesting tools / methods for elements of learning and performance support for tasks that are not necessarily computer-mediated:
Process Picture Maps™ Process Picture Maps™ are procedural documents created from Talsico's easy-to-use authoring tools and templates. According to Talsico, "Process Picture Maps™ will reduce the amount of time required for a person to learn a job, they enhance quality, reduce errors, reduce variability, reduce scrap and reduce injuries. All of these are significantly costs that you will save on."
Goal Oriented Learning™ According to Talsico, "Goal Oriented Learning™ is an ongoing process for learning in the workplace that has proven effective in improving both individual and business performance. It is also a paradigm shift:
Goal Oriented Learning™ is a strategy for learning in the workplace that enables your employees to quickly improve their performance. We measure the effectiveness of our work by the impact that we have on your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – improved throughput, improved product quality, reduced scrap and reduced downtime. Goal Oriented Learning™ is a cultural change – learning becomes an ongoing process that is part of each employee’s job."Ed notes: The claims about results of Goal Oriented Learning on the Talsico site are impressive, but it is difficult to see exactly what it is from the Talsico site. Those interested should contact Talsico directly for further details. GOL is clearly about addressing more than nuts-and-bolts knowledge by including ethical, behavioral, and affective elements and striving to create outstanding performers rather than just achieving competence.
The PPM templates are nicely thought out. But, like all systems for procedural documentation, there has to be an organizational commitment to populate and maintain them. PPM appears to make this easy - but the commitment must be there nonetheless.
In summary, PPM and GOL seem to be simple, powerful, and performance-centered (from the developer's perspective). The Talsico site allows you to download a nice animated presentation of PPM and GOL.
Looking for performance support development tools? Be sure to visit the Tool section of EPSScentral!
Epiplex captures processes in live applications, then auto-generate documentation, animations, coaches, and wizards. Combine these elements in the Epiplex Visual Project Editor to created blended e-learning and performance support solutions.
ProCarta is powerful tool that helps you to quickly build and maintain a repository of processes, knowledge and learning elements that forms a sustainable cornerstone for an organization to improve performance and hence profitability.
Dedicated to making performance-enhancing technology simple.
Assistware is a solution that recognizes where your employees are in your business applications, and provides the exact piece of support, regardless of its form or content, when they ask for it. This eliminates needless searching or browsing. This unique technology works across applications and across platforms, without touching the existing source code.
As the de facto standard for embedded knowledge-retrieval technology, K2 Developer combines the precision of Verity’s market-leading search with the power of Verity K2 Architecture to meet your application development needs, no matter which e-business problem your products solve.
Knowledge Composer Pro is a set of content creation and management tools that enable users to organize and combine media assets with interactive learning activities, such as pre-tests and post-tests, in the form of instructionally sound learning tracks.
Macromedia Dreamweaver 4 has everything you need to develop a professional Web site. Now you can build Macromedia Flash graphics directly in Dreamweaver. Whether you use Dreamweaver's visual layout tools or its text-editing environment, the intuitive Macromedia User Interface makes it easy.
ToolBook Instructor, Click2learn's premiere desktop authoring product, is designed for developers and instructional designers that create and deploy rich, interactive e-Learning content. ToolBook Instructor includes hundreds of preprogrammed catalog objects and provides a robust, object oriented development environment with support for visual programming and scripting to create interactive behaviors for adaptive content or to customize the development environment. ToolBook Assistant produces effective 100%-Web content that is interoperable through standards. ToolBook Assistant supports the emerging standards created and supported in SCORM, AICC, IMS, ADL, and IEEE. ToolBook Assistant content can be launched, bookmarked, and tracked using SCORM or AICC.
CoachWare is an online coaching tool that provides users with all the information they need, as they need it, in order to perform their jobs successfully. It presents business and system procedures in the context of the users’ job functions and provides easy to follow, step by step instructions for completing specific tasks.
Process Picture Maps™ are procedural documents created from Talsico's easy-to-use authoring tools and templates. Goal Oriented Learning™ is a strategy for learning in the workplace that enables your employees to quickly improve their performance.
OnDemand Developer provides a robust, easy to use authoring environment to quickly create custom content and coaches for Microsoft Windows and web-based applications. OnDemand Player is the tool end-users rely upon to access just-in-time training and support.
INTERFACE AND ATTRIBUTES (This link takes you to previous articles on this topic linked from EPSScentral.)
In this paper, the University of Maryland's Human-Computer Interaction Lab describes the design issues and technical implementation of an interactive Family Message Board. The Family Message Board enables members of a distributed family to communicate with one another both synchronously and asynchronously via simple, pen-based, digital notes. Each household running this Java-based software can view, create, and manipulate notes in a zoomable space. The Family Message Board will be used as a “technology probe” to help us understand the communication needs of distributed families, and to help us design new devices to meet those needs.
ONLINE LEARNING (This link takes you to previous articles on this topic linked from EPSScentral.)
New SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) Version Release
The phrase “e-learning” is becoming meaningless because it describes so many different products and services. To help make sense of what various e-learning vendors do and what offerings they provide, Online Learning Magazine has divided the market into six segments. Last month, OLLM described the first three: off-the-shelf courseware providers, learning management systems (LMSs), and content authoring tools and learning content management systems.
The Institution of Engineers Australia is the largest and most diverse engineering association in Australia, with approximately 60,000 members. Like most professional associations, it provides a wide range of benefits, facilities and services to help its members achieve their personal and professional goals. As a member-funded organization, the IEAust needs to deliver these benefits and services efficiently, providing maximum benefit for the lowest cost.
INTRANETS, PORTALS, AND THE WEB (This link takes you to previous articles on this topic linked from EPSScentral.)
Many internal Web efforts are doomed from the start. Here's how to make yours a winner.
"Despite the plethora of failed intranets, some shining exceptions like @HP prove that devoting the appropriate resources and attention to internal websites can really pay off in the form of greater efficiency, knowledge sharing, employee productivity and cost savings. Now that corporate penny-pinching is back in vogue, such benefits are more appealing than ever."
Some Web sites intended to help users actually hamper them. Here’s how to design sites that keep your users happy.
This paper deals with "Napster Music Community," a program that connects 60 million of music fans and enables them to exchange music files. The main hypothesis is that Napster is an example of an imagined and network community. The first section of the paper gives a theoretical background to the problems addressed: the notions of community and network, the concepts of imagined and network community, as well as the debate on virtual communities are extensively discussed there. Pundits such as Ferdinand Tönnies, Emile Durkheim, Benedict Anderson, Barry Wellman, Morris Janowitz, Robert Putnam and others are consulted. The third part of this paper consist firstly of an analysis of the Napster software that aims at demonstrating the structure for the actors to interact within, and secondly addresses 14 variables that have been distinguished as descriptive of an imagined and network community. In conclusion several implications from the research are drawn.
A Powerpoint presentation by Ben Shneiderman (ben@cs.umd.edu)
Director, Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory
Professor, Department of Computer Science
In relation to the current trend toward XML databases, this article looks at the potential of XDBMS to erode the market dominance of RDBMS in certain market segments. With its low cost, speed of deployment, and flexibility, the XDBMS may prove to be the ideal solution for four types of applications.
The drive to reduce costs is prompting a convergence between the corporate intranet, extranet and Internet
Troy Dreier's Real World Intranets Series - from www.intranetjournal.com
Real World Intranets, Part 4 Ericsson, Research and Development Department: A Case Study
In previous articles in this series, we've looked at department intranets that followed an American corporate style: Each was organized with a set structure in order to facilitate knowledge management and provide quick access to information. But Ericsson isn't an American company and it doesn't welcome rigid structures.
Perseus Development Corporation, Marketing Department: A Case Study
What if you threw an intranet and nobody came? That was the problem facing Jeffrey Henning, cofounder and Chief Operating Officer for Perseus Development Corporation. Perseus's first attempt at an intranet, in 1998, was a failure, unused by the employees it was mean to serve. If at first you don't succeed, re-launch.
Occidental Petroleum Health, Environment, and Safety Department: A Case Study
What to do when your intranet simply has too much information? When it contains research and reports from experts all around the world - and quick access to every page is crucial? That was the problem faced by William Dykes, the Director of Communications and Web Development for Occidental Petroleum.
Look at what other successful intranets are doing and it might inspire you to develop your own intranet in different ways. In this series of real world case studies, we'll spotlight department intranets from a variety of successful companies. Read along to see how others are dealing with the same integration and collaboration issues that you yourself are facing.
"...there are several categories of tasks that need to be addressed in any software rollout. So, whether you are rolling out client software for a business application, a web authoring tool, or a document management system, the following roadmap should help you out." - P.G.Daly's Intranet Talk
USABILITY (This link takes you to previous articles on this topic linked from EPSScentral.)
With current Web design practices, users without disabilities experience three times higher usability than users who are blind or have low vision. Usability guidelines can substantially improve the matter by making websites and intranets support task performance for users with disabilities.
CONFERENCES, WORKSHOPS, PRESENTATIONS, ETC.
Free Webinar: Designing Corporate Collaboration Services
Mongoose is offering a free Webinar on designing corporate collaboration services by two experts in communities development. There will be two sessions, one at 10am PDT on Thursday 8 November and one at 10:00am PT on Thursday 15 November. The presenters, John Smith and Tony Christopher, will be discussing an approach to developing collaboration services that can apply to any groups in the organization. During the webinar slide presentation people are encouraged to add comments in the chat window, and after the presentation we will have an open audio dialogue with Q&A and general discussion.
Implementing the full e-learning development process from prototyping, creating and building courses to web hosting. This three-day blended online and hands-on workshop enables participants to experience how to set-up an e-learning program. At the end of the workshop, participants will have completed their mini-e-learning projects.
Nielsen Norman Group's User Experience 2001-2002 conference offers four exciting days, including: Web Usability Today, a full conference day of enlightening short talks from industry experts; one day of exclusive NN/g seminars; and two days of informative tutorials. Each of these days gives you the chance to Match wits with the sharpest minds in usability theory and practice. Soak up seminars, tutorials, and presentations that will help you build smarter interfaces, save your development dollars, ensure successful user experiences. Protect your budget. Pay for only the days you need. The more days you attend, the deeper the discount. Meet, share tactics, trade cards, munch bagels with UI pros. Our conferences draw experienced UI professionals from all markets.
Performance Support Engineering Workshops from Ariel PSE™
E-learning in Action Seminar, November 28 - 29, 2001
Santa Clara Convention Center
San Jose, Calif.
Online Educa, November 28 - 30, 2001
Hotel Inter-Continental
Berlin, Germany
Award-Winning Corporate Universities, December 2 - 5, 2001
Disneyland Hotel
Anaheim, Calif.
E-Learning Executive Exchange, December 10 - 11, 2001
Orlando, Fla.
IQPC Exchange
TechKnowlege 2002, February 4 - 7, 2002
Las Vegas
ASTD
International Business Education & Technology Conference, February 14 - 19, 2002
Adam's Mark Hotel
Clearwater Beach, Fla.
Training 2002/Presentations 2002, February 18 - 20, 2002
Georgia World Congress Center
Atlanta
OnLine Learning 2002 Europe, March 5 - 6, 2002
London
ISPI 2002, April 21 - 25, 2002
Adam's Mark Hotel
Dallas, Texas U.S.A
Centra Summit, April 30 - May 3, 2002
Westin Copley Place Hotel
Boston, Mass.
World Education Market May 21 - 24, 2002
Liboa Congress Centre
Lisbon, Portugal
ASTD 2002 June 2 - 6, 2002
New Orleans
Hypertext '02 June 11th - 15th, 2002
University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
REPORTS, STUDIES, and GUIDELINES
Related Report:
Knowledge Management and Performance Centered Design
(EPSScentral Lead Story, 6 November 2001)
by Gary J. Dickelman, Editor
In his article Performance Support Engineering: Building Performance-Centered Web-Based Systems, Information Systems, and Knowledge Management Systems in the 21st Century, EPSS pioneer Barry Raybould says, "Only by having a performance-centered interface built on to the knowledge base is the knowledge rendered useful to achieving business goals." Since performance support is a confluence of disciplines, one should consult the knowledge management experts on Barry's opinion. Consider KM guru Yogesh Malhotra, who says (in Knowledge Management and Virtual Organizations) that there are three essential Knowledge Management myths:
Myth #1: KM can deliver the right information to the right people at the right timeMyth #2: KM systems can store human intelligence and experienceMyth #3: KM technologies can distribute human intelligenceMalhotra's context is business model innovation. How can you, for example, deliver the right information to the right people at the right time if the right information must be derived from here-and-now parameters that change daily? His point is that the content repositories and rules through which such "right" delivery allegedly takes place are couched in conventional wisdom and past successes - most of which will not yield good business results today . Further, "Dialog that surfaces meaning embedded in information is an intrinsic human property, not the property of the technology that facilitates the process." In other words, knowledge attributes are about human activities, not about information or technology. As Douglas Weidner - another KM expert - says, "Knowledge is what you do with information." (See The Case For Creative Abrasion.)
How are these KM myths reconciled? The answer lies in Barry Raybould's views on the role of a performance-centered interface to the knowledge base, and also within Gloria Gery's attributes and behaviors of performance-centered systems. Malhotra may be correct in his observation that you cannot get the right information to right person at the right time if the right information is not available or current information is irrelevant. But a performance-centered system can provide the right stimulus for what Malhotra calls "creative abrasion" and thus enable knowledge and performance.
An information processing model is all wrong if knowledge is the goal. We cannot simply deliver existing information from a database based on search criteria and expect business performance to happen. Instead, the right context has to be created whereby the decision-making process is brought to the performer, where decision-making tools are provided at the time of need, where examples of synthesis (i.e., past knowledge) are provided, and where human intelligence is brought to bear on the business problem at hand. Indeed, knowledge is information in action. Performance-centered systems maximize knowledge creation. It is the performance-centered interface - providing process support, content support, and embracing human attributes - that fosters creative abrasion and thus creates the equation human + information = knowledge.
PS Yogesh Malhotra has edited several books on this exciting subject, including:
In his words, "Having spent last 20 years or so in the design of technology-based systems, I believe that technology is the easier part of the KM equation... the more challenging parts are keeping technology, as well as the business processes and business models built upon it, aligned with the radically changing business environment. Important questions that most enlightened CEOs, CIOs and CFOs have been asking their delegates include: 'How are investments in new KM technologies justified?' 'Why our KM systems do not deliver the expected business performance outcomes?' 'What are the critical success factors necessary for technology based KM systems to deliver the expected business performance outcomes?' 'How can KM systems facilitate adaptability of business models and business processes to radical discontinuous change to prevent business failure?' This work in progress would hopefully help you carefully track these 'vital indicators' before, while, and after you implement the technology based KM systems to ensure that they do not get relegated to the heap of 'project failures' and 'missed targets' that often characterize the realm of information technology based KM systems implementation."
In addition to his 2000 PI article Performance Support Engineering Barry Raybould's views can be found in his workshops and books PS Engineering Key Concepts and PS Engineering Handbook. About the PS Engineering handbook:
The Performance Support Engineering Reference Handbook is a 350-page manual that describes in detail a state-of-the-art process and methodology for building knowledge management systems that capture and integrate corporate knowledge directly into the business systems people use to do their work. Written by Barry Raybould, a leading pioneer in performance-centered knowledge management systems, this manual captures over a decade of research and project experience and provides detailed techniques, process flow charts and tools to guide project teams through the methodology and build systems for “day one performance”. The Performance Support Engineering Reference Handbook is useful to anyone building e-business applications, web-based training, or any technology-based system to help improve performance in the workplace. Gloria Gery says this of the Performance Support Engineering Reference Handbook: “Finally…. an articulation of exactly what it takes to get performance and business results from software. Barry Raybould is really one of the only people who could have written this book due to his experience, perspective, and expertise. We should all be happy that he did.”