Fusion Productions - Integrating Meetings, Learning & Technology

Organization

The American Counseling Association (ACA) is a not-for-profit professional and educational organization with well over 50,000 members that is dedicated to the growth and enhancement of the counseling profession. By providing leadership training, publications and continuing education opportunities, ACA helps counseling professionals develop their skills and expand their knowledge base.

Challenge

Most states require counselors to take certified continuing education courses on a regular basis to maintain their professional licenses. Continuing education is a major aspect of ACA's mission. Thus, the organization needs a cost-effective method of delivering online education for CEUs (Continuing Education Units) that reaches the broadest possible professional base. Travel costs and logistics have become problematic for many in the counseling field. In addition, because so many counseling professionals turn to ACA for educational offerings, the organization needs an efficient, robust means of tracking course registrants, providing certificates of completion to those passing course exams and confirming the number of certified education units each registrant has acquired.

Solution

Select a variety of delivery formats with timely topics targeted to the broadest membership base. ACA chose Fusion to design its online education initiative and make it available 24/7 over the Internet via a Fusion-hosted Learning Management System at affordable cost. To help ensure a successful online education program, ACA:

• Provides a variety of online educational formats with testing, based on professional need and popularity as evidenced live at ACA conferences and through other published works.
• Formats of delivery include full-scale courses, selected journal articles from the Journal of Counseling and Development, and selected chapters from various counseling publications. The number of continuing education credits varies, depending on the length/format of the course.
• Leverages the expertise and enthusiasm of ACA members who volunteer to serve as subject matter experts in the creation longer courses.
• Engages Fusion's expert instructional designers to organize content for longer courses into logical, time-sensitive segments that engage the self-paced, online learner. These courses provide varied interactive exercises that reinforce key concepts including links to additional information that enhances course content, and significantly expand the learning experience above that which can take place within the finite time period of a classroom or workshop.
• Provides CEU credit for the “hottest” topics in the field quickly and efficiently.
• Promotes the research of its members’ publications through the selection of chapters from a variety of counseling publications.

Implement the online course formats within a Fusion-hosted Learning Management System to:

• Track all registrant data, from initial sign-up to testing to certificate qualification, as well as the history of certification credits earned online. This has significantly reduced the ACA staff time needed for these chores.
• Allow busy professionals to access course material within their own time frames.
• Retain an overall ACA "look and feel" to all courses.
• Allow ACA the flexibility to vary features, such as discussion boards and chat, to suit course content and learning objectives.

Broadcast course availability via email to all association members:

• Market course content well in advance of release date.
• Emphasize benefits of using various online format deliveries.
• Provide links to registration and fee information upfront.

Results

With the combined attention to course topic selection; variety of educational formats; Fusion’s engaging instructional design; ease of online delivery via the Learning Management System; and an easy, effective marketing strategy, ACA and Fusion together have created a very successful revenue stream for ACA that appeals to a variety of learners.

David Kaplan PhD, ACA’s Chief Professional Officer, sums it up best, “ACA has had an absolutely wonderful experience with Fusion. Our online continuing education courses are seamless, with members being able to choose their course, pay for it, read and print out the course, take the test, and print out the CE certificate from their home computer in real time 24/7 without a human being having to do anything. We love it and our members love it!”

Best Practices

What are the important concepts to glean from this case study?

• To ensure you are providing online courses that are really needed in the field, use member feedback and live workshop popularity statistics to help make informed course offering decisions.
• Leverage publications to provide the hottest topics for “quick educational hits.”
• Promote the sales of publications by offering selected chapters of various publications for CEUs.
• Use a Learning Management System to save staff time, gather student profile information, and maintain accurate records.
• Enthusiastic subject matter experts working with professional instructional designers ensure robust, content-rich, engaging, and effective online courses.
• An effective marketing campaign doesn't need to break the bank. ACA created highly effective marketing material sent by email to its entire membership base at very little cost.