Fusion Productions - Integrating Meetings, Learning & Technology

Organization

The National Association of Boards of Examiners of Long-Term Care Administrators (NAB) is tasked to enhance the effectiveness of state boards that oversee long-term care administrators. The organization helps to ensure statutory and regulatory compliance and thus safeguard the health, safety, and welfare of the public.

NAB members are state licensing boards and agencies that license long-term care administrators.

Challenge

To help long-term care administrators prepare for licensing examinations, NAB has traditionally sold hard copy study guides accompanied by a CD-ROM with supplementary information and exercises. Typically, the material has been updated and republished every five years to coincide with when the licensing exam undergoes revisions.

Providing printed supplements and generating new CDs have proved cumbersome and costly. Moreover, the format didn't take advantage of the exponential growth of the World Wide Web as a source of up-to-date professional information. Additionally, with the old distribution method, NAB was unable to gather information about purchasers of the study guide, since a third party handled product shipping.

Solution

Offer a password-protected online study guide supplement as part of the hard copy study guide package.

• Users are required to fill out 8 information fields in order to take the practice tests. This information, along with the test results, is sent to a NAB database, allowing NAB to better understand its audience and to revise test items when necessary.
• The supplement mirrors the organization of the study guide itself for ease of use and offers links to more in-depth information for learners who wish to review specific content areas.
• An interactive glossary of current terminology related to long-term care can be customized for drilling on terms the user chooses, and can be set to randomize or alphabetize the terms and their definitions.
• Interactive video scenarios provide an opportunity for administrators to watch the unfolding of a potential problem they might encounter on the job, select from a number of courses of action, and then view the consequences of their selection.

Results

A web-based study guide supplement provides a far more robust learning experience than was possible even on a CD-ROM, and at a lower cost. NAB can make near-instantaneous corrections or updates to the materials at a fraction of the cost compared with creating new CDs. Because NAB has access to information about its audience and their test results, it will be able to design materials better suited to their needs in the future. Also, by drawing upon the information that users enter when they register for the course, the organization will be able to formulate more focused marketing campaigns.

Best Practices

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

• Significant savings can be achieved by moving from CD-ROM delivery to online delivery of information.
• By changing from CD to online as a means of electronic course distribution, organizations can minimize the risk of technological incompatibility or physical loss of material.
• Collecting user information electronically allows organizations to develop products that match the needs of their target audience and market them effectively.