Hello - my current organization is looking to restructure its learning and development org. with regard to instructional design and e-laerning roles. Currently, we have instructional designers who work with the ADDIE process, separate e-learning specialists who create WBTs (and we vendor this out at times too), and up until now, separate desktop publishers who created materials for ILTs. Does your organization have similar positions? If you have instructional designers, do they do all creation of materials/content for both e-learning and instructor-led courses? Any insight would be greatly appreciated, as we're looking for best practices and trends in this area. Thank you!

My instructional designers do all aspects of instructional design for our organization's curriculum-- elearning, instructor led in-person, instructor led virtual classroom, and all the components (workbooks, leader guides tests, job aids, classroom materials/activities, graphics, etc).

With adequate professional development and support, someone with an instructional design background should be able to do both the design and development of basic eLearning. The tools commonly used to develop eLearning these days (e.g., Captivate, Articulate) are easy enough to use that they do not require a technical background. However, while these tools are easy to use, they are difficult to use WELL. An instructional designer who is new to eLearning development needs to learn not only how to use the tools, but also how to design online materials in a way that facilitates learning. I find Richard Mayer's Multimedia Learning Principles to be a good starting point on this topic (http://www.amazon.com/Multimedia-Learning-Richard-E-Mayer/dp/0521787491).

Also, keep in mind that in some cases the most effective online learning solution will not be a basic eLearning course but something such as a game or simulation that may require specialized skills to develop. If you don't have in-house programmers, graphic designers, etc., you can have your instructional designers storyboard these for outside vendors to develop.

One more hint: If you are going to have multiple people developing eLearning, especially if they do not have a graphics background, standards are key. Have someone who does have a graphic design background develop templates for various types of screens so that your eLearning will have a consistent, professional, and instructionally-sound look and feel.

I hope that helps :-)

Many thanks to you both for your replies - I greatly appreciate the insight!

My organization has a Learning Technologies and Design "LTAD" department within the Training and Development umbrella. The LTAD department consists of 2 eLearning Developers, 1 Instructional Designer, 1 Web Programer, and 1 System Administrator.

• The Instructional Designer partners with the eLearning Developers and Subject Matter Experts to design effective online training, and then the developers build the course. The Instructional Designer also partners with the trainers in T&D to create ILT courses.
  
  
• The eLearning Developers design and create online courses to be published on the company's corporate website.
  
  
• The Web Developer makes enhancements to the corporate University website.
  
  
• The System Administrator maintains data integrity and generates reports for the corporate University website.
  

I hope this helps.