The content is software training - how to teach call center reps how to use the company's proprietary software programs.

It's a bit off topic, but this link uses Ameritech as an example, and might be along the lines of what you're thinking of implementing:

http://www.kaleidolearning.com/Effective%20E-learning.pdf

In my experience, well developed software simulations offer a great deal of learning value. Our experience in developing and delivering these simulations is that task-based learning works far better than trying to simulate/teach everything about an application. The simulations can step users through specific processes, allow them to practice those processes and evaluate their understanding.

We've done this successfully for custom call center applications and other web-based apps.

We've used a variety of products to develop simulations and have found Adobe Captivate to be the best for our purposes. Well worth a closer look. We found the combination of Captivate and Lectora to work well for nearly all our on-line learning efforts.

It can be argued that updating simulations takes a long time and is expensive... I agree with that thinking. Simulations may not make sense for you if the software is still in development or prone to constant changes.

Good luck with your efforts!

Alex.

Actually, I am working with a call center currently, and the bottom line we determined was this:

Simulations were great to cover a lot of ground- esp. the basics (login, orient folks to the program, etc...), but the users really need mentoring to "get it" and obtain a level of proficiency.

That said, the outcome? Mentors spent less time teaching basic skills ($10/hour work) than just mentoring where it was really needed ($50/hour work). Since these mentors were also call center employees (top performers- sales), this meant much more opportunity for revenue generation than their prior design.

I think using simulation to train and assess software is the only way to do it when trying to deploy to a large number of students/users.

This website ( http://www.officetestprep.com ) has an interactive Office 2007 simulation with self-paced courses.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: TJW,