Develop a content governance plan
here is a step in the design and development of learning that is often overlooked - which is to identify and install a content governance plan. Content governance is simply establishing a plan for how your learning content will be updated. A content governance plan is critical to keeping your learning relevant and in some cases, compliant with changes in your industry or business.
Reactive versus Proactive Governance
In any effective governance plan, there should be reactive and proactive ways to address changes to content. Think of the reactive approach as "defense" to address content updates, and the proactive is the "offense" play in content governance. Each of these approaches are explained further below.
Reactive Governance
Proactive Governance
What is Reactive Governance?
Reactive Governance is having a plan in place to capture updates to content as they occur. As changes take place, you or your clients capture the changes in some form of manual or digital tracker. This gives you the ability to document and log the changes based on a set of criteria, such as the type of change, urgency, extent of change, subject matter expertise needed, etc.
For example, if you have a new hire program, you want to have a tracker to log any learner input from evaluations. You will also want to have your internal business client's input on necessary changes through ongoing dialogue. If you have a shared tracker tool, then you will be able to gather and track changes "real-time". Depending on who makes changes to your learning content, you may want to also integrate an update request or deactivation process with your clients so it's clear on who, what, when and how to get changes made.
What is Proactive Governance?
Proactive governance is about using learning technology to support the content update process. Many Learning Management Systems (LMS) provide the ability to "tag" content for updates, or set expiration dates or "pull dates" on learning content. A quarterly pull gives you the opportunity to look ahead and ample time to get content in the hands of reviewers. Identification of expiration dates should be determined at implementation and then added to the LMS so that you know when the course or program requires review. Establish a process to pull reports of content up for review each quarter, and then provide the learning to subject-matter experts to evaluate it and either update or maintain the content.
If you are not sure about the current capabilities of your LMS, speak with your LMS administrator or provider about options for tagging content for review.
No Governance Plan?
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