The Client
National insurance company
The Challenge
This client’s mission is to migrate the self-study portion of their agent training to a secure online environment. By utilizing online training, the client is able to reduce the cost associated with agent training and increase the accountability of their training program.
The client wanted a Web site that would provide the training material to the agent in an easy-to-use and efficient manner. The client also needed a means to prevent the agent from continuing to the next training section without successfully fulfilling the requirements of the current section. Last, it was imperative that the training administrator did not need to have working knowledge of HTML/ASP/SQL.
The object was to:
- Develop an online content management and testing site
- Incorporate the ability for training materials to come from a variety of sources (HTML, Word, PowerPoint, PDF, MPEG)
- Provide the training administrator with a tool to administer the site without having HTML/ASP/SQL knowledge
- Ensure that all previous versions of training material and tests are archived for legal reasons
- Provide statistics that can be used to determine the effectiveness of the training material and the test questions
The Haverstick Approach
The scope of the project included all aspects of the software development life cycle—the collection of requirements, the designing of the solution, and the construction of the application. The client selected Microsoft technologies including Windows 2000 and SQL Server 2000. Consultants designed and implemented the necessary customizations to support the specific requirements.
The solution included the following modules:
- Agent training interface—This module contains the core user interface for the online training application. It only allows the agent to view the material for which the prerequisites have been fulfilled. As more prerequisites are met, more training material is presented. It incorporates such features as next and back buttons, bookmarks, and streaming audio/video.
- Training material creation—This module contains the interface for the training administrator to create the training material files. Through this interface, the training administrator is able to create ASP pages that record the agent, date and time, and page that is being viewed without the training administrator having a working knowledge of HTML/ASP/SQL. This module also managed the archiving of old training material.
- Test creation—This module contains the interface for the training administrator to create the test questions that ensure the agent has satisfied any pre-requisites. A test can have any number of questions and each test has a minimum percentage of correct answers needed to pass. The training administrator is able to choose between four types of questions—multiple choice (infinite number of possible answers), true/false, check all that apply (infinite number of possible answers), and user-supplied value. The training administrator is able to sequence the questions in the appropriate order and then supply the question and answer text. Once again, without programming knowledge, the training administrator is able to create tests that record the question, the agent’s answer (whether right or wrong for statistical reporting), and the date and time.
- Site administration—This module contains the interface for maintaining other aspects of the site. This included agents, which training materials the agents must successfully complete, and the amount of time the agent has to complete the training material.
- Reporting—This module contains the interface for the training administrator to monitor the site’s usage, the number of times a question has been answered correctly and incorrectly and by whom, and the current version of the content present on the site.
The Result
The client was delivered a functional online training Web site. The solution was delivered on time and within approved budget. The site was tested by one distribution of the insurance company and is now being launched into other distributions. Metrics were collected from the first distribution and modifications were made on the site for the next distributions. It should be noted that the training administrator, due to the flexibility of the site, was able to make all modifications without the help of Haverstick Consulting. |
