Instructional DesignⅡ

The Meaning of Specifications

The template you are about to use is one that the lecturer (Kitamura) actually used both when receiving orders for e-learning and training and when placing orders. The lecturer's former employer had two positions: one as an education service provider that received orders for training from companies within the Tokio Marine & Nichido Group, and the other as a contact point for orders from outside the Group.

When receiving orders in the former capacity, meetings with clients were conducted by filling out these specification sheets. I then excerpted the specifications, presented them to the client, obtained approval after discussions and revisions, and submitted them as attachments to the purchase order.

On the other hand, when I placed an order in the latter capacity, I also filled out the specifications to some extent before going to the meeting with the partner e-learning vendor or education service provider. In other words, I also used it as a so-called RFP (Request For Proposal).

Usually, users are not able to write RFPs for e-learning and training programs (unless you are the user, of course). This is because most of the time, users are not able to clarify what they need and what the given conditions are. Therefore, it is important for the client to ask, "Isn't this what you want to do? "Isn't there a restriction like this? It is important to show and confirm the proposal, and finally approve and share it. In practice, the party receiving the order or receiving the consultation is expected to fill in the items in the specification, interview the customer, and clarify the customer's needs and conditions, as well as the problems and risks of the project (possibility of cost overruns, schedule delays, etc.) together with the customer.

In this way, it is better to think of the "specification document" as playing an important role not only in organizing and summarizing the specifications, but also in clarifying the needs, conditions, and risks.

Take care of exits, entrances, and evaluations.

The template includes one-point advice for each item, so please refer to it as you write. In this section, I will explain the most important points when placing orders for e-learning and training. It is "exit, entry, and evaluation.

As you have already learned in Instructional Design I and Introduction to e-Learning, these are the most important aspects of the design. At the same time, they are extremely important and must be paid attention to in the business of e-learning and education.

In general, customers have higher expectations of educational activities. In extreme cases, there is a risk that they may even think that "all the problems in the company will be solved by this e-learning" or "all the employees will be able to achieve great results by this training. Of course, it would be nice if such things could be provided, but in reality, it is almost always impossible.

Therefore, it is important for business to determine what constitutes success and to clarify (limit) responsibility, for example, "What we are proposing is training or e-learning that can achieve this level of success under these conditions (for this type of target audience).

As for the exit (learning goal), it is necessary to confirm that "it would be nice if you could do this" and to clarify what the customer must do after the training or e-learning if solving the customer's problem or accomplishing the task is not equal to the exit.

For the entrance (target audience), it is necessary to clarify the prerequisite knowledge and work experience required for the course, and determine what measures will be taken to prevent those who do not meet these requirements from taking the course, and what will be done if those who do not meet these requirements take the course (e.g., allowing dropouts).

In terms of evaluation, you need to determine what constitutes success (or completion) of the training or e-learning, and the methods and criteria for evaluation (e.g., post-test scores, completion of practical exercises during the training, etc.).

The reason for defining these items is that when the training or e-learning is completed, the provider needs to show that they have fulfilled their responsibilities, and that they have contributed to the solution of the problem or accomplishment of the task, or that they are not the cause of the failure. This will create continuity in the business. If there is any ambiguity in these, it may lead to customer complaints or problems in the worst case.

Therefore, it is extremely important to define the exit, entry, and evaluation points with the customer in terms of business. In my experience, this part of the meeting takes 30-50% of the time and effort.

Specification documents evolve.

As mentioned above, the template that you will be using this time is the one that the instructor (Kitamura) actually uses. However, this is not necessarily the best one. Normally, you will not be asked to go into this much detail. And the instructor himself makes changes to the template every time he receives an order or develops an e-learning or training program.

You may have your own items and writing style. Please use this template and evolve the specification form in your own way.

This time, please fill in the items in the template and add items that you think are necessary, and leave the deletion of items for another time.

About Sample Cases

The following is a sample specification document for a sample case. You may feel that there are too many items, but these items will be taken into consideration when actually planning and designing e-learning and training. Please use this as a reference for your description.
Please note that this is a "sample", not a "model", so please be critical of the content of the descriptions.

Session10 Course Specifications（PDF：265KB）