J u l y 2 1

Strategies and Techniques for Designers, Developers, and Managers of eLearning

A publication of

THIS WEEK — MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES

2003

High Value and Low Bandwidth:Crown Cork & Seal’s $3 MillionSavingsBY JACQUELINE D. BECK

One of the great advantages of e-Learning is its flex-

ibility. The designer and developer are not restricted

to a single delivery channel, so the solution they

create can fit the client organization’s needs, and not the

other way around. Here is a brief case study summarizing a

recent project with many challenges that could only have been

met by using a hybrid solution.

Crown Cork & Seal makes one out ofevery five beverage cans used in theworld and one out of every three foodcans used in North America and Europe.To ensure the health and safety of mil-lions of consumers — and to satisfy customers like Coca-Cola, Dole, andAnheiser-Busch — Crown is dedicated to manufacturing the highest quality products.

Crown invests heavily in employeetraining to support its quality manufactur-ing process. Every year, Crown trains15,000 people at more than 250 plantsaround the globe, usually in an instructor-led classroom setting. Unfortunately,

classroom-based training often coststens of thousands of dollars per day. Toreduce the cost of its employee-trainingprogram, Crown decided to replace cer-tain instructor-led courses with Web-based training applications, when thecontent would lend itself to this type offormat.

Transforming classroom instructioninto Web-based training, Crown decidedto first convert a course that instructsproduction line supervisors how to cali-brate and maintain the gauges used tomeasure product dimensions. The one-day instructor-led version of “Gauge

Continued on next page

W W W. E L E A R N I N G G U I L D . C O M

e-Learning projectscan be complex, evenwhen their scope issimple. Here is a first-person account ofone such project,involving MacromediaAuthorware, Shock-wave, and Fireworksto transition a class-room-based coursegiven only twice a year to a Web- and CD-ROM-based e-Learning offeringavailable 24/7 andmanaged with IBM’sMindspan-Learning-Space. Tips, tricks,and lessons learnedare shared here foryour benefit!

Capability Training” carried a price tag of$27,000 for an average size class of 20employees.

Getting the project started Paul Palumbo, Director of Training for

Crown, quickly realized that the companydid not have the in-house expertise todevelop the Web-based courseware. Afterconsidering a number of developmentfirms, Paul chose to partner with mycompany, Brookwood Media Arts. Thisdecision was based on our instructionaldesign background and our capabilitywith Macromedia development tools.Paul also asked us to provide training inAuthorware for eight of Crown’s trainersso that Crown could bring developmentin-house and have pre-built courses touse as templates.

An important reason for making sup-port for Macromedia a selection criterionwas that Crown had previously selectedIBM’s Mindspan LearningSpace as theirLearning Management System (LMS).This tool is AICC-compliant, rather thanSCORM-compliant, and it was importantto be able to track the courses throughthe LMS. (See Figure 1, below.) Author-ware is fully AICC compliant and providesseamless integration to MindspanLearningSpace.

As it turned out, the Macromedia con-nection was even more significant than

Paul originally expected. During the proj-ect, the development teams discoveredthat Crown’s content would need to beavailable for distribution on CD-ROM aswell as over the Web. Crown has 250plants worldwide, and only 140 of theseare in North America. Some locationshave Internet access, and some do not.This meant that distribution would haveto be a hybrid. In addition, some of thelocations with Internet access were onslow (28.8Kbps) dial-up connections.Authorware supports packaging contentfor CD and for the Web with the samefile, and it can be optimized for low band-width. As a result, every user wouldreceive the same content, we couldinclude text, visuals, sound, and anima-tion on every page, and we could keepthe page sizes between 15K and 25K.

In effect, Macromedia also became apartner on the project. We use Macro-media solutions because they make our jobs easier and our clients love theresults. As a “Training and AlliancePartner” for Macromedia, we have aclose relationship that we can leveragefor our clients.

Sidebar 1 on page 3 summarizes theCrown Cork & Seal project deliverables.

Project development We developed two courses as part of

this project. The first course, “Gauge

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The eLearning Developers’ Journal™ is design-ed to serve the industry as a catalyst for inno-vation and as a vehicle for the dissemination ofnew and practical strategies and techniques fore-Learning designers, developers and man-agers. The Journal is not intended to be thedefinitive authority. Rather, it is intended to be a medium through which e-Learning practi-tioners can share their knowledge, expertiseand experience with others for the general betterment of the industry.

As in any profession, there are many differ-ent perspectives about the best strategies,techniques and tools one can employ to accom-plish a specific objective. This Journal will sharethese different perspectives and does not posi-tion any one as “the right way,” but rather weposition each article as “one of the right ways”for accomplishing a goal. We assume thatreaders will evaluate the merits of each articleand use the ideas they contain in a mannerappropriate for their specific situation. Weencourage discussion and debate about articlesand provide an Online Discussion board foreach article.

The articles contained in the Journal are allwritten by people who are actively engaged inthis profession at one level or another — not by paid journalists or writers. Submissions arealways welcome at any time, as are sugges-tions for articles and future topics. To learnmore about how to submit articles and/orideas, please refer to the directions in the side-bar on page 6 or visit www.eLearningGuild.com.

Publisher David Holcombe

Editorial Director Heidi FiskEditor Bill Brandon

Copy Editor Charles Holcombe

Design Director Nancy Marland

The eLearning Guild™ Advisory BoardRuth Clark, Conrad Gottfredson, John Hartnett,

Bill Horton, Kevin Moore, Eric Parks, Brenda PfausMarc Rosenberg, Allison Rossett

Copyright 2003. The eLearning Developers’ Journal™.Compilation copyright by The eLearning Guild 2003. Allrights reserved. Please contact The eLearning Guild forreprint permission.

The eLearning Developers’ Journal is published weeklyby The eLearning Guild, 525 College Avenue, Suite215, Santa Rosa, CA 95404. Phone: 707.566.8990.The eLearning Guild is an operating unit of FocuszoneMedia, Inc., 1030 Beatrice Street, Eagan, MN 55121.

The Journal is included as part of Guild membership.To join the Guild go to www.eLearningGuild.com.

FIGURE 1 Report Card, an application developed for this project, provides feedback tothe student, tracks all assessment questions, and reports data to the LMS.

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Capability Training,” was based on theclassroom presentation, but was not aliteral conversion. (See Figure 2, below.)

I worked from a text manual andattended the instructor-led course taughton-site by an outside consultant.Because the consultant only presentedthis course once every six months, Ivideotaped the class. This gave me refer-ences to the specific content. In addi-tion, the Cork & Seal trainers providedme with a “goals and objectives” docu-ment. My intent was to build easy-to-understand lessons for the “low-end”students.

In addition to the “Gauge Calibration”course, we also developed a course onCrown Cork & Seal’s database programfor storing information about gauges. Icreated simulations of the software sostudents could see, hear, and use thesoftware within the learning modules justas they would the actual software. Bybuilding “useful interactions” with richmedia, we find that we can maximizeretention rates with self-paced learning.In our experience, students must engagein the program and make use of move-ment, sound, visuals and interaction tolearn the content and be successful withany type of distance learning endeavor.

Coordination and communicationare critical

It is important for readers to realizethat I am not a technical person. It was a big advantage to have the various sub-ject matter experts (SMEs) in the compa-ny break down the objectives into smallchunks for me. This ensured that thedeliverable would be “easy-to-under-stand,” as intended, and accurate.

We hosted an extranet site atBrookwood for the Crown Cork & Sealteam, so they could see our progress ona daily basis. As milestones and editswere updated, we would send an emailto Paul. His people could then go intothe course, review specific sections, andprovide detailed feedback for us byreturn email. As sections were signedoff, the Brookwood developers couldconstantly drive forward to a completedcourse.

As noted earlier, the Crown systemwas AICC-compliant. As a result, we didnot tag the content through their LMS(LearningSpace). This was not “ReusableLearning Object” (RLO) courseware.

However, we did create a library and clip-art CD for the post-training class. Thisallowed us to go over the content creat-ed in the 50+ subtopics and make sureeveryone was up to speed. All eight ofthe trainers who attended the Author-ware class after the project was complet-ed were sent a CD of the images,sounds, and animations. These eightpeople were going to be building follow-on content in-house, and communicationis critical for any re-usable elementseven if they are not, strictly speaking,RLOs.

Rich media enhances the learningexperience

Further to the comment above aboutthe importance of useful interactions, toenhance the online learning experience,my team and I used “rich-media” for allthe courses. It was my job to design simple illustrations, capture screenshots, build animations to simulate top-

ics, and use scanned images providedby Crown Cork & Seal to show a graphi-cal representation of each and everytopic for a more visual learning experi-ence. Narration added to every pageincreased retention rates.

The sound engineers were able toachieve excellent compression rates byusing Shockwave audio with the soundfiles. Originally, the sound track for the“Gauge Calibration” course included 79files and was over 50 megabytes; wewere able to compress and optimize thesounds down to 415K for all 79 files.(See Figure 3 on page 4.) This type ofcompression and optimization makes itpossible to stream sound to a 28.8Kmodem. Building rich media for slowbandwidths requires a lot of attention to detail as well as experience, and theproject plan must allow for this.

FIGURE 2 The “Gauge Capability Training” program was based on the classroom presentation.

SIDEBAR 1 Summary of project deliverables

• Development using Macromedia Authorware (AICC Compliant) for two courses

• Integration with Learning Management System (LMS): IBM Mindspan LearningSpace (AICC Compliant)

• On-site training for eight Crown Cork and Seal trainers in Macromedia Authorware

• Provide templates, models and Graphical User Interface (GUI) to speed develop-ment for trainers at Crown Cork & Seal

• Provide on-going consultation and a “mentoring” relationship to support the e-Learning initiative

Speeding downloads with streaming media

My concerns about download speedswere based on a specific client require-ment. Paul Palumbo had informed usthat Crown’s standard was a 56Kbpsmodem, and related his unhappy experi-ence in this regard with off-the-shelfcourses he had already purchased.Several Crown Cork & Seal manufactur-ing plants are located in remote areaswith minimal data communications infra-structures. We learned that, even thoughthe standard was 56Kbps, at least oneplant uses 28.8Kbps modems to con-nect to the Internet. As a result, it wasvery important that the online trainingcourses run smoothly even over sloweranalog modems.

Thanks to Macromedia Authorwareand Fireworks, we were able to make themodules very interesting and easy tounderstand using graphics, animation,narration, and interactivity. The best part

of all was the performance. On a 28.8Kconnection, we were still able to streamrich media, including narration, to eachpage of every subject.

Tracking and reporting Our contract required that we create

the courses under the AICC guidelines tocommunicate with AICC-compliant, IBMMindspan - LearningSpace. We insertedthe appropriate API calls, CMI functionsand variables, meta-tags, and other nec-essary code so the LMS can track thecourses and retrieve the scores from theshell of the custom content we created.(See Figure 4, below.) We also verifiedthat the courses communicated effec-tively with the LMS and that they adher-ed to the major guidelines from AICC.

As part of the turnover process aftertraining was completed, we providedongoing coaching and mentoring to theCrown trainers to ensure their success.We also produced templates, models

and job-aids to support their in-houseefforts. In this way, they knew exactlywhat would be needed to make com-pliant the courses they later developedin-house.

Summary and lessons learnedWhile my team as well as the trainers

at Crown Cork & Seal were pleased bythe results (see Sidebar 2 on page 5),no project ever goes perfectly. Therefore,I have a few experiences to share withyou.

First, one of the lessons we learnedwas to include many different eyes otherthan just the SME’s to review sections.With only a few people constantly review-ing the content, you tend to lose percep-tion and sometimes do not catch the lit-tle mistakes and typos.

Have someone who will be “engagedin the training” (that is, one of the peo-ple who will take the course) on thereview team. If the content is too high-level, this person’s feedback will be criti-cal for designing content that everyonewill be able to use.

Rich media was a huge part of thisproject, so it is not surprising that welearned — or were reminded daily of —a few critical practices. Rich mediaincludes sound, images, and animation.When the Web is less constrained, videowill also be included in rich media, but itis not there yet.

We always recommend use of GIFimages for visuals like screen shots,illustrations, or clip art, where a smallerpalette (fewer colors) is involved.Photographs contain thousands of colorsand require JPEG format, so that theimage file size can be greatly reduced,yet retain a high level of quality. If a pho-tographic image is saved in GIF format,

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FIGURE 3 It is important to achieve high levels of media file compression and opti-mization for low-bandwidth situations.

FIGURE 4 This Progress Report is part of the tracking and reporting capability built into the courses.

the palette will be averaged and theimage will look blurry. When your staff ismaking screen shots or preparing digitalphotos for use by the contractor, theymust appreciate the importance of theseguidelines when they choose the file for-mat for saving. I realize this is basic tomost readers of this article, but it maybe news to many on your team.

Sound is also critical to a richer pro-gram. Using tools like Shockwave audio(included with Macromedia Authorware)allows us to compress WAV files up to95% and still retain good quality. This iscritical. If you have a 15-second narra-

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SIDEBAR 2 Project outcomes

• $3 million saved yearly from reduced training costs

• More people are taking more training classes for less money

• Authorware courseware integration with the company’s LMS provides increasedtesting, scoring, reporting and tracking capabilities so Crown Cork & Seal can bet-ter manage their corporate training functions and their employees performance

• By training the in-house team to use Authorware, Crown Cork & Seal now benefitsfrom a condensed development schedule and reduced maintenance costs

• Consistency by reusing sound files and clipart created with Authorware and utiliz-ing a standard, easy-to-use navigational system

The Essential Conference for e-Learning Designers,Developers, and Managers

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The program is divided into three core

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prised of volunteer Guild Members, has identified the

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MANAGEMENT / t e c h n i q u e s

tion, the WAV file may be over 300K insize. This is not an option for the Web.Shockwave will reduce that file to 5K,allowing you to use sound in low band-width situations.

Animation is another challenge. UsingAuthorware’s MOTION ICON will allowyou to move up, down, left, and right onthe screen, and requires only 200 to500 bytes to execute the movement.This is very important if you must buildanimated screen movies under 10K insize, including software movement with amouse, and all for a 28.8Kbps modemconnection. We were able, in this proj-ect, to include an 8K GIF image, a 5Ksound file, three separate animations

plus text and still keep the page under20K.

One reason that our courses in thisproject performed well is that we werestingy about file size and worked hard atcompression and optimization. Any ven-dor and instructional designer you bringin for your projects should understandrich media and slow bandwidth limita-tions, so that you get a program that performs with no delays on the low-endsystems in your organization.

Finally, I would like to leave you withone thought. In the design process, it isthe instructional designer that drives thebudget for your course. The designermust understand these elements inorder to design an effective course, no6

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This publication is by the people, for the people.That means it’s written by YOU the readers and members of The eLearning Guild!

We encourage you to submit articles for publication in the Journal.

Even if you have not been published before, we encourage you to submit a query

if you have a great idea, technique, case study or practice to share with your peers

in the e-Learning community. If your topic idea for an article is selected by the edi-

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By sharing your expertise with the readers of the Journal, you not only add to the

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How to Submit a Query

If you have an idea for an article, send a plain-text email to our editor,

Bill Brandon, at bill@eLearningGuild.com, with the following information in the body

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Refer to www.eLearningGuild.com for more details.

Get It Published in...

Do you have an interesting story to tell?

... include manydifferent eyes other than

the SME’s to review sec-

tions. With only a few

people constantly review-

ing the content, you tend

to lose the perception

and sometimes do not

catch the little mistakes

and typos.

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matter what software you choose. With-out that understanding, you will get acourse that has features you cannotafford, and one that will not play through-out your enterprise without delays.

AUTHOR CONTACTJacqueline D. Beck is the Vice

President, E-Learning at BrookwoodMedia Arts, just outside Philadelphia.Jacquie has a Master’s Degree inInstructional Technology and has beencreating interactive learning programssince 1988. Jacquie specializes ininstructional design, course developmentand project management for e-Learning.Some of her clients include Ford MotorCompany, Sony Music, The FBI Academy,Air Products, Wyeth, Crown Cork & Seal,BMW, Mercedes Benz, U.S. Navy, andthe U.S. Coast Guard. Jacquie can bereached at 215.643.8580, ext. 104 orby email at jacquie@brookwood.com.

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