On Thursday 10 April 2008, Martin Bowman, Sales Director at Gael Ltd, hosted an online webinar to discuss Gael's new online training service, the Academy, which is due to go live at the end of April. The webinar was designed to introduce the Academy to our customer base and to answer any questions customers had. The webinar was fully subscribed and over 100 customers logged in to listen to Martin's presentation.
Part 2 covers the questions asked by webinar attendees and Martin’s answers.
Questions and Answers
Mike McQueen: Will the courses be accredited so the staff can gain Continued Professional Development (CPD) points?
Answer: That isn’t something we’ve pursued initially, but is part of our long term plans for the Academy.
Pete Ashmore: How much does it cost to join?
Answer: The costs are mentioned in the corresponding mind map. Contact us for more detailed information by emailing academy@gaelquality.com or phoning us on +44 (0) 1355 593 400.
Lucy Davis: What would our company’s login details be? How do we get them?
Answer: When you sign up to the Academy, we will supply you with Administrator access rights, which means you can set up your usernames (which are the users' email addresses), passwords, etc. There is a way of 'bulk' uploading your users' details using a spreadsheet, rather than filling in a single add user form over and over, which is mentioned later in this blog post.
Bill Kruchas: Will we be able to modify the content to suit our company's needs?
Answer: No the initial content and courses can not be modified. However should you want tailored courses for your company please contact a member of the sales team who will provide a customised scope and appropriate cost.
Andy Clark: Will we be able to export our current Q-Pulse user list and use this in the Academy?
Answer: Yes - if the data stored in Q-Pulse has the same data required by the Academy. There is no direct link between Q-Pulse and the Academy, but you can export data from Q-Pulse into a Comma Separated Value (CSV) spreadsheet and adjust it to meet the Academy's required fields. When uploading a CSV file containing details of the employees you'd like to add to the Academy, you need to supply the following information: Forename, Surname, Password (which you set initially), Job Title, Organisation, Post Code, G-Number (your organisation's G-Number), Email and Telephone, as seen in the example member upload file.
Pete Ashmore: Is it possible for certificates to be produced when courses are completed?
Answer: This is not something we’re doing at present, but we’ll take that on board as an enhancement request.
Doug McKenzie: As employers, can we track our employees’ progress?
Answer: As administrators, you can see which courses users have taken, see their pass marks, etc.
Diane Anderson: How compatible is the Academy with existing training administration systems?
Answer: This is a separate stand-alone system that we will host. You will access by browsing to the Academy website, therefore there is no integration with other systems.
Richard Anderson: Will passed courses be linked back to Q-Pulse?
Answer: Not at the initial launch of the Academy but it is an option we are considering for the future.
Carl Beer: Is it only admin that can track progress or can HR have the facility?
Answer: You can specify who you want to be administrators of the system, so in theory, you could make an HR person an administrator who can access people’s training records.
Jackie Murray: Can the course results be automatically updated to training records?
Answer: Not at the initial launch of the Academy but it is an option we are considering for the future.
Tom McMaster: Will Gael still be performing on-site training or will all Q-Pulse training be done via the Academy now?
Answer: No, we will not stop on-site training. Think of the Academy as an accompaniment to our on-site training which is aimed at training end-users, not training the “super users”.
Alison Kay: Is training available for all parts of the system i.e., audits?
Answer: At the initial launch, we will have courses for Documents, CA/PA and Administration, with other modules following soon after.
Pete Ashmore: What is the pass mark for assessment?
Answer: Quizzes consist of 2-5 questions. Users are allowed to get 1 question wrong and still pass – any more than 1 question wrong results in a fail.
Jackie Murray: Can the trainee take the same course a number of times before taking the test?
Answer: Yes – users can exit the course before the quiz is taken, therefore they can watch the course multiple times before attempting the quiz.
Richard Anderson: What is the best way to cope with customisation?
Answer: Initially, there will be no customisation but we are planning to offer a way of customising the Academy as an additional service.
Colin Johnston: Do you have training modules for different versions of Q-Pulse?
Answer: The courses will be for version 5, which includes all the versions of 5 such as 5.1, 5.2, etc. There will be no courses on Q-Pulse Version 4.
Malcolm Phillips: As an administrator, would I be able to specify which courses are accessible/relevant for end-users?
Answer: All courses are available to all users, however, you, as an administrator, can add courses to users training plans. Training plans are almost like a "shopping cart" on an e-commerce website - Academy users can select courses to add to their training plan, but don't have to take them right away. For example, you could log in and select 10 courses to add to your training plan. you could then take these whenever you want. It's just a quick way of organising courses in advance and for you to filter our courses that are not of interest to you.
Kathleen Sheehan: Do the test questions remain the same each time you log on to a module or are they set to change?
Answer: The questions are the same for each course and are don’t change.
Kevin Waldron: Is there training for use of the web interface side?
Answer: Yes, there will be training courses to cover the web interface in the future.
Pieter: Will users be locked out training if they fail?
Answer: No, no one will be locked out for failing courses. Users can retake courses as often as they like.
Kevin Waldron: can you print off course notes?
Answer: That’s not planned but it a good idea – we will take this into consideration for an enhancement to add in the future.
Jackie Murray: Can the training courses replace any internal training?
Answer: Yes - that’s the idea really. Gael as an organisation don’t do end-user training we usually only train “super users”. It’s typically the organisations we sell to who provide their own internal training. You can use the Academy as a tool to allow staff to train themselves.
Harry Hoodless: can you make courses be mandatory?
Answer: not initially, but that’s certainly an enhancement we’ll take on board and consider.
Carl Beer: Will there be training available for setting up managed lists and master lists?
Answer: Yes – we believe all the features of Q-Pulse will be covered in online training courses. All the training courses we deliver as an organisation will be split into online courses.
Susan McCarthy: Will all users need access to the Internet?
Answer: Yes, because the courses are streamed from our Academy website, users will need a computer with access to the internet to view them. Users also need a web browser such as Internet Explorer or Firefox and may also need to download a plug-in to view the videos.
Alison Kay: Could you issue the presentation via e-mail to discuss at management level before a decision is made on subscribing?
Answer: You can download the presentation and mind map from the Community downloads section. We could also help you with your business case for subscribing to the Academy.
Paul Broom: Can pre-paid training tokens be used for the Academy?
Answer: That’s something that has not been considered yet, we can discuss this privately and it shouldn’t be an issue.
Diane Anderson: Did you go over whether or not training progress can be reported. e.g. monthly, time spent vs. Success?
Answer: There will be a section where administrators can view all the courses taken be each user. There is not much beyond that in terms of stats, but you can see which users have taken which courses and how many attempts they took as well as pass marks.
Carl Beer: Can you let us know how to get it online?
Answer: There will be a website – www.gaelacademy.com – where users can log in and take courses. Administrators from each company will set up their company’s users.
Arlene Nicholson: Could more than one person go through a training programme at any one time?
Answer: Yes there’s no limit to how many people can access a course at any one time.
Colin Johnston: You mentioned a trial of the system, how does this work?
Answer: There will be an option on the website for a free trial. You will fill in your details and we will give you a temporary username and password for access to the Academy for 14 days. More details on the free trial will be available soon.
Arlene Nicholson: Is there a cost for a trial of the system?
Answer: No – the trial period is free of charge and gives you access to the Academy for 14 days. More details on the free trial will be available soon.
Various: If users have a restricted licence, can they access all training? Does access depend on how many Power Users you have? etc...
Answer: There’s no limit. If you buy the Academy, you can give access to as many users as you want. I’ll give you an example – if you sign up for the Academy and have 100 users, you (as your company’s Academy administrator) need to add those 100 people to the system. There will be an automated process for that. There is no limit to how many people you can add to the Academy. The pricing is based on how many users you have in your current Q-Pulse licence and is not related to how many people from your organisation use the Academy.
Nicky Lockey: If we up our user licence levels during the year, does the Academy charge just go up the following year?
Answer: The price that you pay for Academy will be for a given year. If the number of licences changes, that will not impact until you re-subscribe the following year.
Various: Can I download a copy of the presentation and mindmap?
Answer: The presentation and mind map are available in the Community downloads section.
We hope that sharing users' questions and our answers will be helpful to you if you are considering signing up for the Academy. If you have any further questions, you can make a post in the pre-release questions forum on our Community, email us at academy@gaelquality.com or call us on +44 (0) 1355 593 400.