SkillSoft Maryland Libraries

What we have so far

2011-03-21T08:23:00.000-07:00

Great work by those who are participating! The total course completions so far are almost as high as what we ended with last year. We have less people participating this year, so please continue to share the word about SkillSoft - there are still 5 months left so it is not too late to join!

Today, with still 5 months left to go -
Total Users: 777
Total Completions: 1636
Distinct Courses Accessed: 526
Total SkillSim Accesses: 33

Compared to our ending statistics for last year, which were -
Total Users: 1,013
Total Completions: 1,686

Liaisons - Please Share Your Success

2010-09-08T08:07:00.001-07:00

Liaisons - Obviously your SkillSoft rollout was very successful, based on statistics. Please take 5 minutes to answer these questions so we can all learn about what you did. Please reply via Comment - just comment to this blog post!
1. What did you do to market SkillSoft in your library system?
2. What did you do to help participants get started? Complete courses?
3. Did you blend the content from the SkillSoft courses with any other training or support?
4. Please share any other thoughts/comments about the SkillSoft project

Thank you!

Final Statistics - 2009/2010

2010-09-08T07:45:00.000-07:00

Total Users: 1,013
Total Completions: 1,686
Distinct courses accessed: 705

All there is to say is WOW!!!!! This was our first year where SkillSoft was open to all Maryland public library staff and certainly many took advantage!

Comparison to prior years with limited seats:
Last year (2008/2009):
344 users
1,091 completions

Year before (2007/2008):
233 users
673 completions

1,023 course competions so far!

2010-06-08T13:50:00.000-07:00

Since the project began in September 2009 until today, we've had:
702 learners completed 1,023 courses
Keep up the great work! You still have the summer to work on courses - project ends August 31. Also, please don't forget to evaluate your course by clicking on "Evaluate" before you click on "Play" to finish it.

IT course that doesn't score correctly

2010-03-11T07:26:00.000-08:00

Someone has reported that the "Introduction to Information Security" course does not score the first module correctly. Staff development coordinators can decide how to best handle CE credit for this course. This problem has been reported to SkillSoft, but probably won't be resolved anytime soon.

SkillSoft contract will be renewed

2010-02-22T07:18:00.000-08:00

The SkillSoft contract will be renewed. The new contract will begin in early September 2010 and run through August 31, 2011. What does this mean to you? You can continue using it just the same as this year. Learners should still complete their courses by August 31, 2010 but then can continue to use their SkillSoft accounts starting in mid-September.

This project was made possible with funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Maryland State Department of Education, Division of Library Development & Services.

1,834 courses completed!

2010-02-18T07:14:00.000-08:00

805 users have completed 1,834 courses so far - wow!

Some holiday statistics

2009-12-23T14:38:00.000-08:00

As of December 23, 2009:
Total Course Accesses: Distinct Courses Accessed: 373; Total Users: 463; Total Completions: 376

Off to a good start!

2009-12-07T13:06:00.000-08:00

We began our newest SkillSoft project at the beginning of September. This year, all staff working in Maryland public libraries can access SkillSoft. Orientations to the SkillSoft project are being provided by a liaison in each library system. Since most of us are seeing our first snow fall, it seems a good time to look at our statistics:

Distinct Courses Accessed: 352
Total Users: 433
Total Completions: 324

Last year, we finished in August with 344 users completing 1091 courses. We're off to a good start here and we have until August 31, 2010 to finish. Let's hope that our numbers countinue to increase.

Final Statistics - 2008/2009

2009-09-04T07:46:00.000-07:00

Wow! Here's the final statistics for this past year (September 2008 to August 2009). You have certainly met grant requirements again! Participation and course completions continued to climb (the prior year had 673 course completions from 233 users). Great job.

REPORT SUMMARY
Total Course Accesses: 1528
Distinct Courses Accessed: 400
Total Users: 344
Total Completions: 1091
Total Training Time: 163 days, 08:01:09

Share Your Success

2009-06-26T10:59:00.000-07:00

Please share how you've been using what you've learned in the SkillSoft courses by commenting to this post. The information will be used to judge project success plus for grant reporting. Sometimes you may find that you don't really remember exactly what you've learned, but you feel more comfortable with it because you know something about it. You may know enough now to be able to look something up should you ever need it. That's great and we consider that a success too! If you can, please share how what you have learned benefits library customers. Thank you so much for your time.

886 Course Completions and still more time

2009-06-26T04:36:00.000-07:00

We're up to 886 course completions! Keep up the good work and keep going! You still have until August 31 to complete courses. Here's the stats:

Desktop - 314 completions, 121 users logged in out of 179 seats provided
IT Pro - 59 completions, 24 users logged in out of 34 seats provided
Business - 513 completions, 196 users logged in out of 245 seats provided

TOTAL - 886 completions, 328 users, 458 seats. Of course, this has been a very busy year for public libraries and there is always attrition. (Note: If you are wondering why the Desktop completions went down a little from last month, there's no explaining. Sometimes the summary statistic reports from SkillSoft are a little off. What's important is that overall the numbers are going up).

838 Course Completions but some seats empty

2009-05-06T07:28:00.000-07:00

We're up to 838 course completions! However, there could be some folks out there who have not even logged in for the first time yet, so now may be a good time to run your own Custom Report to see if all of the people who signed up are using SkillSoft. Anyways, truly, we are doing great so keep going!

Desktop - 336 completions, 128 users logged in out of 179 seats provided
Business - 449 completions, 176 users logged in out of 245 seats provided
IT Pro - 53 completions, 24 users logged in out of 34 seats provided
TOTAL - 838 completions, 328 users, 458 seats

Of course, this has been a very busy year for public libraries and there is always attrition. It would still be helpful if you can run your report and check, though.

No SkillSoft Access on March 14

2009-02-19T06:53:00.000-08:00

This maintenance has been scheduled for your hosting instance on Saturday, March 14, 2009, starting at 6:00 AM EST and will be completed no later than 6:00 PM EST. During this time the SkillPort will not be available.

455 course completions and it's still cold

2009-02-06T12:24:00.001-08:00

Okay, we're up to 455 course completions. It's still cold - and winter is often a great time to do online learning. So don't forget your SkillSoft!

329 course completions so far

2008-12-04T08:58:00.000-08:00

We have had 329 course completions so far! SkillSoft Liaisons report that everything is going really well. Here's the breakdown:

27 course completions - IT Professional
106 course completions - IT Desktop
196 course completions - Business

There are some folks who have not logged in yet. Now is a great time to remind people about this project. Winter is often the best time to work on these courses.

Since this project is grant funded, there are certain expectations that everyone must meet:

IT users (Professional and Desktop) must complete at least 6 hours of content. They must complete at least one course, or can complete multiple courses that add up to at least the 6 hours.
Business users must complete at least 2 courses. It doesn't matter how long the courses are as long as they complete 2.
To complete a course, they must pass all assessments with an average total score of at least 75%.

New Project Began on September 1

2008-10-16T11:56:00.000-07:00

September 1 marked the beginning of our next year of SkillSoft. Here's where we are:

The FY2008 project ended with over 673 course completions from 233 users. 529 of these were computer courses, the rest were business courses used for the online supervisors curriculum review. 393 different courses were accessed during this past year.
This new FY2009 project begins with 458 participants (245 business, 179 IT desktop, 34 IT professional). Liaisons are running kickoff sessions and offering blended classroom training using the newly developed course guides.
Courses are available until August 30, 2009.

Liaison conference calls will be scheduled soon so we can share what we're learning about the rollout including best practices. Meanwhile, here's a quick glimpse of our statistics to date:

Total Course Accesses: 338
Distinct Courses Accessed: 135
Total Users: 185
Total Completions: 93

Summary of Evaluations

2008-09-12T11:56:00.001-07:00

Thank you to those who completed course evaluations. Your feedback is crucial for grant reporting and greatly helps to make future procurement decisions. Overall, feedback about the courses was better than expected considering these are basically web tutorials with no instructor feedback (except for the SkillSoft online mentoring available to those taking some of the MS Office courses). Most everybody reported "Agree" or "Strongly Agree" on the questions with very few (as in like 2) reporting "Disagree" or "Strongly Disagree" on anything! Even with our 2 disatisfactions, I can come to no conclusion because other people reported these courses as A OK.

We've had two people report that they took the courses and then did not remember what to do on the job. That's another whole level of evaluation that we have not asked you about and it's where "the rubber hits the road". My response is to please consider doing some kind of work-related project (like volunteer to type the minutes from a meeting using your newly acquired MS Word skills) or you will forget what you have learned. Also, count on forgetting some things, but plan on what you will do when you are asked to remember - like checking the Help menu, referencing a book or using notes. The idea here is that now you should at least feel more comfortable with the topic and can find out what you need to do to get the job done. Please feel free to comment here on any other thoughts or ideas you have about this.

Final Statistics - GREAT JOB!!

2008-09-12T11:40:00.000-07:00

We had 529 course completions and if you include those evaluating the Business Courses, the total is 673! Here's what we did:

Summary:
Total Course Accesses: 1223
Distinct Courses Accessed: 393
Total Users: 223
Total Completions: 673
Total Training Time: 86 days, 23:54:49

Breakdowns by Group:
Desktop:
163 seats assigned
133 users logged in
497 completions (that's an average of 3 courses completed per user - wow!)

IT Professional:
75 seats assigned
61 users logged in73 distinct courses used
100 completions (remember most of these courses are longer than Desktop courses)

Business Curriculum ("online supervisors") project where people reviewed courses:
64 seats assigned
55 users logged in 88 distinct courses used
144 completions (lots of curriculum review happened here)

411 course completions and 2 more weeks to go

2008-08-13T15:16:00.000-07:00

We've had 411 course completions to date - you're doing great! The project ends August 31, so you have about 2 weeks or so to finish up. Here's what we have:

Desktop:
163 seats assigned
124 users logged in
150 distinct courses used (yup, this many different course titles were accessed)
373 completions (that's an average of 3 courses completed per user - wow!)

IT Professional:
75 seats assigned
52 users logged in
73 distinct courses used
38 completions (so keep going, IT Pros!)

fyi - here's the statistics for the Business Curriculum ("online supervisors") project:
64 seats assigned
64 users logged in
88 distinct courses used
135 completions (the curriculum reviewers worked hard, don't you think?)

The correct completion number to date is 244

2008-05-10T08:35:00.000-07:00

So we have 244 IT courses completed so far, which is still very good, but let's keep checking in with those folks who have yet to do at least one course. Here's the breakdown:

IT Professional Seats:
Total Course Accesses: 85
Distinct Courses Accessed: 60
Total Users: 44
Total Completions: 19

IT Desktop Seats:
Total Course Accesses: 422
Distinct Courses Accessed: 111
Total Users: 115
Total Completions: 225

The reports also show me that the course access time for the IT Professional Seats is 0 minutes, which means these folks are not using the courses to access information. Hmmm ... these seats are expensive, so it looks like I need to do a survey and ask what's up.

Your Help with Evaluations

2008-05-07T11:18:00.000-07:00

First - 347 courses completed so far!!!! - Oops, that included business skills - Let me look at this again and add another post.

Next - I just tried to run a course evaluation report to gauge participant reactions to the various technology courses they are taking on SkillSoft. There are no evaluations to report! Is it really possible that nobody has completed an evaluation for any course? (Let me know if it’s me!) Can you possibly ask your participants to complete whatever evaluations that they can (no pressure)?

Please see "Evaluation Added" post below for info on how participants can access their evaluations.

154 course completions and it's still cold

2008-02-25T12:31:00.000-08:00

It's still cold so now may be a great time to check in with your SkillSoft Technology project participants. Remember that everyone should complete at least one course. I see that some have already completed more! Here's what the stats are saying as of now. Looks like low techs are beating high techs as of now. Remember that you can run activity reports if you want to know who needs encouragement.

SkillSoft End-User seats ("low techs")
168 people registered for a seat
106 people have accessed the SkillPort to use the courses
316 courses accessed
144 course completions

SkillSoft IT Professional seats ("high techs")
74 people registered for a seat
37 people have accessed the SkillPort
67 courses accessed
10 course completions

Evaluation Added

2007-12-14T17:19:00.000-08:00

An evaluation survey has been added to our SkillPort. It does not pop up when people finish their courses. Rather, it shows on the Course Information screen where learners click "Play". They'll now see a bar that says "Evaluate". Please let your learners know about this so we can glean their feedback!

So Far, So Good

2007-11-16T16:05:00.000-08:00

We had a 15 minute liaison meeting today to check in on how things are going with SkillSoft and it sounds like everything is going great. The orientation trainers and liaisons have had positive comments. There are some people at Anne Arundel County Public Library who have completed courses already! There are no big technical glitches and people have been able to login successfully.

Two points made at the meeting:
1. Nini will be adding an evaluation form within SkillSoft so it pops up when people finish their courses. When this is done, she will email liaisons.
2. Liaisons have been invited to this blog as blog authors. While we don't expect much blog activity (because things are going well), this is a place where liaisons can share questions and discoveries as we go along. Even if you aren't an author, you can comment should you feel so inclined. SkillSoft participants are welcome to comment also.

Welcome to the SkillSoft Project

2007-09-20T08:08:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the liaisons for helping with registration given such a short deadline. You have been invited to join this blog as a blog author. This way, we can share updates, questions, best practices, tips, and reminders throughout this project.

Remember to subscribe to the RSS feed.