Avallain announces the first Avallain Author Certifications

Avallain is delighted to announce the first certifications awarded under the brand new Avallain Author Training & Certification Programme

Those recognised include dozens of independent freelance editors, writers and publishing professionals, along with the content team of Weblink Software, which becomes the first Avallain Author Certified Team. All trainees have completed an extensive six-hour self-study course and a certification module, which assesses both acquired knowledge and practical skills. Certified professionals and teams are able to demonstrate and promote their Avallain Author skills to the wider industry, opening up opportunities to work on the hundreds of projects delivered on Avallain Author each year by clients such as Oxford University Press, Pearson, Cambridge University Press, Santillana and Cengage.

Avallain Author has become the central digital content creation tool in the education industry. The new Training & Certification Programme ensures that content professionals — whether in-house or out-of-house — have an excellent foundation in the many capabilities of Avallain Author and are able to demonstrate their skills to colleagues, publishers and institutions. In addition, by certifying at least 5 team members and retaining their own Author licence, content service providers and publishers can now achieve Avallain Author Certified Team status. Weblink Software is the first to be recognised with a team certification.

“As a key provider of content creation services to the educational publishing industry, Weblink Software is delighted to become the very first Avallain Author Certified Team,” said Gavan Tanham, Chairman of Weblink Software. “Given the important role that Avallain Author plays in the industry,  our team’s certification will allow us to provide and promote our services more widely, and assure our clients that their digital projects are in excellent hands.”

Many of the first content professionals to become certified are English Language Teaching specialists and can be found via an accreditations search in the ELT Publishing Professionals directory, developed in collaboration with Avallain.    

Ignatz Heinz, President and Co-Founder of Avallain said: “We have always wanted to make our Avallain Author training available to all professionals and teams – in-house or out-of-house – and to provide certification so that they can demonstrate their capabilities. These first certifications offer our clients and their providers exciting new opportunities to work together in Avallain Author, secure in the knowledge that they have all the skills needed to create groundbreaking, powerful educational content. Congratulations to all!”  

Avallain is an award-winning Swiss EdTEch and eLearning solutions provider that works with leading premium brands worldwide. The company’s mission is to unlock human potential through innovative technology-enhanced education and to enable its clients to create highly interactive e-Learning content solutions. 

Weblink Software is a complete content service provider for the ELT industry, transforming print-based content for delivery in online platforms. Trusted by the biggest publishers and the first team to be certified by Avallain, Weblink provides a hassle-free and constructive workflow to create high-quality digital outcomes.

ELT Publishing Professionals is a dynamic online directory specialised in helping ELT and educational publishers hire freelancers with the right skills, experience and accreditations for their outsourced projects. ELTpp’s CPD programme includes input from Avallain, and together they have developed a filter for publishers to find Avallain-accredited freelancers.

Avallain announces the Avallain Author Training & Certification Programme

Avallain Author was created over 15 years ago with the intention of establishing the most powerful and flexible digital authoring tool available to educational content creators. Over the years, it has evolved to be the central technology used by the industry, benefitting from real-world-use with educational publishers throughout the world. 

Avallain Author now provides unrivalled support for diverse content formats, use-cases, workflows and modes of learning, resulting in more than 8.5 million interactive content items – all of them developed by our clients. The more it has been used by real content creators and deployed at scale, the more sophisticated Avallain Author has become.

An essential skillset for publishers, freelancers, and content service providers  

To keep pace with the many developments in Avallain Author, Avallain has evolved its customer support and training, ensuring that clients are able to make the best use of the tool and achieve truly unique, vibrant and impactful learning experiences. 

Given the many collaborations that happen in content creation, this training should be available to everyone, from in-house editorial staff, to authors, freelancers, and content service providers. And they should have a reliable and recognised way to demonstrate their Avallain Author knowledge and skills. 

Welcome to the Avallain Author Training and Certification Programme. 

This brand-new programme combines a 6-hour video-led training course and a 2-hour certification module. Everything is delivered on Avallain’s powerful learning platform, Avallain Magnet, meaning that the course can be completed in the trainee’s own time and on any device. It includes sandboxed access to Avallain Author itself, so that trainees can practise all they have learned and establish a lasting set of skills. 

Trainees and teams that complete the training and pass the final test receive a digital certificate and badge that can be easily displayed on profiles, directories, and websites. This ensures that Avallain Author and Avallain Magnet clients are able quickly to identify skilled Author professionals and companies to help with their content programmes.

Dozens of professionals and a number of content service providers are already on their way to becoming Avallain Author certified, and upcoming cohorts are already scheduled, with seats still available. 

Those interested in joining this unique programme can visit the registration page to find more information about how to get certified on one of the most powerful and popular authoring tools in the world.

6 Essential Steps to Creating an Online Course

Online courses help businesses and educational institutions make teaching and training more accessible for every kind of learner. But how do you create an effective one?

Online courses are made for a variety of reasons. People use them to learn new skills. Businesses use them to train their employees and provide certifications. Educational institutions use them to create new and engaging curriculum.

Because eLearning is so pervasive in today’s world, you might find yourself having to create an online course for the first time. That can be a daunting task, especially if you don’t have a background in education or instructional design. And it’s even tougher if you don’t have the right tool on your side for it.

We put together these essential steps to help instructors and trainers get on the right path.

6 Essential Steps to Creating an Online Course

 Creating an effective online course takes time and planning. Here’s how to do it.

#1. Pick Your Topic

 What’s your course going to be about?

There are a few ways you can go about answering these questions, but in general, you want to pick a topic that fits an organisational need and has enough information to warrant the creation of an entire course. You’ll also want to pick a topic that you’re passionate and knowledgeable about.

 Depending on your situation, and who you are creating the course for, ask yourself questions like…

  • Does this topic need an entire course or to be an activity within a course?
  • What skills do learners need to succeed?
  • Does it fill a gap in your curriculum?
  • Will learners benefit from this topic being an online course?

Questions like these will help guide your thinking as you go about the initial planning stages.

#2. Start with Learning Outcomes in Mind

Next, before you do anything else, you need to consider what the learning outcomes should be for this course.

  • What do you want your learners to get from it?
  • What value do you want to bring them?
  • What value does this course bring your organisation?

These are critical questions that help focus your content, narrow down your audience, and gives your online course a purpose.

For example, if you have a goal for your learners to become experts in a topic, then you will need to have expert-level content and modules to guide them to that ideal state.

This also ensures that the right learners are taking your course. You don’t want complete beginners taking an expert-level course and vice versa.

#3. Write Your Content

Now it’s time to start creating the course!

Start by creating an outline. This outline will act as your curriculum and your overall course structure. Make sure that you have enough lessons and activities outlined that will last the duration of the course. Give your topics a logical order, making sure each topic seamlessly transitions to the one after.

Then you can start filling in the blanks of your outline by either creating new content. Or if you have applicable content that already exists, feel free to repurpose that existing content. That can save you time and money.

When writing out your content make sure that it’s always focused on your learners and the learning outcomes you set out.

This can also be where you create your assignments, quizzes, and tests.

#4. Produce and Edit Your Content

 With the meat of your course content and structure finished, it’s time to gather and produce the multimedia elements of the course. With the right authoring software, it’s easy.

Gather all the assets you have, and if you find some gaps, then consider producing new elements like images and video. 

Find where each element fits in your course and consider your media mix. It’s best practice to keep content types varied. Add games and interactive activities that will grab your learners’ attention. Consider how those activities will be scored, whether it’s automatically or manually. These elements help your online course stand out, and they also drive engagement. So, get creative!

#5. Share Your Online Course

Now that the course is finalised, it’s time to send it out to your learners. There are a lot of eLearning software packages out there that can help you do this, but these days, a dedicated, all-in-one Learning Management System is the best way to get your courses to your learners. 

Through an LMS, you can easily publish, manage and distribute your courses, communicate with your learners, and offer immersive learning experiences to keep people engaged.

 #6. Track Metrics and Constantly Iterate

Last but certainly not least, you’ll want to track engagement metrics on your online course.

Track statistics like…

  • How many people complete the course
  • How long it took them to complete the course
  • How well they did on assessments and quizzes
  • How much of the content did the watch, listen to, or read

These metrics will show you where your course can improve. If people are tuning out in certain places, then you know where you can work to improve your course so that your learners or trainees achieve the desired learning outcome.

Conclusion

By taking the time to think through these steps, you’ll create an online course that fully covers a topic and serves the needs of your learners and your organisation. eLearning software gives you the tools to create beautiful and engaging online courses that get results.

Ready to create effective online courses? Avallain can help. Contact us today and tell us about your needs.