Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Yes. Courses that are going to be integrated into a Learning Management System (LMS) often need to be SCORM compliant. Even if you aren’t using an LMS now, you may in the future. That is why we build every course to be compatible with SCORM. If you have an older LMS we can also make them AICC HACP compatible.

While we can program any custom interaction you'd like, we have a pre-built testing and quizing engine that supports the following question formats:

• Multiple choice, with either one or multiple correct answers
• True or false
• Fill-in-the-blank
• Categorization
• Drag-and-Drop sorting
• Matching

YES! In fact, we have a new format that is very innovative allowing seamless iPhone and computer integration. Launch it on your computer, and you will be presented with a Flash-based eLearning course including videos and interactive elements. Come back later and launch the same course on your iPhone, picking up right where you left off. But now you will be viewing iPhone compatible video and interactions. This allows a flexible experience for the learners who sometimes access courses from their computers and sometimes from their iPhone.

Yes, we can meet your bandwidth needs. We started making courses with audio and animations in 2000. Effective eLearning can be created so it works on low-bandwidth connections. Most courses we make today take advantage of the rich media that higher bandwidth connections provide, but our engine supports creating courses with both high- and low-bandwidth options for your content. So you can publish one course, and your users can access the same content no matter how they are connected.

The short answer is anywhere from one day to one year. Normal development time is between two to three months, and much of this is client review time. To better answer this question we first have to define what we mean by "developing a course." Full course development is accomplished in the four phases listed below. We can be involved in all four phases or just a couple of phases.

• Design / Style Guide Phase
  Best practice is that new projects have a design phase where instructional design needs and rules are set and the graphic design for the project is established. Usually this is a one-time event for a series of programs.
• Research and Instructional Design
  This covers understandig both the conent AND the learners. Structuring the messaging to help the intended audience gain the knowledge in the most effective way.Depending upon the complexity of the project, from one third to one half of the course budget can be allocated for this phase.
• Asset Organization and Creation
  All the assets needed for the course are created, organized, and approved during this third phase. This can include voice over, music, video, sound effects, illustrations, animations, stock art, custom photos, and more. There are often client review cycles throughout this phase depending upon the nature of the assets being created. Depending upon the complexity of the project, this phase will require one fourth to one third of the budget for the course. It should also be noted that this phase can be much more expensive if the program requires significant custom video, animation, or photography.
• Course Development
  In this phase all interactions are programmed and the assets are assembled into a product matching the approved storyboard. The final program also goes through quality assurance testing and approvals during this phase. Depending upon the complexity of the project, this phase will require one fourth to one third of the budget for the course.

The exception: Conversion Instead of Development

There are some cases where the second and third phases can be skipped or minimized. If the training already exists in another format, then the focus can be on purely converting the existing training to an online format. This greatly reduces the cost of creating the eLearning material and can yield very acceptable results.

Our experience is very broad. We have been honing our skills as media teammates for nearly ten years, and we have been fortunate to have had a wide range of clients, along with a very stable internal staff that has grown with us through the years. We have worked with all different types of material. Here are some examples of our industry experience:

• Medical Education, Public Health, and CME
  Clients include the American Heart Association, PsycheCME, NeuroscienceCME, Primedia, and many other smaller companies.
• Telecommunication and Hardware Marketing
  Clients include Samsung, Nortel, and many other smaller names. We have done everything from web-based product advertisement to tradeshow support to internal sales training.
• Industrial, Manufacturing, and Safety
  We have developed over 110 courses and converted many more for industrial training.
• Software Development Firms
  Everything from Intuit quickbooks training to custom training for internal corporate applications.
• Education and Public Schools
  Spanning several years, we have worked with Texas Education Agency’s Region 10 educational organization to develop numerous elementary, middle school, and high school programs. We've developed math, science, history, English, and safety programs. We have also worked on many educational and marketing media projects for museums and their targeted markets.
• Banking and Finance
  We have worked on dozens of programs for the mortgage and banking industry (everything from how to take a loan application over the phone to what to do in the event of a bank robbery).
• Food and Retail
  We have provided media services for HEB Foods for a number of years. The projects have spanned employee orientation to specialized skills training such as learning about over 300 different types of cheeses. We have developed video, games, templates, and tools all designed to support the unique work schedule of this type of environment.
• And More
  We have created eLearning for churches and religious organizations, social services, museums, consulting agencies, photography companies, the hotel and travel industry, and more.

A majority of our work is based on a time-and-materials arrangement, and some projects are done on a fixed-cost basis. However, depending on the training content, we will consider a shared profit arrangement.

This depends upon the material. There are many options. The more simple projects have pop-up questions and multiple choice activities. Other projects have drag and drop, problems solving, and scenerio driven interactions. The best way for us to answer this question is to invite you to view our many online samples.

We ensure that the programs we deliver operate on the target user platform and client's LMS. We have experience with PCs, Macs, iPhone (and other mobile environments). We also have worked with dozen's of different LMS systems. Compatibility is normally a non-issue.

We are flexible and can work our arrangement to match what your company prefers. But we here are our normal practices.

• Direct Access to Your Project Manager and Regular Meetings
  You will have direct access to the project manager for your project, along with regularly scheduled meetings.
• Online Review Area
  We provide a URL for your content as soon as we have work ready to show you. We host your courses and assets for you and your review team throughout the phases of development and review. Your project’s URL remains the same so you can bookmark it and check it at any time.
• Feedback and Progress Documented Online
  We facilitate clear communication, progress notation, and feedback using online documents. Both the client and the LBM team members can post and share the documented feedback and the progress of each course. Gone for good are the days of playing email shuffle with documents, and the ensuing frustration of having people edit different versions of the same file.

If you have a question about Left Brain Media, our solutions, or a particular challenge you face that we have not answered, we want to here from you! Contact us.