Analytics have taken root in functions other than HR and Learning, with widespread adoption of tools like Google Analytics that provide marketing professionals with key insights into which content is effective at driving desired outcomes. What is taking learning so long? Why have we not experienced our own analytics revolution that will unlock the knowledge we seek to improve our products, our relationships and our overall effectiveness?
There has been increasing demand to leverage learning data in order to inform organizations about talent readiness and to aid in decision making about investments needed for internal talent development as well as external hiring. This demand is helping to fuel the evolution of learning analytics, further driven by two key factors:
- An industry demand for change
- Technological advances
The unrest in the learning industry is based on two perceptions largely grounded in historical fact;
- HR departments have been slow adopters of data analytics.
- Formal training, which is measured quite regularly, only accounts for a small percentage of learning that actually impacts an individual skills development and on-the-job performance
Xyleme, a leader in standards-based learning content management solutions, is leveraging new learning standards and developing solutions for measuring training effectiveness to fill this void. By measuring learner interactions with content at the object level vs. the course level, new metrics will be available to provide insights into informal and social learning as well as formal training programs.
We surveyed training industry professionals to find out which new metrics and demographic data would allow them to continuously improve learning content and better measure learning effectiveness. This paper details the results of the survey and discusses some of the issues that the learning industry faces during this evolution toward meaningful analytics and reporting, as we reimagine measuring training effectiveness together. Special thanks to those that took the time to complete the survey.
