Building a learning plan is not easy. There’s so much to consider: credit hours, regulatory body requirements, and nuances between jurisdictions are just a few things that Learning & Development leaders have to contend with when trying to build one. Not to mention finding content that’s actually engaging (often the hardest part!).
At LCvista, we believe that finding, purchasing, and using content that fits any learning plan can and should be simple. In this article, we’ll show you exactly how to find the content you need to make any learning plan compliant, engaging, and informative.
First, build a strategic learning plan
The most important thing to consider for any learning plan is whether it’s strategically aligned to your business. And yet, most firms are so eager to hit the ground running with building a learning plan that they throw strategy out the window entirely.
As we discussed in our recent webinar with Spiirall, many accounting firms repeat the same cycle when it comes to creating learning plans: once they identify a need for learning, they find or build a new class every time. Over time, the firm ends up amassing content without knowing if the courses they’re using are actually working.
If this is how your firm approaches learning plans, it’s time to reassess your process. It’s much more effective to view learning plan curation as a strategic process that, done thoughtfully, can:
- Communicate the investment your firm is making in employee development
- Create clarity around a team member’s career path
- Allow you to develop talent faster
- Establish a critical connection between the learning team and department
- Provide accountability (when you track your learners’ progress)
Learning and development teams should build learning plans collaboratively, with the help of stakeholders. This isn’t a difficult process, but it requires enthusiastic participation and time investment from all parties involved. We covered this process in depth during our webinar with Spiirall, but a brief breakdown of the steps involved is below:
- Brainstorm and crowdsource existing content from a wide range of sources
- Consolidate, unpack, and align the ideas gathered in the brainstorming stage
- Filter out any irrelevant or duplicate ideas
- Level and group the competencies
- Validate the framework you’ve built with stakeholder feedback or a testing phase
Once you go through this process, you should have a clear idea of the content you need to execute your learning plan successfully. Now it’s time to find it.
How Content Marketplace streamlines content sourcing
An important part of building strategic learning plans is identifying gaps in the content you currently have access to. Once you can see those gaps clearly, it’s just as important to find the right content that will align with the framework you’ve spent so much time and so many resources building.
Without the right tools, however, the process of finding, purchasing, and loading that content into your learning management system (LMS) can be very complex. Content Marketplace (CMP) streamlines that process and serves as a hub for all learning and compliance needs.
Here’s what the process actually looks like, step by step.
Step 1
Login and find the content library
If you’re assigned as a default administrator or a marketplace transaction admin, you’ll be able to sign into CMP and peruse the library. Once you’ve logged in, you can find the library by clicking “Browse Library” on the bottom left of the site, under the “Marketplace” heading.
Step 2
Use CMP's filter & search function to find the right content
Now it’s time to find the right content. The search filters within Content Marketplace have been calibrated to allow you to find exactly what you’re looking for. Let’s review each filter and how it can help you find the right content.
Vendor: This is the broadest filter you can apply to your search. If you already have familiarity with a certain vendor and their content, you may want to start here. For example, if you already know Spiirall produces great CAS content, you can select “Spiirall” as your vendor and quickly see each piece of content available.
Field of study: This filter allows you to see which content is available for any topic. Let’s say you’re looking for courses that specifically cover ethics training CPE requirements in your state. “Regulatory Ethics” is a Field of Study you can select to see any content that satisfies this requirement.
This filter can also help you find specific content that’s not a CPE requirement (like an HR-related training that is mandatory but not related to CPE credits). Every piece of applicable content is tied to a field of study, whether it’s CPE-related or not.
Credit: Of course, we all know that accounting professionals must complete a certain number of credit hours. The “credit” filter allows you to find content that satisfies the precise number of credit hours you’re looking for, and is a great additional filter to apply after Field of Study. If you know you need to add two credit hours of a certain CPE topic to an existing learning plan, you can find exactly that.
Jurisdiction: This filter allows you to find content that satisfies your jurisdiction credit requirements, whether that’s a certain certification (such as CFE, or Certified Fraud Examiner) or a regulatory body (like California). Using this filter allows you to be crystal clear that you’re finding content that’s compliant for the requirements of any jurisdiction.
Requirement: This filter allows you to further drill down any parameters you’ve already applied. The list you see will look different depending on the filters you’ve selected within the Field of Study and Jurisdiction categories. For example, if you selected California as your jurisdiction and Regulatory Ethics as your Field of Study, you’ll only see CPE requirement filter options for Ethics in California when you expand this list.
Qualifications: Finally, this filter allows you to narrow down your search for content in ways that are industry-specific, or are specific requirements your CPAs have to meet that aren’t specified in the jurisdiction-specific requirements.
Certain types of courses are required for the professional to complete, but are not a requirement of the CPA license. This field allows you to filter more broadly outside of CPA requirements. For example, we’re seeing more HR-related courses that are required, but technically non-CPE.
Your final list of available content once you’ve applied all applicable filters will be precisely tailored to what your learning plan needs.
Step 3
Select content from your search results
Once you’ve filtered out the right content for your learning plan requirements, you can click into each available course to learn more about it. For each course, you’ll be able to see a course summary and objective, the course level, any relevant Fields of Study, and Credit hours.
When you’ve found a piece of content that best fits your learning plan, you can add it to your cart.
Step 4
Purchase your content
There are a few different ways to purchase content within CMP.
One option is to add an individual program or individual seats directly to your cart from any course’s “About” page.
You can also add one—or several—courses to your cart from the Search Results page. From the table view, you can bulk add a number of courses you’d like to purchase and specify the number of seats you need.
From here, the checkout process is quick and easy. You can verify your purchases within your Shopping Cart and complete the transaction like any other online purchase.
Step 5
Access your content post-purchase
Once you’ve received a purchase confirmation, the content you purchased will be loaded into your account immediately. In the left navigation of Content Marketplace, you can click on “Manage Training” (under “Programs”) to view your purchases.
Within this page, you can preview your content, enroll users, add the content to any learning plan with just a couple of clicks.
Content Marketplace is the learning plan tool you need
Building a learning plan that’s compliant, engaging, and aligned to your organization’s goals will never be a walk in the park. But when you build a strategic learning plan and use Content Marketplace as part of LCvista’s unified platform to find and purchase content that fits within the strategic framework you’ve created, the process is so much easier, both for you and for the professionals consuming the content.
If you’d like to learn more about how Content Marketplace works, read more here or get in touch with our team.
