How to offer learning
With selected content providers, we connect and integrate their learning catalogs and transcript data into Your Learning.
Credentials are also an integral part of the Your Learning platform, included in recommendations and search. We automatically import your organization's digital credentials and badges along with external digital credentials through Credly connect. Soon we're extending this feature to other credential and certification providers.
The Your Learning platform offers ways for people who have access to share learning with others. This guidance will help you learn how to use the Your Learning Service Center to create and offer an engaging learning program for your audience.
There are five steps to consider when sharing learning with others:
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Create | Share | Publicize | Measure & report | Offer Help |
Create learning
Great learning content providers abound for a vast array of industries. Your Learning's not a learning content management system but offers various ways to create and present learning activities to learners. There are two ways to add learning within Your Learning - integrate learning content providers (like O'Reilly Safari, SkillSoft, Udemy) or create your own learning activities. In most cases, our clients are working with learning content providers but you can include your own content. The content might be a Powerpoint presentation, a webinar, a video, a document, etc. The following information are tips, resources and best practices for content creation.
Here is some guidance on creating different types of learning offerings with the content you already have ready.
Create and host a learning video
Resources for creating great videos:
Where to Store your Videos
In order to add your videos to Your Learning, you will need to store them in a place where they can be accessed via a URL. Your organization may have secure places to offer. Your organization may also have private versions of the places below for you to use. Note that some of these sites are banned in certain countries. Here are a few ideas:
Additional video resources
- Captions, Transcripts, and Audio Descriptions
- Camtasia for creating videos (Mac and Windows)
- Final Cut Pro for creating videos (Mac)
- Audacity for creating audio files (Windows, Mac, Linux)
- Royalty-free images and music
Create and host e-Learning or self-paced learning offering
A number of platforms are available to enable you author your own e-Learning courses. Most authoring platforms offer hosting, but if you have learning that is private, you may need to host your content yourself. As long as the content is available via a URL, you will be able to add it to Your Learning.
- Adapt Learning: This open source platform, available free of charge, makes it possible for you to design and author engaging, visually appealing self paced online courses without the help of a developer -- although development customization and enhancements are possible. Courses may be delivered as SCORM packages or HTML5 websites.
- Moodle as a course development tool as well as a Learning Management System (LMS). It is free, open source software.
- This article discusses other open source content management tools.
Share learning in Your Learning
How do you share and present your learning content - from trusted sources, content you've created, or possibly online free content - within Your Learning? First, all of the learning content needs to be added into your tenant's learning catalog. The connectors and integration of content from your trusted sources are automatically added to your tenant learning catalog but content may also be registered manually in your learning catalog. Once in your catalog, learners can search by keywords, name or title for learning content matching their needs. Both types of learning content may be tagged for categorization and personalization. In some cases, you'll want to provide additional guidance or prescribed learning - a list of prerequisites or learning activities to be taken in a recommended order. Assessments can be included for you learning content with stand alone quizzes or in combination with learning plans.
Automated learning content
We refer to content that comes into Your Learning by automation as trusted sources of content. Learning content from providers like LinkedInLearning, O'Reilly, SkillSoft, Cornerstone, etc. can be brought into Your Learning by an automated feed. The content that comes various sources that is structured can be programmatically imported and made available to learners immediately. In addition, scheduled learning (classes that are face to face or virtual) using a Learning Management System can also be imported.
These trusted sources of content require some programming to be developed, called a connector, which will involve a technical team member to work with the IBM team to get the source of content set up. Once that is done, it will automatically feed in new content, updates to existing content, and deletions.
There are three types of learning activity transcript types. Typically, transcripts created and recorded in Your Learning for trusted source content are either "Source managed" or "Source initiated." This indicates the transcripts data - which may include progress or completion information - was received from a trusted source. The transcript data sent is based on the trusted source's tracking and data structure. Therefore, though there is a basic information required for Your Learning transcripts, the transcript data may vary by trusted source.
You may view learning activities by trusted source in the Service Center learning catalog. Click the link for learning activity catalog on the Learning Catalog tile. 
In the learning activity catalog, there are many filters available to view your learning activity catalog. The trusted source filter provides the option to view activities by any trusted source configured for your tenant. 
Manually registering learning content
We expect that most of your learning content will be provided by trusted sources yet your organization's learning professionals may also create learning content. Visit our register learning activities documentation for instructions on manually registering your content into your tenant learning catalog through the Your Learning Builder. Learning activities registered manually will have a transcript type of "User initiated."
Sharing content and providing guided learning experiences
Once your learning content is available in Your Learning, learners can begin searching and discovering it. IBM culture has a strong focus on enabling employees and teams to direct their career paths through experience and discovery. Yet we also know our large learning catalog can be overwhelming to search. Therefore we've created search features and tools within Your Learning to assist our learners to find relevant content and guided learning experiences. The following is a list of some of the features available to learners and learning professionals to assist learners in finding and sharing your learning catalog content.
Learning plans
Learning plans allow learning professionals to create recommended guided steps to complete one or more learning activities intended to reach a specific learning goal. For example, you may have preferred learning activities recommended for all customer service representatives in your organization. If there's an order for how the learning activities should be taken - progression of beginner topics to advanced - learning plans are a good tool. Learning plans allow you to break up and group learning into ordered sections. Entire sections or individual learning activities may be marked required or optional to complete the learning goal. Non-learning activities called plan-specific tasks can be added to learning plans. You may also include a quiz assessment completion for sections or the entire learning plan before it can be marked complete by the learner. Learning plans have a robust name-level engagement and completion reporting available. For detailed instructions on creation and usage of plans
Channels
Channels provide grouped learning recommendations by category, topic, or purpose. Standard channels are maintained manually, adding and removing learning as needs change. Dynamic channels are created through categorized and personalized tagging and update automatically as curators add and updates tags. Where learning plans are a prescribed list of ordered learning, channel learning is optional. For example, create a channel with all of the recommended customer service representative learning activities. Learners subscribe to the channel and may pick and choose which activities are relevant to them. The expectation is a channel is actively curated by your organization's subject matter experts to assist learners in finding recommendations. In this way, a channel does not have a concept of being complete. It is a way for learners to see learning that pertains to a certain subject which changes all the time. Think of a channel like Netflix genres - you don't ever complete a list in Netflix, and new shows are constantly added. For detailed instructions on creation and usage of channels, visit our Channels documentation.
Learning tracks
Learning tracks are curated sets of recommendation channels which can be grouped by any relevant category like topic, skill, role, steps or levels to be taken in a recommended order. They give organizations fine control over what appears as recommended learning, their own "landing page" for their learners. Target audience settings allow them to be created and displayed for one or multiple demographics, roles or skills. As recommendations, learning tracks provide guidance but are optional.
For organizations which prefer recommendations through dynamic channels and curation through tagging, learning tracks used in combination with dynamic channels can be easier to update and maintain. For detailed instructions on creation and usage of learning tracks, visit our Learning tracks documentation.
Quizzes
A quiz can be added to any learning plan, channel, or learning track or as an individual learning assignment. Combine a trusted source learning activity with a required quiz of your own creation in a learning plan to evaluate your learner’s knowledge of the subject. Quizzes can also provide learners a way to gauge their own progress or as an option to test out of a subject. Quizzes are a type of learning activity and therefore each quiz attempt creates an individual transcript associated with the learner. For detailed instructions on creation and usage of quizzes, visit our quiz documentation.
Publicize learning
With your learning catalog established, focus turns to identifying and categorizing courses to facilitate learning adoption. Organize learning by topic or your organization's goals. This may mean tagging learning activities or creating groups of courses in learning plans, channels or learning tracks. Then review the various options to promote and publicize learning to your learners.
- Categorize your learning activities with tags
- Set up learning activity suggested matches which appear at the top of related search results
- Advertise in a tout or spotlight on your tenant home page
- Send invitations or create learning assignments for key learning activities
Tag Learning
Tagging improves findability and reporting, helps lay the foundation for cognitive functions, and enables better content curation. Tags can be both based on your organization's taxonomy or a customized list of topics, goals, etc. For example, you could tag all learning activities pertinent to a particular job role in your taxonomy and then create a dynamic channel for that job role to allow learners to view and take those courses. Learn more about tagging.
Spotlights
When you're looking to grab learner's attention on your tenant home page, use Spotlights. Over 75% of all IBM employees discover and start learning from Spotlights. They're Your Learning's prime advertising which can be targeted and personalized
with your organization's demographics, job roles and skills taxonomy, or tagging. Learn more about Spotlights. 
Touts
Similar to spotlights, touts provide a short high profile text only call to action on the home page masthead banner. Only one tout can be displayed to a learner at a time and can be targeted and personalized to your organization's demographics,
job roles and skills taxonomy. Learn more about touts.
Suggested matches
Suggested matches are links to learning activities, channels, digital credentials, programs and resources, or webpages that show up at the top of a Your Learning search result. When learners search the learning catalog using configured keywords,
the first results display first. Learn more about suggested matches.
Invitations and learning assignments
Invitations and learning assignments can provide a more direct promotion approach as they both have the option to send an email or slack notification to learners. This can be helpful to reach the learners not actively visiting the Your Learning site. Please consult your organization's legal and privacy policies before creating invitations, assignments and notifications. Invitations are recommendations with no expectation of completion. There are two types of learning assignments, required and non-required. Both include a due date and display in learner's learning assignments queue.
Other ways to highlight learning
In addition to tagging, spotlights, touts and suggested matches, consider configuring recommended channels, recommended digital credentials and programs and resources for large learning programs that pertain to most or all of your organization.
Report on learning
Once your learning is being found and consumed, it's time to measure and report on its use. Reporting documentation on Your Learning
Types of reporting access
If you need name level detail of who completed the learning activities, you must request special access. Each organization handles access requests differently, depending on Global Privacy restrictions. By default, roles are set up to assign people to be able to see name level detail for each the following countries:
- Germany
- Austria
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Philippines
- Israel
Then, there is a role set up for people who can name level detail for people from all countries other than the above. And finally, there is a role set up for people who can see name level detail for all countries.
Measuring Learning Activities
Depending on your access, you may see completion reports for any learning activity. Go to the Completion Reports area in Manage Learning in the Your Learning Service Center.
From there, configure the Learning Completion report and choose the options you'd like. You can select a single Learning Activity or multiple activities. 
You will be able to see the number of completions, hours, unique learners, and dollars (if applicable) for your learning activity/ies.
If you would like to see information about people who have enrolled in your activities, but may not have completed the learning, then choose the Learning transcript report instead of the Learning completion report.
Managers can see who of their direct reports (who are not in one of the above countries) have completed any learning activity by going to that activity in Your learning, and selecting Your Team Completion Status.
Measuring learning in channels
Basic channel reporting consists of the number of people who have added the channel. You can view details about channels you own by selecting Manage Channels from the Your Learning Builder page.
You will be presented with the channels you own or manage and the number of subscribers for each channel.
If you would like to see how users are interacting with channels, you can configure the Channel user actions report from the YL Platform Usage reports page.
To see who has completed activities that are part of a channel, run an Individual transcript records report (you will need the correct access), and select the channel in the filter area. 
Offer learning help
When your learners have questions, they need answers promptly. Your Learning has a few ways to make sure this happens. First, you can customize where they should go when they select the ? icon that is always available in the header.
At IBM, we offer a few different ways for our employees to get help: - Chat bot - Get support - Send feedback - Getting started
Chat bot
Your IBM client team can help you build a chat bot using our Watson Assistant. It can be simple enough to answer most questions, or it can be very detailed, where it may use AI to predict what the learner needs and offer personalized suggestions
for learning. 
You can also augment your chat bot by offering to connect people with live help - your 'power users' who want to make themselves available to answer questions from your audience.
Get support
At IBM, we have a team that is devoted to helping learners. When someone selects Get support they are connected to a self-help application that has a case management / ticketing tool. You may wish to use the help tool you may already use for other internal applications.
Send feedback
The Your Learning Feedback survey captures immediate feedback about the Your Learning system. This feedback is used by our IBM developers to make improvements in Your Learning. If you would like to see the feedback that your learners are giving us, please ask your IBM Client team.
Getting started
The Getting Started tutorial is shown the very first time a learner uses Your Learning, and then is always available for review when someone chooses this option.