Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand engages learners with constant fresh content

The Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand (JAS-ANZ) is a non-profit organisation, appointed by the Australian and New Zealand governments by way of a treaty which was established in October 1991.

JAS-ANZ is an accreditation body, issuing accreditations in international schemes and standards to certification bodies which then go on to certify organisations for products, management systems, social services, and several other key domestic and international markets. The JAS-ANZ Learning Management System supports 35 staff and 150 contractors.

The Challenge

JAS-ANZ had been using a primarily out-of-the-box instance of Totara’s learning management system since 2013 (version 2.6). Engagement with the platform was dwindling, and learners were desperate for a system that was not only visually appealing but would provide more convenient access to learning resources, and a defined point of contact for support.

While the learning content was sufficient, it was all formal without any informal learning structures in place. The system felt cumbersome for learners to use, and the user experience suffered due to illogical navigation and inconsistencies between the style and configuration of courses.

It was apparent that the system needed to be updated to the latest Totara Learn version, the layout to be improved significantly, and that the user experience to be at the forefront of the project.

The Solution

The redesign began in July 2018, focusing first on the look and feel of the system while taking into account the user experience. The areas where the user experience was improved the most were:

Home page
Record of learning
Course catalogue
Informal learning resources

The home page received the greatest amount of change during the upgrade process, taking away untidy formatting of labels and poorly configured blocks, and replacing them with quick links, announcements, an introductory video and a site tour.

The site tour has been the greatest feature of the home page, introducing learners to various elements of the LMS upon their first login, and finishing off by directing them to a more in-depth module on how to use the LMS, and a link to contact JAS-ANZ’s Learning & Development team if a learner runs into any issues. The new home page layout was the first step in reducing the number of clicks a user requires to access key information on the LMS.

Kineo implemented a function to present the record of learning through an interactive isotope block, which allows users to visualise and filter their record of learning. This was placed on a dashboard where learners can also view their latest badges.

The record of learning dashboard was then added to the main site navigation to grant easier access for learners, once again reducing the number of clicks it takes for a learner to locate this information.

Audience-based visibility was introduced to the course catalogue to refine the content that learners see, creating a more streamlined experience for learners who are seeking specific courses in their area of expertise. This also allowed for better management of their GO1 library of courses, which were currently only available to internal staff.

The final facet of the development was to provide a repository for informal learning resources, which has since been populated by producing and recording several webinars and podcasts each month on topics relevant to their staff and contractor pool.

By creating an ‘Other Resources’ library, they gave their users the freedom to carry out informal extra-curricular learning which is directly related to their role with JAS-ANZ.

”Having just caught up on Kim’s May webinar with your feedback session I thought I’d let you know that I have been finding them useful. It’s great to have the flexibility to catch up and know that I can still feedback at any time for comment. Good initiatives to have other operational focus-based ones.”

JAS-ANZ Contractor

In addition to this library of media resources, JAS-ANZ has maintained a monthly blog that updates learners on topics including how and why they use microlearning, how the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve can impact the effectiveness of the training they undertake and the importance of creating a learner feedback loop to ensure that we are meeting learner needs and continually improving the user experience.

The Results

Feedback on the improved LMS has been positive, with engagement in the informal learning initiatives continuing to improve through the use of an informal learning resources library, site blog and several monthly webinars.

69% of learners who have logged in since launch in January 2019 have accessed the informal learning resources library, with up to 56% of monthly logins resulting in an access to the informal learning resources library

Up to 22% of monthly logins result in a user accessing the blog, with positive feedback received on the relevance and format of the content;

Monthly webinar broadcasts are seeing engagement of up to a collective 35 attendees per month, averaging 6 attendees per webinar since launch in January 2019. These webinars are recorded and available to learners on the LMS.