3 Tips for Getting SME Feedback on Your eLearning
If you’ve ever created an eLearning course, you’ve experienced the challenge of chasing down your SMEs to get their feedback. All too often, SMEs will promise to get you their feedback in a timeline manner, and all too often, they break that promise.
In my experience, I’ve found that most SMEs underestimate their level of involvement in the development of an eLearning course. They often assume their job is to provide the content on the front-end and then approve the final course on the back-end. They don’t realize they have to review the course at each stage of development. And the truth is, the onus is on us, as eLearning developers, to make the review process as simple as possible—especially if we want that feedback on-time!
Here are three simple tips for getting SME feedback on your eLearning courses.
Schedule Review Time on Your SME’s Calendar
We all know that SMEs are busy folks. In addition to the time you’re asking them to dedicate to the development and review of your eLearning course, SMEs also have full-time jobs to attend to!
Make it easier to get SME feedback on your eLearning course by sending a calendar invite (with a link to the course) for dedicated review time. This invite isn’t meant for you to meet with them to review your course, but rather to help your SMEs dedicate a block of time to reviewing the course on their own.
Conduct a Live Review Session
One of the most efficient ways to manage an eLearning review cycle is to do it in-person. This lets you hear directly from the mouths of your SMEs to fully understand their feedback, ask questions, and make quick decisions regarding the edits provided.
Make it easier to get SME feedback on your eLearning course by conducting a live review session. Send your SMEs a link to review your eLearning course, followed by an invite to meet and discuss their feedback a few days later. This will force your SMEs to review the course in preparation for the live review meeting.
Provide an Estimated Time to Review
It’s easy for your SMEs to overestimate how much time it will take them to review your eLearning course. Because of this, they will often procrastinate the task reviewing your eLearning course in favor of their other, less time-consuming duties.
Make it easier to get SME feedback on your eLearning course by providing an estimated time to review. When you send your course for your SMEs to review, include how much time it should take to review. If your SMEs know upfront they only need to invest 15 to 20 minutes reviewing your course, they will be more likely to knock it out.
What other tips can you share to on getting SME feedback? Share them by commenting below!
Additional Resources
- 4 Tips for Managing eLearning Review Cycles Like a Pro
- 3 Must-Know Strategies for Working with SMEs
- 4 Strategies for Building a Highly Effective eLearning Team
- How to Become an eLearning Project Management Pro
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Instructional Designer, eLearning Developer, and Educator, with a passion for enabling learner performance.
7 年Excellent tips Tim! One thing that I almost always do is have a kick-off meeting with SME's, designers, and as many stakeholders as I can get in the room, to quickly review the performance problem(s) and suggested solutions, and then jump right into a task analysis/cardsorting activity to flesh out terminal KSA's. We usually wrap up the meeting with "agreements," such as, do regular reviews of content, post feedback to a Wiki/Sharepoint (little to no emails please), and be responsive (48hrs) to ID's. Most importantly, I try to reinforce that this is "our" course-- which helps a lot to get buy-in. Of course, I still bring cookies or candy if I get desperate enough to show up impromptu in a SME's office. Food motivates programmers and engineers!
Instructional Design Consulting
7 年I also believe clearly setting these expectations as early as you can really help them understand their involvement. I always tell my SME's that with their assistance I can work as fast or as slow based on their responsiveness. I find that making that statement, out loud, increases their involvement and timeliness by at least 50%.
Let’s also not forget that we need to ensure we have SME buy-in and commitment, too. I've worked many projects where getting SME feedback proved difficult, despite great effort, because the SMEs weren't really vested in the outcome.