Government Agencies use eLearning for Targeted Public Outreach

---

Whether it is protecting the environment, regulating an industry, distributing benefits or preventing fraud, government agencies need cooperation and compliance from an educated public to be effective. Accomplishing this education is often challenging due to the schedules and geographic location of the people the agency is trying to reach.

These challenges are inspiring progressive government leaders to turn to eLearning. With eLearning, agencies can efficiently reach targeted segments of the public with consistent training content. In addition, they can track which members of their target successfully complete the training. In some cases, they may even mandate training before providing access to benefits.

Through our experience, we have learned some best practices for government leaders who want to use eLearning. These practices include the following:

• Engage agency subject matter experts and representatives of the targeted learner group to participate in the project
• Survey your agency and related agencies to see which people and technologies are available for creating and distributing eLearning
• Involve a professional instructional designer
• Organize a process where stakeholders review the content at key milestones
• Budget appropriately considering the value of the training and the size of the population
• Develop a brand for the eLearning and promote its availability to the target population
• Keep the registration process and access to the eLearning course simple
• Ensure that the learning experience is engaging and valuable
• If you work with external consultants or internal training groups, they should be able to lead you through these best practices.

Over my years of experience with learning technology, I have seen progressive government leaders use eLearning to reach teachers, municipal water system operators, farmers, police officers and many other segments of the population. With eLearning, they are able to ensure that consistent, high-quality training is conveniently available. In addition, they can track which members of the targeted group successfully completed the training.