- I'm going to take a shot in the dark here
and assume that you're not super interested
in the mechanics of garage door openers.
However, when your garage door starts making a racket
and you look up and notice a chain is really loose,
you become quite interested,
so much so you might fire up your laptop
and Google how to tighten a chain on a garage door opener
and lo and behold a few seconds later
you find a super helpful how to video
that shows you how to tighten the chain.
Most digital resources
like the helpful how to video you just found
are meant to be consumed at the point of need.
Such resources are called just-in-time or JIT resources
and it's not for nothing.
The industry is using more and more of them.
You're learning stuff exactly when you need to apply it
and in the context and the flow of work
which you have to admit is pretty cool.
These resources are also easy to update when things change
unlike your more traditional assets
such as your standard e-learning module.
So now I'd like to talk about just-in-time resources,
the most common types you'll encounter in digital learning
and some pointers on creating them.
I break the resources into three categories.
There are text-based resources.
For instance, a downloadable job aide,
a quick reference guide, a checklist
or a collection of frequently asked questions.
I think an infographic also falls into this category
though it relies pretty heavily on visuals.
There are video-based resources
that help you in your time of need.
It might be a short video like the one you just found
showing you how to tighten the garage door chain
or it might be a screen recording or animated GIF
walking you through the steps of a software task.
There are social resources you can turn to as well.
I personally use these quite a bit.
Perhaps a digital community on the company internet
or social platform or maybe it's something larger
like the world wide online forum
where practitioners post questions and give advice.
Now that you know the most common types
of just-in-time resources, let me give you a few pointers
on designing and developing them.
First and this is really important,
to design a quality resource,
you've got to have a deep understanding of the task.
That understanding will clarify
what information the learner needs, when they need it
and what the best format for the resource is.
Another pointer is that the resource
must be easily accessible
at the moment the learner needs it.
If you have a series of short software tutorials
but they're locked behind the LMS
and it takes six clicks and login credentials to get there,
well, let's just say your resources
are going to be pretty lonely.
In a related point, try to place the resource
where the learner is in their work.
For example, could that software tutorial
be embedded in a field in the software
so the learner doesn't actually
have to leave the application?
The trick is to provide the resource
yet keep the learner in the flow of their work
and another thing, digital resources
should be short and focused
containing just enough information
to help the learners deal with the task they're on
and move on.
Note that you may have to break this rule
if your audience differs widely in expertise
and finally, let the learners know the resources exist.
A library of resources does nobody any good
if they don't know it's there.
The industry is moving towards JIT resources big time.
I mentioned a good list of them.
So it's not a bad idea to get familiar
with those that would work at your company.