OUC End-user Training

[David Floyd]

My college is new to OUC and we are interested on how your end-users are being trained.

I am most interested in if you have created an OUC training enviroment. If not, how do you get them the needed hands-on experience with the system.

If you did create an OUC training enviroment, I'm looking for any information on how you accomplished this and how it is working for uyou.

[Kathie Kentfield]

In the beginning I offered training sessions for my users and the room held approx 25 people (computer lab with overhead projector - some people prefer to watch, others are more hands-on so they could follow along on their screens).  It was mandatory that you attend a training session before I would allow them to use OUC.  I offered it at varying times of day so I could accomodate different schedules.  These sessions are approx 2 hours in length and I now offer them for new users, 1-2 people at a time, in my office.  If I get a big group of new users (like our Grad Assistants who change each fall) I will use the computer lab.  I basically use the Basic User Manual which I've edited slightly for our quirks as my guideline for teaching the class.

Then I offered regular training sessions.  I sent out a survey asking what time of day and day of week was best and there was no set answer so I chose Friday afternoons since it seems to be a less-busy time on campus.  I would target a different feature each session - how to insert an image onto a page, for example.  I had a regular group that would come to each session, but it was sparsely attended.

I'm supposed to be creating videos for each feature so I can offer online training but I haven't found the time to create them.  And I like being able to be present to answer questions.  But online videos would be a good refresher for experienced users that may not have used OUC recently.

 

Congrats on becoming part of the OUC family! 

[Doug Thompson]

We may be doing it a bit backwards compared to most, but because OmniUpdate has been applied (mostly) to existing sites here at Ohio Wesleyan...and because we have a limited number of seat license for it so we have to do "shared" logins rather than "individual" logins, I've found it most effective to do training sessions either at the location of the person/people who will be working on a particular section of the site, or I arrange to use one of our computer labs in the rare cases where I know there will need to be more than a couple people in attendance.

At one point, I entertained the idea of creating a "sandbox" in which trainees could "play", but so many of them have very specific (and, usually, relatively minor) things that they need to change about their sites' content that it has proven more useful to let them "learn by doing" directly on their site.

Occasionally, someone will forget their training (usually in the case of someone who went through the training and then for various reasons didn't get around to doing anything with their site for a few months), so I'll do a "refresher" training for them at their location.

Again, though, we may be a bit nonstandard as far as our implementation of OmniUpdate is concerned, so take all of the above info with a grain of salt.

Doug Thompson

Manager of Web and Electronic Communications

Ohio Wesleyan University

[Justin Gatewood]

I'm a one man shop, and training sessions were become too time-intensive, so I created some instructional videos.

5-step Beginner tutorials: http://www.vvc.edu/videos/oucampus-5steps/ (about 15 mins w/a left menu)

This video set covers:

• How to Login
• How to Edit Text
• How to Upload & Link to your Document
• How to Link to another Web Page
• How to Edit the included Left Menu

5-step Intermediate tutorials: http://www.vvc.edu/videos/oucampus-5moresteps/ (about 27 mins w/a left menu)

This video set covers:

• How to Insert/Edit an Image using the built-in Image Editor
• How to Convert/Insert a Video (using Transcode-It)
• How to Create a New Web Page using a Template
• How to Link to that New Web Page before it is Published to your Production Server
• How to Edit an RSS Feed

These two sets of videos have virtually eliminated the need for me to do any one-on-one training with anyone anymore.

Feel free to use them if you want.

Justin Gatewood
Webmaster | Victor Valley College

[David Floyd]

Thanks for your response.

Did OU make their trainng documents available in a format other than PDF so that it could be edited to include information pertaining to customizations, processes, etc.

[Andrew Soderberg]

David,

We can provide you with the Word doc masters of the training guides we use for on-site trainings as well as those for the guides that are posted to the Support website. If you have any questions regarding our training materials and training sessions, please call us at 800-362-2605 option 2 and ask for our training department.

Regards,

Andrew

Andrew Soderberg

Vice President Customer Support

OmniUpdate, Inc.

805.484.9400

Empower Web Excellence

www.omniupdate.com