Develop: Tips and Checklists

3. Develop Tips – Commercial Solutions

Increasingly employers are using e-learning and e-assessment to deliver induction, training, meeting legal requirements and on-the-job learning and knowledge exchange and there are a growing number of commercial suppliers who can deliver these kinds of services. You have broadly 2 options; one is obvious the other less so.


  1. First option - hire a contractor to develop your e-assessments for you. This is most appropriate for e-assessments featuring rich media, interactivity and simulations etc. to deliver objective / MCQ style tests. NB Make sure your contract with the supplier gives you access to all the editable files and media assets so you are not 'locked in'. Many of these suppliers will be using variants of the ADDIE model, so this toolkit should help when working with them. Cost wise this will not be a cheap option, but you have to set that against the benefits this brings. One obvious consideration is that when contemplating such a move you should target e-assessments that feature high student numbers – in order to get a good return on your investment. Another obvious consideration is to check you have the facilities to deliver such e-assessments before you commission them.

  2. Second option – collaborate with employers to use their existing e-assessment materials. They may be willing to licence the content to you or let your students use their systems to take the e-assessments. This option would be very useful for diagnostic / formative assessments and to give students an insight into the kind of online training and assessment that many employers are now using. There are obvious benefits in following this path to develop links with employers and in order to prepare students for future employment.

If commissioning materials from commercial suppliers here are a few thinks to consider:

  1. Always have a written contract with a project plan / timeline / schedule of work etc.

  2. Make sure the contract specifies that the contractor will assign (give over) to your college the ownership of the materials produced - copyright, database rights, moral rights etc. – often referred collectively to as Intellectual Property Rights (IPR).

  3. Make sure that any software code you receive is also delivered in the editable version not just the runtime / compiled version – this is essential to allow your own developers or others to alter the code in the future for maintenance purposes.

  4. Make sure that any media elements in the materials are delivered separately in ‘high definition’ original editable file versions (e.g. Photoshop) and not just the final edited and compressed web version – again this is essential for future sustainability and maintenance.