How to Curate Existing Training Materials for Better Course Development

Training content curation is gathering the essential content and sharing it with users in a more engaging delivery method. Content curation is increasing for workplace training, and Learning & Development teams are leveraging it to support formal and informal training. 

In this article, we will look at how organizations can use it to foster a culture of lifelong learning and assist on-the-job performance.

What is training content curation?

According to the definition of Training Industry magazine, content curation is the process of organizing and presenting vast amounts of web and enterprise-based content in an organized and meaningful format. 

The process of training content curation entails

• Scanning online databases and resources 
• Then assemble and disseminate training materials that are highly valuable to your staff.

With training content curation, you cannot change the content of curated learning materials since you do not own them. However, you can delete any out-of-date curated learning materials and replace them with more current, correct sources.

Benefits of training content curation

Including a wide range of material types in your curriculum, content curation can assist you in creating a complete training experience for your employees. 

Additional advantages of training content curation include:

• Shorter time spent developing the training curriculum: You don’t need to write every eLearning content from scratch. Many fundamental eLearning resources are available online to share or use lawfully.

• Increases the worth of your entire program: Online carefully-curated resources can supplement your current learning materials.

• Provides training solutions at the right time: Staff can download and access curated learning content whenever they need a brief on a subject.

• Creates a more engaging training environment: Employees can access videos, podcasts, blogs, eBooks, and slide sharing with a few mouse clicks. It is a more engaging training technique than the conventional method of training.

• Promotes a learning culture: With the help of training content curation, training is no longer a one-time event but a continuous process. Content curation makes it possible to find, filter, and access learning materials on a range of subjects that your executives are interested in. Additionally, they can exchange interesting links with coworkers, which promotes greater learning engagement.

Take Inc. Magazine as an example. Inc. began as a print magazine but has grown to have a robust online presence. It’s now one of the best examples of curated content blogs, publishing business-related material from in-house writers and outside sources.

Inc. prominently publishes Quora content, choosing responses to questions that would be of interest to Inc.’s entrepreneur-minded audience. Consider, for example, its article “This Is the Biggest Obstacle to Success for Most People.

As a result, Inc. can provide audiences with more content than they could with an in-house team alone.

How to curate training materials for L&D purposes

The five typical steps in the content curation process for corporate training are as follows:

Step 1: Establish content objectives.

Examine the job roles in your company and consider what you want to accomplish at each level. Then, identify the area focus that you need to curate training materials. 

Executives, for example, may need to stay current on industry trends, whereas leaders may need to improve their coaching skills.

Step 2: Determine your audience’s learning requirements and constraints.

It is critical to provide the appropriate type of learning content to each type of learner audience. 

For example, newly promoted managers may have a strong desire to learn but limited time for training. In this case, microlearning types like short audio and blog posts would be ideal learning support for new leaders.

Step 3: Look for resources

You can look for content ideas in the following categories:

• Internal databases of your company: Your company’s website, message boards, wikis, and internal social media applications contain a wealth of content tailored to your learners’ needs.
• Websites for education: Some prestigious universities make their course materials accessible to the public on their websites. 
• Business associations: On their websites, these associations frequently post newsletters, articles, and information about guiding principles for multiple jobs in various industries.
• Tutorial videos: Sites like YouTube, Howcast, and CosmoLearning have numerous high-quality video tutorials on almost any subject. Just for a small fee, sites like Coursera, EdX, and Udemy offer access to high-quality training programs.
• The influential leaders of the industry: BigThink and TED provide video lectures and interviews with world-renowned leaders from various fields. For example, in the below video, the sound expert Julian Treasure demonstrated some helpful vocal exercises and shared tips on how to speak with empathy. You can use this video as a source to train the staff.

Step 4: Decide the content-sharing method 

Once you identify the content, it’s time to decide how to present it to the executives either as a learning path or as stand-alone nuggets. You also need to determine how to share your content at this point (through an online tool, platform, or portal).

Step 5: Ongoing enhancement

Curating content for corporate training is a continuous activity. After establishing the primary path, you will get feedback and new needs. Based on them, you can consider how to use the content in other contexts. These hints will help you figure out the steps that will enable you to advance.

Strategies to multiply the benefits of content curation

#1: Adapt to what learners want

Before starting, ensure you have forums where you can get learners’ ongoing feedback and analytics to evaluate usage patterns. These measures will help to keep the curated learning content relevant. Thanks to these actions, the chosen content will remain suitable for a long time.

#2: Motivation

It can be challenging to keep your experienced employees up to date on emerging knowledge and trends. Employers who want to foster employee loyalty understand that offering access to high-quality training experiences is a win-win situation.

You can, for example, ask your staff to compare your current processes to those used by other companies in your job area or industry. You encourage your team members to think of ways to improve processes and share knowledge more broadly.

Final words

Training content curation is a low-cost way to add a wide range of content types to your training curriculum. Instead of attempting to capture every piece of information available, concentrate your efforts on locating and sharing the content types that your learners favor from the most reliable sources you can find.

Read more:

• How to Create Training Materials for Your Employees