"Nelson Croom listened to what we wanted and really took the time to understand what it was that we needed ... and then came up with a great solution."

Stephanie Richardson, Continuous Professional Development Manager, Institute of Physics

Institute of Physics successfully pilots online learning career development for its members

In August 2005, the Institute of Physics (IOP) approached Nelson Croom about helping them deliver a new programme of online learning for their members. The IOP has 35,000 members on a worldwide level of which 9,000 are students. Whilst 90% of members have a physics degree and use their academic training to solve problems, it was felt that many were seeking more business and professional skills development to improve their effectiveness in professional and academic spheres.

The problem

One of the main objectives for the IOP is to provide career development for its members and be responsive to its members needs. Many members had been requesting online learning, but with approximately 50% of the membership working in academia and 50% working within business, it would be a challenge to provide relevant and tailored content to encourage change in behaviours and to raise their skill levels.

At the same time, many members had been disinterested in stand-up training due to practical considerations such as travel distance, costs etc. It was felt that online learning might be a good solution, but this would need to be piloted to assess its effectiveness.

The solution

To address the objectives of providing career development and being responsive to members' needs, the IOP commissioned Nelson Croom to provide three online learning resources for its members on: Negotiation Skills, Coaching Skills and Managing Workload.

These courses were selected by the IOP from a portfolio of courses designed and created by Nelson Croom. Nelson Croom worked with staff at the IOP to tailor the courses for their members. Each page was reviewed and changes made to specific examples, graphics, the language and terminology to create the textual relevance that would engage the audience.

The project was named Institute of Physics Learning Online and was designed to provide a rich and engaging learning experience that would encourage their members to change their behaviours and raise their skill levels.

Results

It was agreed that the pilot would be a success if 200 members registered and spent 20 minutes in a course.

As at the beginning of 2006, there were nearly 1000 learners registered across the three courses with the average number of 51 minutes spent on each course.

Due to the success of this pilot, IOP selected a further five courses from Nelson Croom's Professional Development Portfolio - including Networking Skills, Employment Law for Managers and Conversations with Customers.

These courses were branded and included in the IOP Learning Online resource. By the time of launch in Spring 2007 the IOP had 1500 course registrations across its range of online learning.

Most recently, Nelson Croom and IOP have partnered to create the Management PAC online resource which meets the learning and development needs of reluctant managers.

Stop press

The IOP is now tailoring and rolling out the entire professional development portfolio to its members.