Earlier this year, Alison established the Webinar Programme as a means of providing more personalised support to our community of Learners. Webinars allow us to answer your questions directly and to provide tailored assistance in order to best aid you in your educational journey. At the moment, webinars are solely concerned with supporting Learners who are upskilling on the Alison Publishing Tool, however there are plans to expand the Programme to include webinars based on other aspects of Alison’s project. Aashir Rayyan Khan, Alison’s Webinars Lead, tells us a bit more about this exciting development.
Aashir, why did Alison set up the Webinar Programme?
Alison’s Webinar Programme was introduced as a way of providing additional support to people who wanted to become Self-Publishers or Alison Contractors using the Alison Publishing Tool. We want to give them the opportunity to connect with an Alison team member directly so they can ask questions and learn one-on-one. If you’re interested, you can register for the webinars here.
What is the Alison Publishing Tool?
The Publishing Tool is our free-to-use web-based tool for creating online courses on Alison.com. You can learn how to self-publish your own courses on Alison by becoming a Qualified Alison Publisher – Level 1. This involves completing two short courses, one of which is the Alison Publishing Tool training course which introduces you to the many features and functionalities of the tool. At Alison, we are experts in the field of online education, and are rigorous in delivering high quality learning materials, so we act as the certificating body and ensure that your courses meet the necessary standards. As part of the process of becoming a Publisher, you will also be assigned an Alison Publishing Mentor, who will guide you through creating your first course.
What are the benefits of self-publishing with Alison?
Alison is one of the world’s largest free learning platforms for education and skills training. We currently have over 2000 free courses, with over 17 million learners and 3 million graduates. Self-publishing on Alison is a great way to share your expertise with the world, upskill your staff or community, or boost your reputation, all while earning an income at the same time.
What are the most important lessons to learn for those interested in using the Alison Publishing Tool?
It’s important for users to know about e-learning theory and how to create an online course from a learning perspective. It’s also crucial that they know how best to structure their course. All of this information is available in the Publishing Tool course and the e-learning course.
What is an Alison Contractor?
Alison Contractors are freelancers that publish courses for third parties on the Alison platform. Contractors must have the Qualified Alison Publisher – Level 3 qualification and have an extensive knowledge of the Publishing Tool. Once qualified, they work on a project-by-project basis, building courses using content provided by either Alison or external publishers. It’s a great opportunity for any Alison Learner.
What format do the webinars take?
Currently, we do a weekly 40 minute webinar – Webinar Wednesdays – alternating the focus between Self-Publishers and Contractors. The webinar is followed by a Q&A section where we deal with our audience members’ queries.
What effect do you hope the webinars will have on how Learners use the Alison Publishing Tool?
The webinars provide learners with the opportunity to interact one on one with an Alison Trainer and have all their queries about the Publishing Tool answered directly. The hope is that people at various stages of the onboarding process will be able to gain support from the programme and in time continue their learning journey when we roll out our advanced level webinars.
Are there plans to expand the scope of the Webinar Programme in the future?
Yes. There is a growing interest in self-publishing and so we expect that we will need to scale the current programing from one self-publishing webinar a week to maybe 5-6 webinars a day, based on demand. We are also currently working on a number of new webinars, including Introduction to Alison, Advance Contractor Training and Alison for Businesses, which will showcase all of our corporate services such as Group Reporting, API and bulk purchasing. Eventually, we want to be able to expand the webinars to Psychometrics and to every other Alison product.
