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Delivering accessible learning in the Public Sector

With the ever quickening pace of technological change, it’s never been more important to prepare your people for the future of work. But with many public sector organisations now operating remote or hybrid working practices, a key challenge L&D professionals are facing is how best to use limited resources to ensure continued access to training.

Posted 25 January 2023

Adopt an online delivery model

If this resonates with you, you may have considered, or already adopted, an online delivery model and no doubt will be aware of the advantages, including the ability to deliver high-quality training consistently and affordably to every member of your workforce, no matter where they are located. And, of course, the ability to track progress, so you can demonstrate that value is being provided to all your stakeholders.

To fully realise these benefits, however, it’s vital to make sure both your digital learning platform and content are accessible.

Adopt an online delivery model

Meet your learners where they are

The starting point is to ensure you’re meeting your learners where they are, in terms of their capabilities with technology. In a digital learning context, this means taking the time to consider where each member of your workforce is on a scale from digital immigrant - someone who learned to use technology as an adult, to digital native - someone who has never known a world without the internet. Once you understand what this looks like for your organisation, it’s essential to make sure your digital learning content is suitable for those at every stage.

It’s also important to be aware of the various different devices your learners already have and are familiar with and ensure your content has been developed for those devices. You need to check the user interface (UI) is appropriate and has been well designed and thoroughly tested to ensure the best possible user experience (UX).

Meet your learners where they are

Offer 24/7 on-demand availability

Of course you also need a robust way of delivering your content and getting it into the hands of your learners at the time when they choose to access it. And that’s when your learning management system (LMS) really comes into its own. Modern learning management systems will provide your learners with an online learning solution that is fully secure and available 24/7 for on-demand learning.

Offer 24 7 On-demand availability

For all your learners

It’s also worth taking into consideration other aspects of accessibility such as sight loss, hearing loss, dyslexia etc. when creating and delivering your content. Indeed, eCom’s LMS, eNetLearn, has been developed with ease of use and accessibility designed in from the outset, in partnership with RNIB and Mencap to meet the highest accessibility and usability standards.

“Overall, the UI and UX is beautifully understated with the principles of accessibility presented to perfect effect.”

from a review by
Learning Light

And your bespoke eLearningcontent canbe structured to ensure full access for all learners. We’ve helped many public sector clients with this such as the NHS, creating eLearning to support their workforce development whilst ensuring compliance with accessibility legislation.

We also worked with the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), to create and deliver digital learning that helps employment advisors throughout the UK provide better support to the 11,000 people with sight loss in the country who are currently actively seeking work, as well as help the individuals themselves to find employment opportunities. As a result, RNIB were able to reduce the need for travel and associated costs and successfully reach a dispersed audience.

eCom on G-Cloud 13

For 25 years, we’ve been a trusted advisor in digital learning and assessment. As a public sector organisation, you can now find out more about how our solutions could help you via our listing on G-Cloud 13; the UK Government’s framework for cloud-delivered ICT goods and services on the Digital Marketplace.

Alternatively, you can Contact us Online or call us on +44 (0)1383 630032.