Online e-content development is one of strategic directions for Competentum Group. Competentum has more than 100 highly qualified specialists, who have graduated from the best Russian universities and combine deep knowledge of computer science along with the expertise in different subject areas.

Competentum has broad experience of creating algorithmically driven content for different e-Learning systems. We are able to maintain different production standards, which can be provided by the client. We can also develop a custom standard for content creation process based on the client’s high level requirements.

We offer a range of content development services for both academic education and corporate training including:

• Scientific and pedagogical consulting
• Instructional design
• Custom content production
• Content quality assurance
• Content conversion services

Competentum has been providing e-Learning services for 15 years and proved to be a stable and reliable vendor with deep expertise and highly qualified developers.

Academic Content

Our team has created more than 450,000 academic learning objects for various customers. Competentum is a leading Russian educational content provider that is creating Math and Science learning objects and online problems for Russian Ministry of education. During last 3 years more than 100,000 online objects and problems were created. Competentum has developed more than 200,000 on-line Math and Science test questions and interactive learning objects for major USA educational publishers (Thomson Learning, Pearson Education, McGraw-Hill Companies, and others).

Separate teams are dedicated and trained to work with leading US e-Learning platforms:

• CengageNOW (Cengage Learning)
• MyCyberTutor – Mastering Physics/Mastering Chemistry (Pearson Education)
• MyMathLab (Pearson Education)
• MyEconLab (Pearson Education)
• PrenticeHallGradeAssist (Pearson Education)
• Interactive Mathematics (PLATO Learning)
• WebAssign
• ExamView
• Lectora

Our experience shows that clients recognize the following most important aspects of our content creation services:

• subject matter expertise
• quality
• cost
• speed of production
• project management

Competentum experts have a deep creative input into our projects and perform the most science intensive parts of our work:

• Scientific and pedagogical consulting
• Instructional design
• Interaction with customer’s authors
• Content quality assurance

Corporate Content Recently we began developing customized content for corporate training. We have created corporate courses for some among recognized Russian corporations (Beeline, UralSib). Examples of what we did before and will be happy to do again include:

• Role-playing and decision-making games
• Real-life equipment and software simulations
• Interactive diagrams, flowcharts and graphs
• Interactive 3D models and navigable 3D worlds
• Compelling animations
• Synchronized streaming media and podcasts
• Performance assessment using test questions or custom interactions
• Problem-solving exercises in fundamental disciplines
• Interactive labs

While creating these kind of courses for our customers, we commonly face the need to adapt them to various delivery settings, including:

• LMS/Internet/Intranet delivery
• Offline CD delivery
• Narrowband or broadband
• Mobile devices

We are happy to provide you with wide range of services related to content development. These include:

• Custom content production itself
• Instructional design for multimedia content
• Complex content templates development for using in your environment
• Existing content conversion/update
• ASP services for content management
• Content management and content creation process consulting, implementation and integration services

We may help you achieve any goal related to e-Learning courses creation and implementation, independent of the project and organization scale. We have various expertise, from national-scale, thousand-object projects to small yet challenging tasks.

Production Process

Competentum has completed over 100 content development projects with different workflows. Our ISO 9001:2000 conformant Project Management System supports workflow cycles of any complexity. At the same time for scheduling and cost effectiveness we try to utilize existing project lifecycles which has proven to provide high quality content within schedule and cost restrictions.

Depending on pedagogical and content complexity we apply from 1 to 5 content development stages and from 1 to 7 quality assurance stages.

Content development stages may include:

• Needs assessment
  We always try to understand first what the customer’s goal of creating the content is, how the content is supposed to be used, and in what audience it will be distributed. This stage may appear only once at the beginning of the project, however, in some complicated cases it may be applied for every piece of content.
• Establishing learning objectives
  Once it is understood how the content will be used it is then a stage of identifying the appropriate objectives to unveil the concept to a learner.
• Media selection
  On this stage an expert is identifying the types of media (graphs, images, simulations, etc.) to present the concept in the best way.
• Storyboarding of learning content
  For pedagogically complex projects it is very important to confirm with the customer that the content will be created in the appropriate way by creating draft content items with complete pedagogy but sketch media and limited functionality. In some cases instead of applying this stage to every piece of content an initial development phase could be used during which the customer can confirm that the project goal is being satisfied.
• Creating appropriate learning scenarios
  The main development phase during which all ideas of previous stages are being compiled and coded.

The quality assurance stages may include:

• Code quality testing
• Style guide and/or specific e-Learning standards compliance testing
• Algorithms check
• Subject matter testing
• Proofreading/Copyediting
• Automated testing
• Class testing (“bounty haunting” – using our relationships with leading Russian universities. Competentum is able to set up a class in which real students will be working with content and searching for mistakes)

Following is the sample workflow scheme that we can use in content development projects.

Templating and Standards Compliance

At Competentum Group, we use templating to provide streamline mass development of content. Templating technology allows us to separate text and media from logic and presentation interface, providing greater flexibility and reusability of learning objects created. All templates make use of XML content and based on XHTML/XSL or Macromedia Flash technologies.

We pay special attention to e-Learning industry standards compliance, which enables:

• Reusability of content, once created, in various settings
• Customizable behavior of learning objects in different learning environments
• Complex logic of user activities reporting
• Adaptive learning experience

We support all major industry standards for e-Learning content: SCORM 1.2, 2004, AICC, and test our content for interoperability with market leading tools on a regular basis. No matter where you plan to use our content, we insure that it fits seamlessly into your existing learning solution by testing our content in target environment.

Having problems with your own content? We provide conversion of existing content in both manual and automatic modes, using third party or custom-built tools. We have vast expertise in achieving interoperability with proprietary formats.