Principles for designing online self-paced corporate training

Self-paced online corporate training is growing rapidly in today's technology-based society. Instructional designers have an important role to ensure that online courses are designed to meet the needs, goals, and learning outcomes of the learner and their employer. In the present study four participants' experience with a self-paced online training course for practicing engineers was examined. A case study for each participant that focuses on three instructional design decisions incorporated into the online training course is described and analyzed. The instructional design decisions were guided by three principles developed for designing self-paced online corporate training. Results suggest that the experience level of the learner plays an integral role in their need for structure in course content, that learner engagement can be increased through on-screen annotation, and that the use of picture-in-picture in instructional videos increases the social connection with the instructor and course content. Implications and recommendations are given for each finding and areas for further research are suggested.