A further selection of key projects from the TNA archives. Click to reveal!
National Grid
‘Doing the Right Thing’ eLearning on ethical business standards
The challenge
National Grid wished to refresh UK and US employees’ knowledge and understanding of the Company’s ethical business standards and expectations. A self-paced eLearning program accessed via the company’s LMS was the most cost-effective method of not only delivering the material but also measuring and tracking course completion and understanding.
Our solution
TNA worked with National Grid staff to design and build a ‘hub’ program which gave an overview of the principles of ethical business and National Grid’s Core Values and Framework for Responsible Business. This then launched individual ‘advanced’ modules.
The topics covered included:
- Competition
- Fraud, Bribery & Corruption
- Information Security
- Information & Records
- Business Separation
Acquire knowledge
(eg. demonstrate understanding of National Grid’s Core Values and Framework for Responsible Business, describe the rules on gifts and hospitality, be able to identify when a potential conflict of interest arises and what action should be taken)
Demonstrate comprehension
(eg. indicate what action should be taken in certain circumstances)
Demonstrate application
(eg. apply Standards to every day business decisions, think through decisions and identify appropriate business conduct). Scenarios in each module posed various dilemmas, with choices of action and feedback
guidance using a mixture of UK and US voiceover actors to maintain a balance in both continents.
The program was updated in 2011 as a refresher on management decision-making.
Nestlé
Corporate Staff Induction program
The challenge
Nestlé wanted to enrich its job offers to new graduates and provide new employees with a flexible, wide-ranging overview of the organisation from Day 1, without the inefficiencies and scheduling problems of running conventional induction sessions.
The HR team also sought a means of ensuring accurate, consistently high quality delivery of information on the company’s culture, behaviours and operations. The program had to be flexible and comprehensive enough to suit employees at all levels and in all types of job.
Our solution
An interactive multimedia CD-ROM
TNA was chosen from a short list of the top six UK eLearning developers, demonstrating a working prototype of our approach to senior Human Resources management.
We researched, scripted and created all of the content. The result was a fun, media-rich program that included virtual video and audio interviews with the Managing Director of Nestlé UK, plus office and factory staff, interactive learning games and exercises and even a 360 degree interactive tour of the KitKat factory at York.
Multimedia Libraries
The program featured a library packed with hundreds of images and videos of Nestlé product advertisements over the years as well as major sections devoted to explaining the Nestlé culture, including its core values and behaviours.
Numerous (editable) links were provided to Nestlé intranet pages and to the web sites of associated companies. The program was designed to serve both as an upbeat welcome to new starters and as a continuing resource of useful information.
Value Chain game
An intriguing part of the program was an interactive game in which the employee takes the role of a player in the Nestlé ‘Value Chain’, such as the Supplier, Manufacturer or Retailer. Trading in Smarties, their challenge is to juggle the stock they hold to the minimum whilst still being able to fully satisfy their customers’ demands.
Imperial Tobacco
Staff eInduction
The challenge
One of the biggest challenges facing multi-national organisations is ensuring that all new staff receive consistent, high quality induction training. Traditional classroom induction courses are expensive to run (travel, accommodation, time away from the business, etc.), inefficient for small numbers and inflexible.
Imperial Tobacco selected TNA to create an e-induction program that would lead new employees through every aspect of the company’s business, from its origins through a review of the tobacco industry, the company’s manufacturing, sales and support operations, its vision and values, and its future direction.
Our solution
Rich interactive content
The program we developed contains a diverse mix of images, interactive timelines, explanatory process animations and interactive video interviews with senior managers.
Multi-language design
The content needed to be easily translated into other languages without programming, a task we have handled many times before, with projects in Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic and most European languages.
The induction program delivered to Imperial Tobacco has all its on-screen text (including menu button labels, screen titling and instructions) and voiceover narration held in external files (xml and mp3).
The tool provided by TNA automates the creation of new xml files directly from the storyboard script Word files.
Deutsche Bank
Health, Safety & Environment eLearning
The challenge
Deutsche Bank required engaging eLearning on topics such as Fire & Emergency, Hazard Awareness, Health & Well Being and Stress Awareness accessed through their custom LMS on the bank’s intranet. Importantly, the learning needed to be easily convertible by Deutsche Bank into numerous alternative languages without re-programming.
Our solution
Our solution comprises a suite of interactive modules sharing a separate ‘program shell’ which draws ALL its text and audio content from external files. This enables Deutsche Bank to create an unlimited number of alternative language versions without re-programming.
The tool provided by TNA automates the creation of new xml files directly from the storyboard script Word files.
So, to produce a German version for example simply requires our client to:
- translate the English Word scripts to German
- generate German xml files using the TNA tool
- record a German version of the narration, from the translated script
- edit and save the German mp3 files, using file names from the script
- place German xml and mp3 files in the appropriate folders
The client could now specify whether to run the program in English or German simply by specifying the default language in an external text file.
The use of xml files also enables Unicode fonts to be specified for the display of ‘double byte’ languages such as Chinese, and ‘right to left’ languages like Arabic.
Phones 4u
Suite of 28 eLearning modules
The challenge
This is a project from long, long ago – developed during 2003/4 – although by then, we’d already been developing eLearning for 10 years! Hence the antique mobile phones in the screen samples.
Phones 4u is one of the UK’s largest retailers of mobile phones. TNA was selected from a short list of 10 developers to script, create and maintain a large suite of eLearning modules on topics ranging from new phone models and technologies to health & safety and corporate induction.
Who is it for?
Phones 4U sales staff are busy people, so a crucial objective was to make the modules fun and fast to use – each 10 minutes maximum completion time with a brief quiz.
System requirements
Staff chose a module from their own learning page on NetDimension’s ‘EKP’ Learning Management System (LMS) held on the company’s intranet. TNA commissioned the LMS and provided support.
The modules were launched on the user’s local PC – the same systems that were used as sales terminals. Since the company’s intranet is primarily for sales order processing, applications such as multimedia eLearning could not be allowed to compromise the available bandwidth.
Our solution
We designed an animated, ‘game style’ user interface to help make the experience more enjoyable to the typically youthful staff.
Modules were developed in Adobe Flash and professionally narrated throughout. Typical of these multimedia modules was the one introducing the (then radical!) ‘Vodafone live! with 3G’ service, which included explanations and simulations using Flash animations and numerous video clips, recorded by TNA straight from the screen of a 3G phone.
On completion of a module, the user’s progress data and quiz score was saved (via SCORM data exchange) to the LMS for management reporting. TNA implemented and customised the LMS as well as creating the reporting facilities.
To avoid damaging bandwidth during store hours, modules were ‘trickled’ down to store PCs from the server overnight. When the user chose a module from the LMS, it automatically launched the file locally.
Outcomes
Staff fitted their learning into busy schedules and small modules kept network overhead low. New modules were created and delivered within two to three weeks of receiving a brief, thus enabling fast reaction to changing technologies and opportunities. Management could view the relative progress and competence
of staff by individual employee, store and region.
Fast forward to 2012 …
There have been many changes since 2004 and Phones 4u now has a different view of eLearning.
Gone are the days of ‘pushing’ courses onto busy staff: now they ‘pull’ down the material that interests them from a stunning 3-Dimensional Virtual Academy, developed by TNA and now in use across all Phones 4u stores by 5,000 staff.
Click here to read all about the Academy: Online.
OnAir
Multi-language eLearning course on an in-flight communications system
The challenge
Geneva-based OnAir chose TNA to create two fully interactive web-based eLearning programs about their onboard services, Mobile OnAir and Internet OnAir, which enable passengers on selected European flights to make and receive phone calls and exchange text messages and emails. The programs needed to equip cabin staff with sufficient knowledge and understanding to control the systems and to solve the most common passenger issues.
Our solution
TNA designed graphical interfaces and content style that echoed the company’s web site branding and left plenty of clean space for the original illustrations, animations and brief bullet text.
The programs keep all screen text and voiceover narration in external files, enabling the rapid and cost-
effective generation of different language versions without the need for re-programming.
In the same way, the interfaces may be easily ‘themed’ for each airline, again without any need for programming, using externally held files containing airline titles, logos and airline-specific background imagery.
A Learning Management System, also developed by TNA, logs users’ progress records and assessment
scores allowing each airline to measure learner knowledge retention and understanding.
SITA Aero
eLearning courses on the Air Transport Industry
The challenge
SITA is the world’s leading air transport IT and communications specialist. They provide services for airline commercial management, passenger operations, flight operations, aircraft operations, air-to-ground communications, airport management and operations, baggage operations, transportation security and border management, cargo operations and more.
TNA has developed 16 bespoke eLearning courses for SITA in Europe and the USA since 1992. For this project, a comprehensive suite of nine modules was needed to ensure that SITA Sales and Support staff understood how all the pieces in the Air Transport Industry jigsaw operate and fit together. A mammoth eLearning project spanning five years, as the modules were upgraded with fresh information.
Our solution
This project started in 2005 and was created in Authorware (now obsolete), with animations and interactions in Flash. Content includes illustrations, interactive timelines, maps and exercises.
We published the modules as ‘streaming’ segments which users access via the Authorware web browser plugin. The modules are launched from a ‘mini LMS’ also produced by TNA which tracks topic completion and quiz scores.
System hosted by TNA
TNA continues to host this course for SITA, providing SITA employees worldwide with a continuing reference resource on the Air Transport industry.
Major pharmaceutical
3D virtual academy for training on a new drug
The challenge
Our client is part of a global pharmaceutical group. After seeing our work in action at the ‘World of Learning’ Exhibition, they commissioned us to build a new eLearning program for pharmaceutical representatives on a product used for the treatment of urinary incontinence. The company was no stranger to eLearning but were seeking a more engaging and memorable experience than that provided by previous developers.
Our solution
Innovative 3D navigation
We designed and modelled a ‘virtual learning centre’ in 3D and created dynamic ‘fly-through’ sequences between the Reception area, the three study rooms, the Assessment Centre and the Library.
This novel approach lets the learner move realistically between these rooms by panning right or left and simply clicking on a door. We are then swept at eye level through the door, into the room and up to the learning screen.
In addition to the 3D navigation, the program also provides a more traditional menu with which the learner may move with a single click from a topic screen in one ‘room’ to a completely different topic and screen in another. The menu buttons also show which topics have been completed.
Graphical style
The fresh, modern interface and product imagery echo the company’s corporate style. In Reception, a camel relaxes with a newspaper … not entirely random – the product branding features a camel!
Reference Library
Documents in the Library may also be opened, studied (and printed, if required) and then closed without ‘leaving’ the current study topic.
Library documents are displayed initially as a cover page which then leads to a full screen pdf version when selected.
The documents in the Library are all maintained by the client, without re-programming.
Context-sensitive References and Glossary of Terms
References and terms are presented in three categories for:
- The current Page only
- The current Section only
- The entire program (indexed A-Z)
This context-sensitive ‘filtering’ means that no unnecessary time is wasted at the moment a reference or definition is needed.
Multimedia content
Our team created over 100 bespoke illustrations and animations of biological actions plus interactive video interviews and self-check exercises. The material was all designed and scripted by TNA Ltd in collaboration with the client’s medical staff.
The 3D models and ‘fly-throughs’ were produced using LightWave and the program was developed in Adobe Flash. All title and button label text is held in editable xml files.
Typical completion time for the program, including the Assessment, is about 90 minutes. Staff launch the SCORM-compliant course from their corporate LMS.
Virtual Aviation College
Multi-language eLearning program on Ramp Safety for a Middle East Ground Handling company
The challenge
The job of an airport loader is a tough one, often working in extreme conditions under great pressure, loading and unloading goods that range from racehorses and cars to suitcases and crates of bees.
The Virtual Aviation College (VAC) wanted an extremely easy to use, modular program for its Middle East client that would lead new employees through all of the potential safety hazards and demonstrate how they could avoid incurring injury and causing damage.
Our solution
We developed an eLearning course in Adobe Flash containing hundreds of location photos, animations and video clips but with deliberately very little on-screen text. TNA accompanied VAC to their client’s airport location and shot all of the still and video material, including setting up the various scenarios needed to illustrate good and bad practice.
Interactive practice
There are several interactive exercises in which the Loader must identify hazards by clicking on hidden ‘hot spots’ in 360 degree panoramic photographs or choose safe practices from a selection of video clips. Each exercise is supported by constructive feedback to guide the learner.
Easily edited content
All on-screen text, animations, video and audio is held in separate, editable files to enable cost-effective conversion to other languages and for efficient content updating.
Intelligent program shell
The program has an intelligent ‘shell’ which dynamically builds the navigation menu Section and Topic buttons from an ‘ini’ file.
This means that (for example) if a Section menu option needed two more Topics adding this is achieved simply by adding two more line entries in the text file. No changes to the program and no new menu graphics are needed. The labels for the menu buttons are also held in a file and the whole exercise is completed in minutes.
Assessing learner understanding and saving progress
A 30 question Quiz assesses the Loader’s understanding of ramp safety procedures. These comprise True/False, Multi-Choice and clickable images and videos and are designed to assess their ability to recognise danger and to know what to do to minimise risk to themselves and to others. Learners may launch the SCORM-compliant course from a commercial LMS.