MindLeaders: Course Features and Benefits

MindLeaders courses offer unique benefits unavailable from other self-paced training vendors. Each course is developed using a rigorous set of criteria. Our criteria include quality content, interaction, graphics, a consistent course interface, and interspersed questions, making learning fun, interesting, and effective.

Global Features

Course List Icons:

• Allow users to more easily view, at a glance, what is available, new, and/or updated.

Course Topics:

• Provides a quick reference tool allowing each course to remain useful to you. Each item in the Course Topics list is an active hyperlink, permitting quick access to specific topics.
• Permits quick access to the tables of content and indexes for the entire MindLeaders course library. This makes it easy to locate specific information to study or reference.
• Complements the course glossary, a great reference for definitions of unfamiliar terms.

Delivery:

• No downloading of course files is required before, during, or after you take a course. This keeps your local hard drive free of unnecessary files.
• Small page size (average of only 16k) ensures fast response time through the Internet, intranets, and local area networks without negatively impacting production network performance.

SCORM 1.2 Compliance:

• Allows organizations using SCORM 1.2 conformant LMS products to launch MindLeaders courses as SCORM 1.2 conformant learning objects. SCORM is a collection of specifications adapted from multiple sources to provide a comprehensive suite of e-Learning capabilities enabling interoperability, accessibility, and reusability of Web-based learning content.

Global Navigation:

• Provides you with the same easy-to-use and intuitive course presentation through a Web browser (i.e. Microsoft Internet Explorer).
• Provides ready access to key information, from a course glossary, to tips on using the courses, to technical support information. All of these are accessible using the Course Tools Tabs.
• Allows a student to navigate through a course, answer questions, and take the Skill Assessment using keyboard shortcuts.

Flexible Timing:

• MindLeaders courses are ready when you are - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• Allows you to control the pace. Learn quickly or take your time.
• Allows you to focus on what you need. Skip what you know or don’t need, or take courses repeatedly. It’s your choice.

Bookmarking:

• Tracks your progress in a course. The next time you access the course, you will return to the same location within the course. You don’t need to remember either where you stopped or how to return to where you stopped.

Testing

Questions:

• Challenge you with a variety of question formats, including multi-step simulations, true/false, multiple choice, and fill-in-the-blank.
• Provide constructive feedback for both correct and incorrect responses.

Simulations:

• Flash-based, multiple-step, simulations show you how applications really work.
• Include hints and step-by-step instructions to assist you through the simulation.
• May be replayed multiple times for a better understanding of the illustrated concepts.
• Animated procedural simulations created with Flash provide an interactive, structured walk-through of a series of steps.

Exercises (“Try-Its”):

• Give you valuable hands-on experience.
• Can be facilitated with the user of supplied sample files.
• Allow new skills to be tested by completing an activity within the actual application

Skill Assessment:

• Generates a customized learning path based on the results of a pre-test of your skills before taking a course. The pre-test identifies individual strengths
• and weaknesses, allowing you to take only the units you haven’t mastered.
• Allows testing at any time and is available from within each course.
• Tracks your scores by unit. Initial, current, and best scores are tracked. Scores are available to view on screen or for administrators to print immediately.
• Provides a post-test. You'll know how well you've mastered the material once this test is completed.
• Allows any MindLeaders course to be taken and your best score to be compared with the MindLeaders Mastery Level Score.

Progress Report Link:

• Allow all learners to view the course questions that remain unanswered. A new Progress Report link has been added to the Course Tools tab in the Course View for all platforms.

Supplied Sample Files:

• Include sample documents, application files, programs, and programming code.
• Can be copied into a document or compiler, enabling you to practice with these files and save time by using them in a document or program of your own.
• Allow code analysis and provide sample output, enhancing your learning experience.

New Mastery Page:

• Allow learners to determine easily if they have mastered a course or not. A new mastery page is replacing the last page of all courses (except the Getting Started course). Learners who have mastered a course will receive a page with congratulatory text. Learners who have not mastered a course will receive a page with “You’ve Reached the End of the Course” text.

Multimedia

Instructional Audio:

• Allows learners to hear instructional audio tracks for each course page consists of the text on the course page. Courses with instructional audio will have new speaker icon and replay buttons in the course navigation bar.

Show Me’s™:

• Allow learners to view a Flash video within a MindLeaders course. In the right frame of the course, the video starts and is accompanied by instructional audio. In the left frame, text dialogue matching the instructional audio is displayed.

Business Skills Videos:

• Allow MindLeaders to offer scenario-based streaming video courses. These Business Skills Video courses map to the core business competencies of organizations and their extended enterprises.

Flash and Audio:

• Provide animated, interactive Lesson Introductions, Activities, and Simulations.
• Supply an aural feedback mechanism when questions are answered correctly.
• Present new concepts in Lesson Introductions.

Special Features

Add-a-Note:

• Allows an Add-a-Note Editor to add custom notes to pages within courses in a given site.
• Allows a learner to see notes for that page or simply click a link and be directed to the particular page with the notes.

Search:

• Allows you to research a topic of interest in any or all of the courses you can access. This includes the For Dummies and Business Skills Video courses.
• Enables you to rapidly search all text, including text within coding examples, to easily retrieve the information you require.
• Allows you to expand your search to include looking for synonyms.
• Includes stemming technology that automatically includes related variations of your search term in the search tool.

Course Completion Certificates:

• Allow a learner to choose and print a certificate when he or she has mastered a course. Completion certificates now indicate the estimated number of hours it takes to complete the course.

Find-A-Word:

• Allows a learner to select a word or phrase in the course content and perform one of four searches. (1) Search the Glossary; (2) Search this Course; (3) Search the Web; and (4) Dictionary.

Accessibility:

• Allows vision-impaired students to use a text reader program to read the text-only version of a course.
• Enables students to access the various MindLeaders course features by using command keys to navigate, search the glossary, answer course questions, and more.
• Fully compatible with JAWS 3.7 and 4.5.
• Complies with all Federal 508 regulations and W3C’c WCAG guidelines.

My Preferences:

• Allow you to modify the course environment to your personal preferences, including permitting you to change text size and turn certain multimedia lesson components on and off.

Smooth Page Transitions:

• Allows a learner to see course pages “fade in” when paging forward or backward through the course. The smooth page transitions eliminate the flash between pages, improving the learner experience. The default My Preferences setting for Smooth Page Transitions is OFF.

Learning Platforms

MindLeaders learning platforms offer seamless integration with over 50 Learning Management Systems, are AICC and SCORM 1.2 conformant, and also comply with all United States Federal 508 regulations and W3C's WCAG accessibility guidelines.