Case Study
University of Houston
SkillSoft’s first enterprise-wide education partner
to embrace e-learning
Profile
Moving beyond courseware
Founded in 1927, the University of
Houston is one of Texas’ leading
public academic research and teaching
institutions.
The University of Houston is one of Texas’
leading public, higher educational institutions and offers 294 degree programs
through 12 colleges. Founded in 1927,
it is home to 39,800 undergraduate and
graduate students, faculty and staff and
is part of the UH System, which also
includes UH-Clear Lake, UH-Downtown,
UH-Victoria and two teaching centers,
the UH System at Sugar Land and the UH
System at Cinco Ranch.
Challenge
The university’s IT training staff
needed to create and implement a
learning program that would address
the needs and priorities of IT professionals, as well as students, faculty and
other university staff for personal and
professional development.
Solution
Already a user of SkillSoft IT courseware, the University of Houston added
in 2004 SkillChoice™ Complete
business skills, IT and desktop solution
to the entire campus community.
Results
After the university’s first year of using
SkillChoice™ Complete, e-learning
course access increased 152 percent.
The number of courses completed
increased 372 percent. In addition,
professors in the university’s College
of Technology have integrated
SkillSoft courses into their classes.
In September 2003, the university welcomed Jay Gogue to its campus as president and chancellor of the UH System.
According to Don Perry, the SkillSoft
administrator at the time and lead trainer
for the IT training department, “We were
going through an organizational change
and our new director of IT organizational development, Debra Marinelli, was
charged with developing an employeedriven improvement program focused on
IT professional development. Her surveys
and interviews identified business skills as
the highest priority for improvement.”
management system from a universityhosted platform and piloted business
skills courses. After a successful pilot, the
university became SkillSoft’s first enterprise-wide education partner in the United
States, acquiring the complete library
of business, IT and desktop e-learning
courseware and the Books24x7® collection.
HR partnerships
During the 2004-2005 academic year, use
of the university’s e-learning resources
expanded, due mainly to a focus on marketing the program and wide support from
the human resources department.
IT continues working with the HR office
to develop blended learning initiatives that
incorporate existing HR-led informational
sessions and training workshops with
SkillSoft e-learning resources. Following
most HR instructor-led classes, participants now receive handouts with information about e-learning that complements
the session topic and objectives covered in
the class.
Faculty and staff already used IT courseware from Smartforce, which had recently
merged with SkillSoft. The merger offered
new opportunities for the university to
take advantage of SkillSoft’s complete
library of e-learning resources.
In addition to utilizing familiar campus
communication vehicles to promote the
university’s and SkillSoft’s e-learning partnership, the IT training group has recently
begun presenting at student organizational
meetings, highlighting e-learning resources that can help with specific career paths
and professional certification.
In spring 2004, the University of Houston
migrated to SkillSoft’s SkillPort® learning
During the first school year in which the
Blended Learning Success
University of Houston community had full access to SkillSoft
resources, the number of courses accessed increased by 152
percent, a total of 9,037 courses accessed, and the number of
course completions increased by 372 percent, a total of 6,315
courses completed.
SkillSoft in the classroom
In summer 2004, Betty Roberts, associate vice president/vice chancellor of technical support services, and Fred Lewallen, associate
dean of academic affairs at the College of Technology, discussed
the college’s interest in using SkillSoft in the classroom.
“Lewallen had been an advocate of SkillSoft for a long time and
was on the committee to pick an e-learning vendor,” Roberts said.
“So it seemed natural for us to partner with them to expand our
scope of products and pool our resources.”
Working together, the departments helped the university add additional courses and the Books 24x7® online book collections. Five
College of Technology professors began using SkillSoft in their
classrooms in the fall 2004 semester.
One professor is Sharon Lund O’Neil, who holds a doctorate in
business education from the University of Illinois. She decided
to implement a blended learning format using SkillSoft courses,
for her “Leading Change in the Workplace” course. The course is
part of the College of Technology’s degree program in Technology
Leadership and Supervision, or TLS.
“Knowing that the TLS program was moving to a blended learning
model in spring 2005, it was logical for me to incorporate SkillSoft
courses because many are closely aligned with our program,”
O’Neil explained.
After working through some growing pains, O’Neil has found
a blended format that works and one that the students seem to
like. Students prepare for each class by reading assigned textbook
and supplemental material, preparing other related assignments
and completing a related SkillSoft course. There are 15 weeks in a
semester and thus O’Neil uses 15 different SkillSoft courses. She
also assigns three written/oral book reviews per semester and
encourages students to take advantage of Books24x7 as the source
for their selected reading.
Plans for the future
With an average of 25-40 students per class, O’Neil feels the
blended learning model contributes to a vibrant class period, with
ideas freely flowing and learning enhanced through collaboration
and support. Still, she seeks ways to improve and refine the
blended courseware. So far she has developed two courses,
“Leading Change in the Workplace” and “Team Leadership,” that
can be taught using SkillSoft e-learning.
The IT department hopes to expand the communications push to
other colleges within the University of Houston and bring more
faculty, staff and students on board with e-learning. It expects
the collaboration with HR to increase as HR develops additional
training sessions that can be combined with e-learning resources
and explores competency mapping and performance management
initiatives.
“We are proud of the response so far,” Perry said. “This is a benefit
we hope to continue providing to our UH family for a long time to
come.
www.skillsoft.com
Copyright © 2010 SkillSoft. All rights reserved.
Corporate U.S.
Headquarters
SkillSoft EMEA
Headquarters
SkillSoft Asia Pacific
Headquarters
107 Northeastern Boulevard
Nashua, NH 03062
Phone: 603-324-3000
800-327-6960
information@skillsoft.com
Compass House
2nd Floor
207-215 London Road
Camberley
GU15 3EY
UK
Phone: +44 (0) 127 640 1950
Fax: +44 (0) 127 640 1951
internationalinformation@skillsoft.com
Level 27, 101 Collins Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
Australia
Tel: +61 3 9653 7484
Fax: +61 3 9653 7373
apac@skillsoft.com
SSCS.019.0710