Frequently Asked Questions

It all starts with the business case and management support. Do you have a business case and do you have management support? If not we can help with that. We will also assist you with the launch of your e-learning initiative, help you with the internal marketing and also assist you with maintenance marketing (develop ways to increase usage over time). We can provide successful case studies that will establish credibility; integrate e-learning into developmental plans and performance improvement initiatives, hold open houses or brown bag seminars, and incorporate e-learning into new employee orientation. The list of companies adopting e-learning for its benefits also continues to grow. Support documents and white papers can also be made available to all parties involved in the decision making process.

A number of our customers use our training for new employee orientation and annual refresher training. Many of these same customers use our training as the base to set up their hands-on or site-specific training. For example, all employees that operate a forklift are required to take a formal forklift safety lesson before they get actual instruction about how to operate specific forklifts at the facility. A large percentage of our customers assign the lessons that OSHA recommends for all employees. This general training is complemented with site-specific or job-specific training.

No, if anything e-Learning gives trainers increased control over training activities. E-Learning provides management systems for tracking trainees’ progress and location, online testing to match a trainee with needed training, consistency of training in terms of quality and information presented and standardization of training when training occurs in several work locations simultaneously. Trainers can serve more than one company with an e-learning program, reducing the investment each company would have to make.

Many academic studies have been conducted on this very subject. Empirical data shows that knowledge retention rates increase when using e-Learning as compared to traditional classroom training. Our e-Learning allows trainees to work at their own pace. Our e-Learning can sequence training to match the trainee’s needs. The computer can always match the trainee’s schedule. Our e-Learning can reach trainees outside the traditional classroom, providing instruction on the job or at home. Our e-Learning provides immediate feedback to trainees on their progress. Our e-Learning does not have to be delivered to all employees at the same time, thus allowing the company to maintain coverage of critical positions. Videos are a passive learning method requiring very little student involvement. Our e-Learning provides informative training by delivering its message through, audio visuals (animation, video, illustrations) and interactivity. Our e-Learning encourages the trainee to become an active learner. Videos require the trainee to remain a passive learner, which could hinder comprehension and retention.

We’re not sure how your particular insurance company would adjust your premiums based on our training but Insurance Risk Pools and Insurance companies like Liberty Mutual, SFM and Builders Group are also some of the companies that use our products for their employee and/or client training. Since insurance premiums are directly related to insurance claims, the use of an effective safety training tool helps increase the safety awareness among employees, thus reducing safety related accidents in the respective environment.

ROI needs of companies are as unique as their respective business objectives. Recently, IBM experienced more than a 2,000% ROI on their e-Learning investment. It is easy to look at some of the cost savings such as reduced training time and travel costs. There are also instructor costs, prep time and administrative costs to be considered. Evaluating and assigning a monetary value to intangible results can be more difficult. Things such as increased productivity, reduced turnover, reduction in lost-time injuries and reduction in workers’ compensation claims should also be assigned a monetary value when calculating ROI. What factors will you consider when calculating ROI for your organization? You may also be interested in measuring other areas such as, “What are the participants' reactions to the training?” We can help you do this with feedback forms at the end of each lesson. “What skills, knowledge, or attitudes have been changed or acquired and to what extent?” You will gain these answers through our testing and reporting features. “Did participants apply what they learned in training to their jobs?” You will gain this through observation and the efficiencies you will see as a result of the training. “Did the on-the-job application of this training produce measurable results?” You should notice these results in terms of increased productivity, decrease in absenteeism and occupational injuries, decreases in customer complaints and so on.

Our model is to license our library to organizations based on the number of employees and the number of lessons that you would like included in your library. This offers a number of benefits to you including cost efficiencies, consistency of training quality across time and distance, updates based on regulatory changes, improved training outcomes and years of expertise.

It is our intention to understand your safety training needs and most importantly help you identify the best fit for your culture. In our effort to do so we would like to share with you our knowledge of the e-Learning environment, and more specifically the customer research that we have been able to gather over the past several years. We hope that sharing the experiences, challenges, and successes of other business environments that have adopted this form of training will help you identify the best fit for your organization. Our goal is to effectively communicate our value proposition and understand how we fit in.

The "ad hoc" Reporting system allows you to easily create custom reports detailing student registration and activity, including completion dates, scores, student information, progress and more. There are also several pre-built reports in our system. We can create a “custom” report and add it to our system if the need arises. Additional reporting capabilities may be available through our eClarus Enterprise Edition LMS or your LMS of choice.

Based on pilot studies conducted by customers and our own research, we've found that experienced, knowledgeable employees typically take 15 - 25 minutes to complete an average course. First time users typically take 25 - 30 minutes.

Yes, our LMS has the ability to track elapsed time for each student.

All of our training programs are designed and produced using a traditional Instructional Systems Design model. Our production staff includes instructional designers as well as educators and industrial trainers. We first develop training objectives based on OSHA standards and industry good practices. Then our content is designed to help a student meet those objectives. Our evaluations (examinations) are designed to determine if the student has met the training objectives. Evaluation feedback is also provided to help ensure objectives are met.

Each lesson can be configured by an Administrator to allow a student to take a lesson test at any time, or to prevent a student from taking a test until the lesson content has been completed.

Reports can be exported and posted into an LMS or HRM software application.

As you know, one of the core benefits of online learning is that it allows an individual to access training anytime, anywhere. However, there still might be limitations in that remote employees might not have access to the Internet. In order to meet the needs of users that work in the field (e.g. Utility crews) we provide our training materials on CD-ROM as well. In fact most of our Utility customers do just that. They use our Electrical Worker Training Program for their line crews by installing the training programs on laptop computers. Once training is complete the records are then transferred to the central repository when the hardware (laptop) is returned to the facility. We believe that web-based training (WBT) is definitely the solution for these kinds of issues in the upcoming years. When developing our courses we wanted to make it possible for users to access our training materials via 56 Kbps in less than a few seconds/page.

We currently have courses in Spanish and French. In addition, we continue to develop and deliver our courses in other languages, such as Japanese, to customers that request translation services.

We understand that the computer age may not have made its way to each and every individual in today’s business environment. We can all agree that more people have access to computers today than they did last year. We also feel that it is up to us to help you view training of your employees as an investment and therefore the tools needed for this training should be part of this investment in your human capital. Furthermore, companies can train several employees per terminal when delivering e-learning in a computer lab setup. Some of our customers have even utilized one computer to train upwards of 300 employees.

We believe in working with our customers to deliver a long term training solution for their respective environments. Several of our customers use our training products to deliver compliance training to both blue collar audiences as well as employees that do not use computers to fulfill their daily job duties. Our content is designed to meet the learning requirements of a broad audience. With the use of mouse tutorials, live seminars, 24/7 online support as well as product launch sessions, we hope to reach and address a majority of the issues that deal with a user’s lack of familiarity with computers. In fact an overwhelming percentage of first time users that respond to our online questionnaire choose this form of training as their first choice.

You will need the following to access the online courses: a computer with internet access and audio capabilities (broadband Internet access recommended) an internet browser Internet Explorer 7+ / FireFox 2+ (IE6 should work, but it is no longer supported by Microsoft)), and Flash Player: Version 9.0.124 or better (10 is recommended). Your Internet connection speed should be at least 28.8 kb/s. Monitor with Resolution set to at least 1024x768. Our entire portfolio of courses is designed to SCORM 1.2 standards with successful implementations in various LMS platforms such as KnowledgeHub, SumTotal, Learn.com, Saba, etc. Additionally, we have successfully tested our content in Human Resources Management (HRM) platforms such as SAP, Sun Microsystems Enterprise Learning Platform, etc.

Yes, customization of content has been one of the mainstays of our business. Our development resources include design and development of new content as well as customization of existing content provided by customers. Several of our customers also contract with us to modify and convert their safety libraries from Video and CD-ROM to WBT.

We believe that our ability to create custom content is a value added resource for our customers. The economies of scale that exist within our business model make custom development an attractive proposition for several reasons. Vivid provides regular content upgrades that reflect OSHA regulatory changes that affect the entire regulatory compliance library. Our staff of subject matter experts (SME) and instructional designers are also making improvements in the design and delivery of content. Any modifications made to the content are the responsibility of Vivid, which also means that we stand behind the quality and integrity of our content. Based on the above reasons our preferred model is to undertake all customization on behalf of our customers.

Yes, one of the unique capabilities of our Learning Management System (LMS) is that it allows the administrator to post custom content in the form of Proprietary Learning Objects (PLO). This functionality allows the administrator/safety trainer to utilize company specific presentations and material to supplement the content covered in the workplace safety library.

OSHA does not “certify” training content or programs. The Workplace Safety Library is comprised of training courses based on, and compliant with, OSHA standards. We continuously review the OSHA standards and develop our training courses accordingly.

OSHA does recognize e-Learning as a legitimate part of a comprehensive safety training program.

If you would like to include specific state rules and regulations that affect your company, we can customize our content to meet your needs.

We continually review industry newsletters and subscribe to vendor services to stay informed of any new standards OSHA is considering. When OSHA implements a new standard that our training content should cover, we make the change long before it goes into effect to help our customers comply.

Many OSHA standards require 2 forms of training: knowledge and practical. The purpose of our training programs varies by customer. For many customers, our courses satisfy the entire knowledge portion of their training program. For others, their industry requires additional knowledge for their employees. We can help you make our training an integral part of your training program.

When conducting any OSHA mandated training, including e-learning, the employer is required to have a knowledgeable person readily accessible in case an employee needs assistance with his/her training. If our customer needs assistance, we offer that service.