6 advantages of an online academy
Especially in turbulent times, the importance of online learning becomes evident. Many organizations are transitioning to an online academy instead of offline training. It is not only crucial for schools, businesses, and government agencies to ensure that learning processes continue, but also for hospitals and other healthcare institutions where knowledge can be a matter of life and death. With an online academy, learning processes can proceed uninterrupted. But what exactly is an online academy, and what benefits can your organization gain from having one?
What’s an online academy?
An online academy is a digital platform where users, content creators and platform managers easily can follow, create or view learning processes. It’s a central place where employees can follow trainings, courses and studies limitlessly to develop their competences. In this way the organization can improve itself. The academy will be filled with the suitable content by the organization itself or by an external provider. The learning content will be online and is usually available through every device with internet access, such as a laptop, tablet or a mobile phone.
There are different ways to integrate learning via an online academy in an organization. The organization can choose for example to organise the trainings completely online. There’s also a possibility to mix online and offline learning forms, by means of blended learning. When an organization wants to stimulate continuous learning it’s advised they also use microlearnings.
Advantages
An online academy can be the solution for big learning questions within an organization. It namely has several advantages to implement online learning as a replacement or addition to offline learning. We will go through the advantages with you step by step:
1. Time savings
Trainers don’t need to give the same lesson multiple times. The learning content is made once and can be used limitlessly to train employees. An online academy makes sure employees don’t need to travel to a classroom to learn the material. This saves a lot of time!
2. Easy to adjust
The content of an online academy can be adjusted quick and easy with a few clicks. This ensures the learning material to be up to date and interesting for employees, and thus expands the involvement in the learning material. Moreover, it costs the content creators little time and effort to adjust the content.
3. Cost-saving
Extra costs for a training such as travel expenses our labour costs of a trainer will disappear. Users have access to the online academy from every device connected to the internet.
4. More flexible
Learning process can be designed in a much more flexible manner. Employees can learn independent of place and time. They can learn for example quickly and in between meetings when they’re in the train, instead of planning special time in their already busy agenda’s.
5. Decide your own pace
One person needs more time to comprehend and remember certain learning material, while someone else can already start with the next part. Employees learn individual and decide their own pace. The progress of the employees can be easily viewed by the managers in the online academy.
6. More interaction and fun while learning
By organizing learning processes online, there are many possibilities concerning learning forms and methods. You can of course make use of text, but also of (interactive) videos, gamification and audio recordings. You can also think of using infographics or definitions cards. To make learning even more interactive, you can add offline meet ups to the online trainings, as part of blended learning.
In short: an online academy adds to the gaining of knowledge and the development of competences of employees. It raises the efficiency and productivity of employees and ensures better organizational results.
Who doesn’t want that?
Are you curious how an online academy would look like for your organization? Request a demo here. We will let you experience the advantages listed above.
Download the whitepaper 'Benefits of Online Academy' today and start growing!
