r/instructionaldesign

I was a teacher for 5 years. After that, I graduated with a Master’s Degree in Instructional Systems Design and Development. I completed a 5 month internship. (Although this place did not have a strong L&D department in my opinion)

I searched for a job for about 4 months while I was pregnant. Then covid hit and we decided it would be best to stay at home with my child until the pandemic was a little more settled…but my child has a disability that requires transportation to therapy 5 days per week in the middle of the work day. We also never felt it was in his best interest to be placed in a daycare if we could help it. And honestly I don’t think they would have been equipped to handle his care any how.

Now my child is entering school and I need a job. I feel like my degree will hold zero weight because I’ve been out of the field so long. I feel like this is a pretty hopeless situation honestly. How would you attempt to enter the field?

It’s been so long since I’ve worked with my professors and the person over my internship is now retired and I have no way of contacting her professionally speaking.

I don’t have to return to work right away but I would like to within the next two years.

Why does it feel so difficult to get an instructional design position even with relevant experience?

I’m currently completing my master’s in Learning Design & Technologies, have classroom teaching experience, and I’m also did an intership where I helped build real training programs, facilitator guides, learning materials, and interactive experiences.

I know the market is competitive right now, but I’m honestly curious what employers are really looking for at this point.

For those already working in instructional design or LXD:
What finally helped you break in?

What’s your he best option to get a video to play via a QR code? Articulate doesn’t cut it because there is always the sign in option.
Perhaps adding the video to SharePoint?

If anyone has had success getting a QR code to point to videos, I would love to learn how you did it.

One more thing: I’m certain my organization is not going to want to use Vimeo or YouTube.

Edit: I need help getting the video to play without any sign in required from Sharepoint, or any sign in visible from Review 360.

I'm from a non-academic background but I currently work for an NGO focused on education. I've come to realise the importance of this field in this day and age and have been looking into getting a master's degree in education, specifically an MA Education degree, to help build my foundation. The course I'm looking at has a pretty strong focus on curriculum development.

I'd like to use this degree to work in NGO spaces that focus on wildlife conservation, climate change, sustainability, and other similar causes.

I want to understand what the scope is like and if people are actually getting hired for roles like this? I know this job exists but I've rarely encountered it. Any insights would be great!

Hello all,

I am new to this field. I just developed my first basic e-learning (powerpoint as basis then animation and voiceover)

I started the translation of the several powerpoint but I find it very time consuming,

I did first translations with claude/chatgpt/deepl, then I copy and past in the single slides and then i did the quality check of the translation. It will take age to finish

I am sure there are more efficient ways to do it. any tool for translating directly a powerpoint or something to export, translate and import? It is around 20 decks for a total of 350 slides

Anyone with experience with translating e-learning?

Hi gang, looking for a bit of advice.

I'm Head of L&D for a small-ish SME that operates in ~7 EU countries. Their compliance training (GDPR, etc) is non-existent and presents a lot of liability. There is no wider L&D team, it's just me who's been brought in to make sense of what's happened before-me.

There's so much that I need to do I'm not able to spend the time making the courses we need internally, so I've been talking to 8-9 different off-the-shelf e-learning providers. None of them are really meeting the requirements that we would need for compliance courses; things like multi-jurisdiction, multi-language content for the topics we need, and one I found which is the most suitable is possibly being veto'd for other reasons.

They're not particularly complex topics since it's all public and common knowledge. Once the basic compliance has been done, there's a lot of scope for soft-skill e-learning, like active listening, or basics for managers. There's a budget of around £15k/17EUR. I have some questions -

• Do you think it could be a viable alternative to bring in a contractor to knock together a suite of courses for that budget?

• Assuming content is built in Rise, nothing fancy needed, and generic content (eg GDPR, anti-bribery, etc), how long do you think it would take to build one course?

• For a 6 month contract, a £15k budget works out at £30k annual which I feel is a bit low, but it's also.. really basic content. Depending on the speed of content development, it could be a 3-month instead? What would be the going-rate for fairly basic Rise content development?

We recently started using Synthesia for awareness and training. Turns out going back to documents would have been better , team started hating the talking head sessions and Gen Z not watching at all.

Any solution for this?

I shifted focus to explainer video instead of avatar video.

So far tried DistilBook, Powtoon, and Vyond.

DistilBook has good automation,
Powtoon seems more older drag and drop,
Vyond needs too much manual work.

We don't have a team, need some quick way..
can you suggest what to do and how to manage this?

Is anyone using podcast (format) in the training? If so, what's the format e.g. one or two speakers. How does this complement other modalities.

Hello, I own a small boutique learning/design consultancy and am looking for a strong instructional designer to support a current client project.

This is contract work with weekly pay.

Strong preference will be given to designers with experience in:

- Medicare / healthcare sales

- New hire onboarding

- Telesales or call center environments

- eLearning, VILT, and sales workshop development

This is not a heavy technical training build. The work is focused on sales enablement, onboarding, call handling, product knowledge, and learner-facing development.

I will own the project management, strategic direction, curriculum architecture, and client communication. The ideal partner will be comfortable working heads-down on design and development, including:

- eLearning builds

- VILT materials

- facilitator guides

- learner guides

- job aids

- knowledge checks

- roleplay / scenario activities

Articulate 360 experience is preferred.

Must be comfortable meeting on camera via Google Meet for the interview and ongoing project check-ins.

About me: I have led learning and development initiatives for over 20 years and am looking for someone reliable, experienced, and able to work quickly with clear direction.

If interested, please DM me with your resume.

I’m looking for opinions on systems training. Personally, I tend to learn better when I can watch someone walk through a process live in the actual system rather than reviewing screenshots in a slideshow format.

I ask because we’re currently receiving pushback on having instructors demonstrate processes directly in the system during live training. The argument tends to be that it hasn’t been traditionally been done that way within the team.

What are your thoughts on VILT training where instructors walk through slides of a process versus demonstrating the process in the system itself? Which approach do you find more effective for learner engagement and retention?

Hey all! I need to broaden my understanding of how the “average” ID teams work alongside their LMS team.
We are a healthcare organization and currently the IDs do a lot of LMS work - which wasn’t what I was expecting. We do have an LMS team though. So it got me to wonder how other organizations split job roles and responsibilities when it comes to education creation and LMS deployment.

To give an example:
We create the education and the SCORM file, upload content to our LMS, enter all data points for the education (availability, duration, description, keywords, expiration dates, emails, etc.), create curriculums/materials/tests within the LMS. If there is an error and things aren’t deactivating appropriately or some other aspect of the training within the LMS goes wonky, the ID goes in to investigate and fixes it within the LMS - this could be fixing data points or uploading a new SCORM. We are also in charge of any new versions uploaded to the LMS and how they are deployed to the learners. Plus a lot of other LMS-sided responsibilities.

What does the process look like in your organization?

Been thinking about this for a while and want to know if other people see it the same way.

Every L&D person I’ve talked to has the same problem. They can prove people completed the training. They can’t prove anyone actually retained it. And when budget cuts come around, “they completed it” isn’t enough to defend the program. The CFO doesn’t care about completion rates.

The thing nobody’s measuring is whether the training transferred, in a form that holds up outside the L&D function. Embedded knowledge checks help the learner. End-of-course quizzes are weak signals. Neither produces the kind of evidence a line manage can actively and longitudinally coach their teams with.

This feels more important now because of where orgs are shifting from role based to now skills-based org design is going. The question is shifting from “did they complete it” to “what can they actually do, what do they know, and is that changing over time.” The LMS isn’t built to answer that. The authoring tools aren’t built to answer that. Someone has to.

We’ve been building something in this space and have customers using it. Won’t necessarily get into the product here because that’s not what I want to talk about. What I want to know is does this resonate with what you’re seeing? Where does the framing break? Anyone solved this another way?

Hi there, new to the sub and looking for example homepages from other healthcare systems that use cornerstone galaxy as their LMS system! We are moving from aspire/saba to cornerstone galaxy and trying to make decisions on what we want our home page to look like and would love to see some examples. Thanks!!

I’m preparing to facilitate my first project scope meeting for an eLearning project. I’ll be working from an existing PowerPoint and updating it into an eLearning course and I want to make sure I’m set up for success from the beginning.

I’d really appreciate any insights on these areas:

1. What are must-ask questions you always include during a scope meeting?
2. How do you typically prepare beforehand?
3. Do you create a content outline ahead of time?
4. What strategies do you use to keep SMEs engaged and talking so you can gather meaningful input?
5. How do you build a realistic timeline, especially when you’re new and don’t want to overcommit or set unrealistic expectations?

I’m nervous for my first meeting. Any advice on how to conduct this meeting would be very helpful! Thank you in advance :)

Hey Everyone - We’re renewing Articulate Global and were informed they are embedding AI into our renewal regardless if we want it or not. We can turn it off but it won’t change our price. Has anyone else gotten this notice?

Thanks!

I’m looking for advice from people who have worked in both Marketing/Creative and L&D (Learning & Development).

My background is primarily in graphic design and creative leadership. My career path has included roles like Strategic Designer, Senior Graphic Designer, Art Director, Creative Director, and Senior Marketing Manager. Most of my experience has lived in branding, marketing, creative strategy, and visual communications.

About three months ago, I started a new role at a local company handling marketing and branding. My title is more coordinator-level, but the workload and responsibilities are much closer to manager-level work.

Recently, I was offered a role as a Learning Content & Digital Training Specialist. The hiring process took almost 90 days because they were bringing in a new director who wanted to fully understand the department before making a hiring decision.

The new role is fully remote with a larger medical corporation, which aligns well with my healthcare background. The pay is a bit better, benefits are stronger, and I would no longer need to commute to the office several days a week.

The role itself would focus on educational content for caregivers and management teams — SOPs, onboarding, upskilling employees, and helping improve caregiver performance and retention. The main platforms would be Articulate Rise and Synthesia, so it would definitely move me away from a more traditional marketing/design stack like Adobe Creative Suite, social campaigns, branding work, etc.

For people who have moved from marketing/creative into L&D (or vice versa):

What did you end up liking or disliking?

Did you find L&D fulfilling long term?

Do you feel there’s strong future stability and growth in L&D?

If you’re someone who enjoys variety and wearing multiple hats, did the work ever start feeling repetitive?

For anyone who has worked in both industries, which career path felt more sustainable long term?

I’m trying to think carefully about long-term growth, stability, creativity, burnout, and future opportunities before making a decision.

I've noticed something. While internal training works well for smaller groups, it seems to go haywire when the size of the organization increases.

I think it’s not about the content being faulty, but rather about how it’s all being managed. A few people I've talked to told me about platforms like Honen to make internal training more growth-friendly, which I've been thinking of using..

What's everyone else doing? Anyone have a clean solution that actually works?

My name is Gary Lopatynski. I am an instructional designer and doctoral candidate at California Baptist University. As a fellow instructional designer, I would greatly value your perspective.

For my doctoral dissertation, I am examining how higher education instructional designers describe their professional experiences in the post-pandemic environment, particularly in relation to changes in workload, faculty collaboration, technology use, organizational culture, remote or hybrid work contexts, and other factors affecting designers not previously considered. This study compares designers’ experiences before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic to better understand how instructional design work has evolved and how designers have adapted to these changes.

Participation in this study is voluntary. To participate, individuals must have worked as higher education instructional designers prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, throughout the pandemic period, and continue working as instructional designers post-pandemic. At bare minimum, designers must have worked in the field since 2019 before the pandemic began. This ensures participants have enough comparative experience across all time periods. Participants who currently work in hybrid or fully remote settings are especially encouraged to participate, though not all participants are required to work remotely.

Participation will involve one-on-one interviews with me and conducted via Zoom. With your permission, the interview will be recorded for transcription and analysis purposes. During the interview, you will be identified only by a participant number to preserve anonymity. No identifying information will be included in the research findings. Interview recordings and transcripts will be stored securely on the researcher’s local computer and backed up on a physical flash drive. All cloud-based recordings and metadata will be deleted following download. Follow-up and clarifying questions will be given to elaborate or clarify data points. In addition, I will be writing memos of personal interpretations as the interview continues. You will also be asked to verify if my memos align with your perspectives to reduce bias and maximize clarity of studied data. In the event of discomfort during an interview, all participants have the right to take a break, skip a question, or if necessary, withdraw from the interview altogether with no penalty. Upon which participants are encouraged to seek referrals to their institutions through the Employee Assistance Program (EAP), counseling services, human resources, or a local licensed provider. If necessary, they may also utilize the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

If you are interested in participating, please contact me via email at glopatynski@calbaptist.edu to schedule an interview. To protect anonymity, please avoid scheduling interviews through public or professional platforms such as Slack. Email communication is preferred, as messages can be deleted after scheduling to preserve confidentiality.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

 

I am working on Levelup Lms for the timing but I am researching more LMSs for my corporate training.

So suggest me some more options which are good for compliance, onboarding & remote training.

Also If anyone of you has worked or used Levelup do let me know else suggest me some zero cost lms recommendations please.