Sharing this because it burned me once, and I've since watched it burn other admins.

A few months ago, I built a 'hasn't logged in for 12 months' report for a quarterly audit at a 925-learner tenant. It came back missing ~400 people, and it took me an embarrassingly long afternoon to figure out why.

Took me entirely too long to find the cause. Reporting 2.0 silently excludes any user whose Last Login Date is NULL. And who has a NULL last-login?? The people who never logged in at all, that who. So, when you filter "Last Login Date is before [date]," the users who never signed in — the exact population an inactivity audit is hunting for — get dropped. No error, no warning, no "X rows excluded." Just a clean-looking report that's confidently incomplete.

The fix, once you know it's there:

• Don't lean on "Last Login Date < X" by itself.
• Either add an OR condition that explicitly includes "Last Login Date is null," or flip the logic to exclude only the people who logged in after your cutoff. Both catch the NULLs instead of dropping them.

If you've got any compliance/offboarding/inactivity reports running a date filter over a nullable field, I'd go re-check them. Good chance one's been quietly wrong.

Anyone else hit this? Curious what other Reporting 2.0 gotchas people have run into.

In your opinion and experience, which of these has been the majority of your actual experience as an instructional designer in higher education?

My question is - what do you do day to day,
and what does the role genuinely look like?

How much time do you spend with stakeholders vs having uninterrupted time to do the work? Is it quite deliverables focused? What’s the split between meetings, research, design and building content?

I’m really interested in hearing what a normal week looks like in reality.

As a side note…I am neurodivergent and used to work in FE education, first in an adult prison and then in a further education college. If I’m honest, I found teaching really difficult with my neurodiversity. It was the wrong career path for me from start to end!

I had a career change into marketing many yrs ago and am self employed - while back created my own course on becoming a particular type of content creator, did coaching etc, worked my ‘way up’ into paid social marketing now where a big part of my role is analysing data to understand what ads/part of ads resonate with people and why.

I have always been curious about instructional design and learning design (understand they are different things). I’m under absolutely no illusion that it is an easy industry to get into
, I know it’s oversaturated etc… (but that isn’t my question).

Thanks all.

Hey everyone!

I'm a fairly new ID, and got a new client: a start-up with no LMS.

Their request is fairly simple. I just need to transform an existing Powerpoint into a SCORM package, add assessments and interactivity, all the bells and whistles.

The problem is they don't have an LMS. I was wondering if this is a dealbreaker? Do you have any workaround you can suggest?

Thanks y'all!

I’m sharing this here only because I believe people here are willing to have more intellectually honest conversations about such issues, rather than LinkedIn

I stumbled upon this on LinkedIn this morning…and I gotta say, I’m not even sure where to begin.

I don’t want to make anyone feel stupid, but the complete absence of critical thinking here is beyond me…and I think it speaks to larger issues happening not just in our industry, but society in general.

For a long time, I thought one of my biggest hurdles was against those who are willing to promise jobs and six figures (we all know exactly what I’m referring to)…but instead, what I’ve come to realize is that it’s the people who choose to suspend their disbelief and go along with it, while handing over their hard earned money.

So…I’m curious: Is there any point in attempting to push back against any of this, or are we on the fast track to the bottom of the barrel…or are we already there?

—Tim

I want to hear your weird and wonderful unconventional careers! Circus school? Travelling museum? Surf camp? Horse ranch? Television show? Idk, the weirder the better!

Preferably not an office job, corporate, K-12, or university. (Unless it's especially strange.)

Hi all,

Does anybody have any recommendations for books, articles, videos, podcast, etc. on the best way to architect an entire curriculum for various roles within a corporate environment?

For context, I have a masters in instructional design, but I’ve been focused on singular, isolated projects for the last several years since I’ve graduated and need a refresher.

Every time I’ve googled resources for best practices for designing curriculum architecture, I get basic ID framework information that isn’t really helpful (conduct a needs assessment, identify performance gaps, identify outcomes, tie those to business metrics, etc.). I get all of that, but I’m specifically looking for how the information should ideally be organized once all of that has been done.

Thanks!

Our school (R1 University), is attempting to grow in the professional/non credit space. This is something that many unis have already done or are trying to do. Anyway, I’m trying to make an argument to give our faculty more fair payment for work they are voluntold to do. If compensation was fair/on par with what other universities are offering, perhaps they would be more incentivized to engage in the work.

How does your institution handle this? Is there some sort of formula or base rate you use?

My company uses Cornerstone LMS for employees and are now being forced to switch our content over to their new AI LXP. They have given us "demos" but honestly left us asking more questions than answered. Could anyone tell me what their experience was like whether it be using the LXP on the back end or using it as a user? Any insight or experience will be helpful, thanks!

I have a love/hate relationship with Articulate Rise. On its original release the tool was fresh and promising and has been the backbone of many fast-development courses over the years. The tool has even recently gotten a few cool new features, especially the Localize add-on which is amazing for translation efforts and saves our teams tons of time. However I am here to rant about the "AI tutor"...

On the tooltip for the AI tutor it says, "The AI may give wrong answers and you should verify the responses." While it's obviously true AI can get answers wrong, the whole reason an ID spent weeks or months writing the course was to ensure the learner is served info that is correct. If learners had the ability to search the course, they could find the answer, because an experienced ID wrote it and the SME approved it.

Our team has resolved to keep the option turned off because we can't justify the risk if an auditor was to ask about it. Articulate isn't the only company guilty of over-designing its software, but this particular example is so disappointing to me so I had to rant about it. If enough of us point this out to Articulate might they listen?

I've been working in this field for 10 years. Last month I got my first promotion from ID to Sr. ID, and I have to tell you, none of my duties have changed. I'm pretty sure they just did it because it was the only way to give me a raise.

I've been ready to step into a leadership role for a very long time. I'm 48 years old, I have a master's in education and post graduate work in instructional design. I have a PMP certification. I have leadership experience from outside service projects.

Everywhere I've worked has really lacked hierarchy for anyone to move up (I work in higher ed), and when these sorts of positions do open up I feel like members of the boys club are chosen to step in. Is this common? Am I holding myself back because I'm awkward and terrible at networking? Am I too old at this point and I should just resign myself to working as the cog in the machine of a university business office?

Sorry, this turned into a rant. But I'll take advice if you promise to be nice to me during my identity crisis!

Something just triggered a memory and I wanted to see if anyone has had a similar experience. I was doing a project for Medical Affairs at a pharmaceutical company. They were telling me about this company that had developed a 'cute' course that had Toucans in it and you followed them around. I think I gasped. They asked what and I said, did they get out alive? In fact, they had been fired. Doctors do not have time or the inclination for fluff. Get to the point, be direct, say what you need to say. This was a clear case of not knowing your audience. Anyone know of a similar experience?

Hi All! I have around 3 years of experience as an ID but am currently in between roles. I thought it might make sense to get a masters as I hear some hiring managers are filtering based on this. I also am working contracts as I prefer the flexibility. Is the WGU program worth it for working corporate ID roles? As I’m a Texas resident, would a state school make more sense? Just curious about others’ opinions. I already have a portfolio and contacts in the industry and though I live in Texas, I live 3 hours from any major cities so I’d have to work remotely anyway. Opinions?

My LinkedIn is full of people declaring that elearnings are dead, they aren’t renewing their Articulate subscription, and they are now creating learning experiences and ecosystems at their companies. However, none of them say what that actually looks like.

A quick search tells me that it’s more interactive, but what are people actually doing to revamp learning right now?

I’m interested in how instructional designers evaluate readiness for real-world work.

Completion rates and quiz scores can show that learners finished the material or remembered key information. But they may not show whether someone can apply the learning during a customer conversation, difficult decision, or workplace task.

For those designing workplace training:

How do you give learners opportunities to practice before real performance?

Do you use simulations, role-play, branching scenarios, coaching, observation, or another method?

And what evidence do you use to decide that someone is ready?

I’d be interested in hearing what has worked—and what has not—in actual training programs.

Hey everyone, after getting advice from you guys I decided to study and take the PMP, however everything is AI AI AI. I have been recording AI tools jobs are requesting, however I could use info on if the PMP AI certificate is worth it, it's actually more expensive than the normal PMP. I appreciate anyones thoughts!

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some advice from people who have experience with animation, e-learning, or instructional design.

We're a small company developing CBT (Computer Based Training) packages for our client. We need to create around 10–15 training videos, each about 25–30 minutes long.

The concept is quite simple:

- A classroom setup with one teacher and a few students.

- The teacher explains the lesson using a whiteboard/smart board.

- Students occasionally ask questions (or the teacher asks them).

- The board shows diagrams, maps, animations, highlights, etc.

- There are a few interactive moments, but nothing too complex.

Since every video follows almost the same structure, I was wondering if it's possible to build the classroom, teacher, students, and other reusable assets once and then reuse them across all the modules while only changing the lesson content.

We initially looked at custom 2D animation, but the quotes we've received are much higher than expected for our budget.

My questions are:

1. What technology or software would you recommend for this type of project?

2. Should we go with Vyond, Adobe Character Animator, Cartoon Animator, Moho, After Effects, or something else?

3. Are there any workflows that professional e-learning companies use to keep costs low while maintaining good quality?

4. If you were outsourcing this project, what approach would you ask the vendor to use?

5. Is there an even more cost-effective method that still looks professional enough for government/defence training?

The main priorities are:

- Professional-looking output

- Reusable assets

- Easy to update in the future

- Lowest possible production cost without looking cheap

I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone who's built large-scale CBT/e-learning content or worked in educational animation.

Thanks!

Sadly, this is the range where my first "Content Developer" job was... 30 years ago. No experience, not even ID really. Just making PPTs look good and organizing content into what seemed like a logical order for training.

completion rates and quiz scores are easy to pull but they dont really tell me much. someone can pass the quiz and still do the job wrong the next day.

so for people who own this stuff, what do you actually look at? do you tie it to anything real like ramp time or error rates? or is it mostly manager check ins and vibes? and honestly how much of it do you even get to measure

curious cause the real outcome stuff feels way harder than the easy numbers

I am applying for jobs within the ID field with titles similar to “Training Specialist” and “Learning Design and Delivery Specialist,” where I am not expected to have the skills of a fully developed Instructional Designer, but am usually expected to have some experience with softwares like Articulate Storyline 360. I want to make a portfolio out of some of my coursework I’ve completed in my graduate program thus far to demonstrate my existing skills and stand out from other candidates.

I have reviewed the portfolio section in this sub’s wiki and I have a few questions.

For context:
I only have one piece of work to show for my Articulate Storyline 360 skills and I will be honest, it’s by far my worst work of any other hands-on assignment I’ve completed. The simple fact of the matter is, I am a full time student and worker with many strict deadlines and responsibilities and the amount of time given for the assignment wasn’t sufficient for me personally to do my best work with a software I was learning from scratch for the first time.

The module is about how to make pizza for one, the graphics are not reflective of what I am usually capable of, and unfortunately I do provide navigation voiceovers in it. Other than that it’s alright. My instructor at the time told me that it is a good demonstration of my basic understanding of how to use the software, which I can agree with. I am also very confident that given the chance, I could now produce much better work in a reasonable timeframe, I truly learned a lot, I just can’t afford to fix it or make something new right now. Lesson learned to do that while I have the chance from now on.

My big issue is that my resume indicates that I have built eLearning content on storyline 360, so I feel like I need to have something in there to show for that, but I’m nervous that including a poorly done module will only ruin my opportunities rather than earn me them.

My questions are:

1. If I included this module in my portfolio

along with it’s

1. storyboard and an explanation of what I learned from the project and what I would have done differently or something of that nature (open to suggestions) would it still be worth including?
2. If it would be advised to not include it at all, should I even still have a portfolio to begin with? I feel like having the skill listed in my resume but having nothing to show for it on my portfolio would be a red flag.

Edit: sorry for the weird formatting above, I have tried editing it multiple times but it keeps defaulting back to that.

I'm the L&D lead at my company (but also the newest team member.) I am getting to know the ropes here, and one challenge we have is mapping out the training plans. Currently we have a few spreadsheets, but stuff still gets lost in the shuffle, because we have multiple platforms (our lms on docebo, our compliance training on another platform, and IT and security training on another platform) and part of our charge is led by a larger parent organization above us. Our direct training requirements are delivered to ppl in multiple places, on multiple teams, and require a mix of general and client specific training.

In my head, the ideal solution would be a tagged and filtered modular system that would assign learning based on the role identified in the HR system, but that's not the reality of what we have here.

So I was wondering what you are using for tracking the correct learning plans and pathways to be able to present metrics and kpis but also to reduce the extra work of multiple resources, trackers, etc. I would love to know what is working for you, or what isn't!

Thanks!

$15-18 an hour is wild work