What you need to measure in your online academy

Collecting and using data to measure the outcome of your online academy is essential. With the right data, you can make informed decisions to improve performance. You can measure exactly how your online academy is performing, instead of 'thinking you're doing the right thing' and hoping it works. If you do not measure the results of your online academy, you will never know for sure whether you have covered the right topics or not. Your users actually benefit from the learning content, they feel engaged, and they can retain their knowledge. So, what stats should you collect? As far as we are concerned, you should at least collect data about involvement, knowledge retention and behavioural change.

Measure your user engagement

If you can capture and hold the attention of your users with the content of your online academy, you are doing it right. An involved user has an active role in the learning process and actually absorbs knowledge. Engagement is the crucial first step towards retaining knowledge and being able to apply what you have learned. This is important to measure!

However, this is still quite a challenge. It is hard to get inside your user's brain and know exactly what they are focused on. Engagement is therefore often measured in quantifiable behaviour, the time spent on a page, how long a podcast was listened to or how long a video was watched.

But then immediately comes the next challenge: interpreting the collected data. The time spent on a page can be prolonged because of distractions while learning. Quantitative data therefore becomes more reliable if you supplement it with qualitative measurements, such as a survey in which you ask your users for feedback.

Measuring retention of knowledge

Knowledge retention is the amount of information that users retain after completing a training course. Retention is important because of the user's ability to remember what they have learned affects how well they apply the study material in their daily work. So it is important to measure. You can do this, for example, with a test at the end of a course.

Measuring Behavioural Change

Last but not least, you should measure behavioral change in your users. Ultimately, behavioral change is the primary goal of all training. You want your users to act in a specific way in specific situations. For example, that they communicate effectively and clearly after a training in soft skills, or that they know and apply the company rules after a compliance training. Behavioral change is sometimes easy to measure, for example if the number of industrial accidents decreases after safety training. In the less simple cases, look creatively at how you can determine a change in behavior in your own organization.

Measuring in the Hubper academy

How far is my team? Who already meets the qualifications? And how is this learning activity assessed? Hubper's LMS gives you real-time insight in the statistics of a specific learning activity and the development of your employees.

In short, collecting and using the right data in your online academy is the first step towards making informed decisions and making improvements to your training courses and training content. Collecting and combining qualitative and quantitative data in an environment where employees feel safe to express themselves. This is often the best way to get the most accurate information about how your online academy is performing. For more information, contact us!