"What is important to the PMI is improving the experience for our learners. Nelson Croom's approach is designed exclusively for our type of learners -adult professionals in the work place.
Allowing the learner to personalise their learning experience is the key to learner satisfaction, retention and exam success."

Gillian King, Head of Education, PMI

Putting learners first - PMI go online to improve learner satisfaction and exam success

The Pensions Management Institute (PMI) provide qualifications, tuition, seminars, conferences and publications for anyone involved in pensions or related areas - pensions managers and consultants, pensions lawyers, actuaries and trustees. They are the Institute for pensions professionals. The PMI provide qualifications in the pensions area and are working with Nelson Croom to move those qualifications online.

The Problem

Keen to be at the forefront of innovation in their field and aware of other professional bodies beginning to engage with e-learning, the PMI had for some time been discussing e-learning and what it meant for their industry and their role within it. Existing PMI programmes were available as workbook based distance learning but this route wasn't ideal. Significantly more people were enrolling for courses and buying the materials than were completing the course. It was clear that they needed to find a way of improving the learner experience so that more people who started the course would complete it. E-learning offered a possible solution.

The PMI embarked on a major research project.They wanted to discover what was available and most importantly how their membership and potential membership would respond to e-learning. The results, though positive, were by no means overwhelming. There was some resistance to e-learning that they needed to overcome within their community.

The solution

The PMI chose Nelson Croom because, in their words, they found the approach 'refreshing'. Instead of all the technology babble they heard from other e-learning companies, Nelson Croom were clearly focused on learning and approached the project from the learners' point of view.

"When we met Nelson Croom they were the first supplier who had talked our language - the language of learning and professional development. Other suppliers had focused on what their technology could do...and in the end our committee were impressed by Nelson Croom's proposal so we went with it." states Gillian King, Head of Education at PMI

Nelson Croom used their experience of working with other professional bodies and their learners to deliver the programme that PMI wanted.

The programme focuses on improving the learners' experience by allowing them to personalise the learning - letting them learn what they want to learn, in the order that suits them and in as much or as little depth as they need. The latter is important to the success of the project, as the programmes attract people with varying prior knowledge and experience. Converting the content appropriately was key to this project. Technical subjects such as pensions can cause problems for some developers. Taking flat text and creating engaging learning is a complex and creative process.

Gillian King was impressed with what Nelson Croom delivered.

"Our subject matter experts had expected to have a lot of writing work to do, but when the draft programme was delivered it was all but complete. Then you fear that non-technical writers may have made silly errors, but we were all very happily surprised by the standard of what we got."

Results

PMI are about to complete their second online programme with Nelson Croom and expect to develop more . As the courses launch, the important measures for the PMI are learner satisfaction and exam results.