Content curation is the process of searching for useful content on a given topic. It also entails gathering stuff and organizing it into simple and easy-to-access ‘buckets’ or groupings. Finally, it entails generating and disseminating curated training information to learners.

Curated content can be any material discovered in various media that is relevant to a given topic. Content can include eLearning courses, infographics, articles, tweets, blog posts, news, articles, and videos — in short, anything related to the subject. The main goal of content curation is to collect the best content on a certain topic from numerous e-platforms and provide it in a single location. That way, you may provide material that you believe is important to your audience while still keeping them engaged.

However, in curating a training curriculum a little twist is needed. Content curation in corporate training entails carefully assembling all of your organization’s training materials – whether they are in the form of classroom training materials, eLearning courses, job aids, or external resources such as videos from recognized web channels, research journals, interviews of thought leaders and masterclasses, blogs, published articles, and so on. All these are placed on a common centralized platform that learners can access.

Strategies for High-Impact Learning Through Content Curation

There are tactics that can aid in the success and impact of content curation.

Recalibration of Learners

Speak with your staff to determine what they wish to learn. Make sure there is open contact from the beginning, then listen to their input, measure their usage, and see what is most popular. These suggestions can assist you in keeping your material current and relevant to your users.

The importance of creating a forum where you can get their comments as you start, as well as analytics to analyze usage patterns will surely yield interesting results. These approaches will help to keep the handpicked content relevant.

Integration of All Learning Content

When striving to achieve high engagement, you’ll want your employees to be involved with the information, therefore supplying them with online courses is beneficial. This integration also aids in the implementation of the different strategy.

Accessibility

By establishing an online presence, you enable your staff to learn on the go. Giving the trainees this kind of freedom allows them to access content when and where it is convenient for them.

Content curation creates a store of relevant and useful content that can be conveniently accessible from a single point. It fosters inclusive learning and ensures that the knowledge base is constantly enhanced by contributions from learners. While this would necessitate the formation of a team to audit the new resources, it would also maintain the curated content contemporary, topical, and consistent with what the learners want.

Innovation

The procedure does not end after the first round of picks is made. Curating your content is a constant activity that ensures that everyone is learning. To keep your content fresh and current, you’ll need to consider employee feedback, new rules, industry trends, and more. In this way, more innovative concepts and ideas will arise. 

Pros and Cons of Curating a Training Curriculum

Advantages

Every piece of eLearning does not have to be built from scratch. There is a wealth of fundamental eLearning resources available online, some of which can be lawfully shared or reused. Online content that has been carefully curated can supplement your existing instructional materials. It provides in-time learning remediation. Curated information can be downloaded and accessed whenever a learner requires a fast refresher on a specific topic.

It Improves the learning environment by making it more interesting and engaging. Not every one-and-done learner prefers conventional learning methods. Instead, why not mix things up a little with content curation. With a few mouse clicks, anyone may access videos, podcasts, blog articles, eBooks, and slide presentations.

Moreover, it encourages a learning culture. The days of training as a one-time event are long gone. Curating content enables the learners to search, filter, and access learning materials on a wide range of topics of interest to them. They can also exchange links of interest with coworkers, which helps to boost overall learning engagement.

Disadvantages

When you design your own eLearning content, you either have expertise in a subject or collaborate with an SME to ensure that the knowledge you intend to impart to your learners is credible. In contrast, not all selected content is supported by evidence. There’s a good chance you’ll come across biased or even misleading information while perusing the web.

Steps in Curating Content for Training

1. Set content goals

Examine the employment positions in your firm and examine what you want to accomplish at each level. Executives, for example, may need to stay current on industry developments, whereas people leaders may need to improve their coaching and motivation skills.

2. Determined learning needs and possible hindrances

It is critical that you deliver the appropriate type of learning content to each learner’s audience. For example, freshly promoted managers may have a strong desire to learn but have limited time for training. A series of tailored microlearning, brief podcasts, and blog entries would be great learning support for new leaders in this scenario.

3. Make use of mind map

A mind map is a diagram that organizes ideas and concepts in a nonlinear graphical structure using text, shapes, lines, arrows, and symbols. It allows you to work through your thoughts and visually organize them without having to worry about following a specific structure or order. Using a mind map in curating a training curriculum is helpful in organizing all the needed resources. 

4. Gather and share learning resources

Content curation can help you save money on eLearning production. You don’t have to create these resources from scratch, nor do you need to invest in a more powerful eLearning production platform. As a result, you can devote your online training resources to other critical duties. Your L&D team, for example, can commit time and effort to review LMS reports. This helps them to focus on areas for growth rather than spending hours producing easily available online training tools.

The internet connects us with a world of learning resources, so don’t limit yourself to searching for content with just a few keywords. The internet in fact provides us with a universe of learning resources. Your company’s website, intranet, message boards, wikis, and internal social media applications have a wealth of content that has already been tailored to the needs of your learners.

You can distribute content to your target audience by emailing them or posting an update on an internal social network. Access can also be provided via your intranet or SharePoint portal, and the links can be integrated into other internal systems and platforms. However, these solutions provide no information regarding how your material was received or its level of relevancy to your target audience. As a result, the learning management system (LMS) has become the preferred way for sharing curated learning content in many organizations.

5. Analyzed results

It is critical to get feedback from your learners on the curated content they consume in order to assess the relevance and impact of your offerings. This data can help you assess how successfully your material supports your overall learning and development objectives.

Model for Content Curation

Content curation is a purposeful, targeted series of activities that aims to find, access, and choose the material that will enhance your organization’s learning needs. Here are the models that will serve as a guide in your own training. 

Aggregation

This is the process of looking for and identifying useful web content, then preserving links to that stuff in a single spot. With a single click, your learning audience has access to a large amount of information thanks to aggregation. However, students will need to devote significant effort to sift through a plethora of sites in order to acquire truly helpful material.

Distillation

Curating data in a streamlined format so that only the most relevant and crucial information is shared. This technique entails filtering and sorting through a large amount of stored information in order to provide just the most significant or relevant stuff. Learners will find fewer resources in a distilled database than in an aggregated database. However, because the process of distilling removes links to irrelevant content, the end result is a higher quality, more concentrated group of resources.

Elevation

The act of recognizing a noteworthy trend that has arisen from online postings during the curating process. This is the technique of monitoring trends on social media and websites in order to find a larger trend or insight from tiny daily thoughts made online. Elevation is regarded as the most difficult content curation method because it necessitates more analytical expertise than other strategies.

Mash up

A result of the combination of particular curated content that generates a new and innovative outlook or perspective. This model, also known as merging, entails blending content from two or more existing sources to generate a new perspective or topic. Mashups in learning and development are frequently found on discussion boards or wikis, where several people contribute to a single document.

Chronology

A curation strategy that organizes historical content by date to demonstrate the progress and understanding of a certain topic. This is a curation approach that organizes material chronologically. Many blogs are set up to display postings in chronological order, from most recent to oldest. Curating by chronology is a relatively simple process that can provide an interesting method to understand how ideas and information evolve across time.