Here at lynda.com, we are always interested in hearing what and how our members want to learn. To that end, we’d like to ask you a question about how often you would prefer to see us publish content.
Here’s today’s question… If we were to develop and publish 24 hours of amazing training content for [insert your favorite software application here], which publishing schedule below would you prefer?
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Please Introduce some courses on Java Programming Language.
Why wait, give it all as soon as it’s available!
And I know at least one lynda.com author who would love to create those 2-hour courses.
None of the above!
A 12-hour segment, followed immediately or within a month by the second 12-hour segment would be perfect. Six months is way too late. Choice #2 means it’s a year until you get the whole course, and in the meantime you’ve been sitting on it.
I am still waiting for Mordy to put out a level 2 Illy CS5, and it isn’t out yet. Don’t make me wait if you have it and are holding it. Release it today. Thanks.
Adobe releases an update every 18 months. If you hold content, it becomes obsolete before you watch it, and I want to see it as soon as the software is out.
@Jane — This question isn’t about us sitting on content that is already finished. It’s about how we might change how we currently schedule and publish our content. Historically, our method has pretty much been record, edit and publish a body of content when it’s done. So that would mean if a course was of a long duration (24 hours in the poll question example), it might take as long as six months to prepare, record, edit, and test the content before it is ready to publish. We are trying to find out if our members would rather we release that same body of content in smaller segments as those segments are finished, rather than waiting until the entire course is done. It doesn’t really matter if the entire course is 8 hours, 12 hours, 24 hours, etc.
To your point about not holding the content, if our members would like the ‘release as you go’ approach, this is a way for us to get you content sooner (in chunks) instead of having to wait until the entire body of content is done. Since this is a new idea (for us), we thought we’d ask our members their opinion of the approach, and which release schedule would be of most value to them.
I agree with Jane, none of the above. A year to get through 24 hours of content under any of the delivery options is just not good enough.
Think about a series on iPhone development. That’s just not effective way to cover material as in 12 months I will have already learned all you had to offer.
While I understand Jane’s excitement to receive lynda.com’s awesome content as soon as possible (I agree!), I think we need to read what Michael Ninness said:
It’s not the case that the production of a new course is finished instantly. A long course takes a long time to release. Given that the longer the course, the longer it takes to release. Rather than waiting a really long time to wait for the entire, would you like to see parts of the course as they’re finished.
I voted two hours per month. since that gives me a significant chunk of the whole and a month is a good amount of time to practice what I just learned. I think three months and six months are too long to wait for a release, and you can start to lose the flow of learning. A segment every week might be good too, for that reason, and come as close to “ASAP” as possible.
Keith
“Release as you go” is what I would prefer, if it got new information out sooner.
If a new software app that you planned to do a course on was released on Jan. 1, when would you be able to release the first 12-hour segment vs. the first in the series of a 6- or 2-hour or shorter segment?
Release as you go is the only option that makes sense.
Release the segments as they’re finished gets my vote.
But mostly what I wish for is a personal page of tutorials that I can manage as needed. For instance, there was a new title a couple months ago that I couldn’t get to because I had to focus on other things. When I did have time weeks later I tried to find it but couldn’t. Took quite some time to sort through everything related to that topic before I found it. I would have liked to clicked on it and choose “Put this in my personal list” or something. Would be much easier all around because I often have to jump from one series to another.
like Steve Johnson says: “Why wait, give it all as soon as it’s available!”
Publish as soon as the material is ready.
As others have said, this material gets outdated so quickly, that having 3 or 6 month gaps is way too long.
Love to have more courses that tackle workflows using various apps. A good example being the Cinema 4D promo course, where you get to see how an end product is created using a variety of apps. This allows me to pull together the more theory based ‘essential’ courses.
It would be great to log in every week to watch a new segment. Especially with a topic like WordPress the upgrades happen quickly and content gets old quickly. Would pique my interest to find out what is new every week.
I like Palenoue’s idea of having a locker to put my courses of choice into so that I don’t have to scroll or search for my class each time. A personal list would be great. Classes I have finished, classes in progress and a wish list of classes I plan to take.
“Release as you go” would give us the opportunity to be ahead of the curve.
So basically, we’re talking about whether lynda.com should publish:
An entire course.
Several chapters of a course.
Smaller editing time so it’s available sooner, but it will not be available.
One chapter of a course.
One piece of a chapter.
For my money, if it’s a complicated subject, then it would need to be broken down into at least a chapter’s worth of content for it to be useful. Take Java for example. I’m not sure how useful any one five minute long segment would be for anyone interested in learning Java. So how useful the “publish as you go” approach would be in that case is doubtful.
It seems the majority of voters thus far agree, they are favoring quicker content in manageable sizes. It’s difficult to watch 24 hours worth of content anyway, typically I have to keep going back to watch that much content, so it makes sense to break it up into smaller chunks that enable faster releases. About 2 – 6 hours worth of content is good for me.
Hi lynda.com,
Please introduce some more courses on Javascript language.
This is the only tutorial which is not sufficient and not very clear in your website.
While I appreciate the philosophical choices behind your poll, I would say it very much matters on the content. While sooner is always better (especially in your medium) some things are much more timely than others. I remember a SEO class by Jill Whalen that I started watching right as it was released and one of her techniques was already made obsolete by Google.
Another point, unless something new comes along (which it probably will) I have a firm grasp of all the technologies in my field and although still come to lynda.com enough to justify the monthly cost, I’m not watching anything from beginning to end anymore, but searching for something I can’t figure out how to do on my own.
I agree with the ‘release it as soon as you’ve got it’ pov. Additionally, I’d like to see the full outline for a course from the beginning. That way I know what I’m getting myself into, and what’s to come. Estimated publish dates of future sections would make the outline even more useful; ideally, I’d be able to bookmark upcoming sections of particular interest, and get notified when they are published. Thanks for asking!
@ Palenoue and Linda – there is a bookmark facility on the site to keep a note of courses you are interested in (mine is always full and I struggle to keep up as lynda.com release so many great courses!)
I see where the poll comes from now you have explained the theory, yes release as it is ready and if that means break a 24hr course into 12 x 2hr chunks then great, just don’t spread it over 12 months or it’s way out of date! It is a difficult one to balance and does depend on content I guess.
Flash, the Flashplayer, AIR and Actionscript 3.0 are so versatile and can be applied in so many ways, that i hope you will contniue to provide courses on a regular basis. If possible a few hours every month. Thanks in advance.
I understand that there are members chiming in with a “release as it’s created” mentality and I have mixed emotions. I agree that a lot of people want this information as soon as possible. My only concern would be that a big part of why I like these lynda.com tutorials is because they seem structured and it appears thought has gone into how the authors introduce new material throughout a course. If I wanted fragmented clips of information about C4d there are plenty of websites that have that. It’s nice to be able to study a full “course” so to speak. I am afraid releasing less comprehensive segments would cause lynda.com to lose some of its appeal.
I like the idea of making smaller pieces available before the whole because sometimes I go through whole programs and other times I just need to know how to do one thing. If it’s covered in a small chapter then I’m set.
Please introduce Moodle 2.0 course to developers.
Could we please-please get a course on Apple Script!!!!!
I like things to be in smaller chunks rather than marathon sessions.
I rarely have time to sit through complete courses and I often wish they were more about doing something than telling me about which button does what.
Unfortunately delays in releases sounds like a seriously bad idea, little and often would be good, though not as good as more and often! If I can’t learn something from lynda.com, I’ll just have to learn it elsewhere.
You have some excellent courses and you do seem to be making timely releases, so even the question feels a little odd.
I really do like your inspirations sessions and I dip into the other courses as required.
lynda.com has alot of great training for photo enhancement and manipulation, but we also need training on how to use the features of our cameras other than point and shoot. There are alot of books out there but they fall short of the quality found at lynda.com.
Please introduce Moodle 2.0 course to developers.
Here’s another suggestion: Updating segments for older series. Some things don’t change much but have significant new features that need learning. Instead of waiting for the entire application to change enough to warrant a new series, or a certain number of new features to issue a “What’s New” segment, just add a few videos to the end of an existing one.
Example: Garageband ’09 tutorials cover practically everything in Garageband ’11 because 95% of the app is the same, except for Flex Time, Groove Matching and How Did I Play. I would really like to see a few videos on these added to the Garageband ’09 tutorials.
It would depend on the course. A course introducing someone to a software package should probably be done at once (this would help keep the internal course flow smooth – if you break things up they tend to become very independent and information is repeated). Also, this would enable the person to learn it when they needed it, while skipping over the parts not needed (either because they’ve already figured it out or knew it from previous software).
However, if the course is one that’s teaching features about an already known topic, breaking that course up would be feasible and probably preferable.
Of course, I’m speaking from the perspective of someone who is “behind the times” so to speak. None of the stuff I’m learning is (less than a year) time sensitive.
For courses that are time sensitive, perhaps you can do short intros to new software? Like, for example, a short video on Photoshop CS5 new Content Aware feature within a week after CS5′s release.
Also, you could do demo videos of the software. Again, going with the old CS5 example, showing someone using photoshop cs5 and as all the new features happen, point them to where they can (or will be able to) learn how to do them. This would also help people to know what the programs do (so when my coworker talks about ProgramX I’ll have a basic idea of the type of work she is doing).
I like the idea of making smaller pieces available before the whole because sometimes I go through whole programs and other times I just need to know how to do one thing. If it’s covered in a small chapter then I’m set.
Doing a poll is wonderful if the person taking the poll has all the information available to him/her prior to taking a poll. I voted for having new information every month, but after reading some of the comments a lot of things make sense. It really wound depends on what the course as to whether or not to release the course in segments. I understand now that it takes a course a long time to develop, but to me, it would seem easier to allow perhaps 3 trainers to develop a course, that way when an outline is broken down, perhaps if it is taken in segments by three different people, information can be gotten out quicker. As one reader said, as you learn different versions of software, for instance, MS Word, I learned 07 and by the time that came out, 2010 was coming out, and I had to go through the whole course of 2010 from the beginning to find out that I knew most of the stuff, but I’m afraid that if I don’t watch the entire course, I will miss something. So I’m not sure that leaving out parts of the information and just jumping to what is new, because I believe you already have courses where you point out what is new. If I had to revote again, I might change my vote instead of monthly to break it up into longer hours, if that had to be a choice. I would like to say, that I would like to see intermediate courses in some of the applications within Microsoft Office. The basics of the program is pretty simple for most folks that know a lot of applications, but give me the “meat of the what the course can really do,” When I go on a job, anybody can learn the tools, but show me how to put those tools to work to show me some dynamic stuff of what I can do with a powerpoint slide. I hope you can sense what I mean. I made a comment before that real life applications are what we need to show us how to use the tools that you have taught us. I have not found too many intermediate courses except for perhaps an excel program. I hope perhaps if I am not conveying my message in the correct way that someone who may understand parts of what I am saying will chime in to add anything to make it more clear or to perhaps add something I have missed. I know I’m not the only one that thinks like this. Also, I have turned a lot of people onto lynda.com that absolutely love the site, I wish there were incentives for people who tell folks about lynda.com. Thanks
@Karen Martin: I agree with pretty much everything you commented on. I wanted the blog post to be as short as possible, so admittedly it lacked complete context. What I was really asking was whether or not for certain topics our members would value us publishing training in a series format as we finished each module, or if they would rather the content be published in its entirety when it was complete, as we’ve always done in the past.
We work 100% for our members here, and so we want to always be exploring how we can evolve our production and publishing process to enable us to provide the training our members need and want in a more agile and quicker fashion. To that end, the poll and the comment discussion was very helpful. It verified that it isn’t an either/or, and helped inform us that for any given body of content, we should consider how we go about “packaging” the content so that it can be delivered to our members as quickly as possible.
For example, we will continue to publish New Features courses, day and date when a new software application or upgrade is released. We will continue to publish our Essential Training series as close to the release date of software as possible.
For the more intermediate to advanced topics, we will be trying out some new ideas this year. For example, we have a new series for intermediate to advanced Illustrator users coming out in the very near future, by our good friend Mordy Golding. Rather than publishing a single 20-hour course, we’ll be releasing a new 2-hour course every 6 to 8 weeks as Mordy completes them.
You may have noticed that we started a new weekly series format in January called Deke’s Techniques, were we publish 1 to 2 new video tutorials every week. These are Photoshop and Illustrator creative projects that can be done in 10 minutes or less.
At the end of the day, we realize that to truly serve the needs of our members, we can’t use a one size fits all approach. Some members prefer to start at the first video of a course and work their way through an 8 to 10 hour course one video at a time in linear fashion until they are done. Some simply look for the one video that answers the one question they have at that moment. And others aren’t looking for the answer to a specific question at all — they just want to be inspired. And still others do all of the above throughout any given month.
We’re just trying to make sure we live up to our promise that our platform and service truly allows our members to “learn at their own pace”.
Also, we really do appreciate that you take the time to tell others about lynda.com. We do indeed have an Affiliate Program where you can earn revenue when those you refer to us becoming a paying member. You can read more about the program here: http://www.lynda.com/partners/affiliates.aspx
Cheers,
Michael Ninness
VP of Content, lynda.com
@Michael Ninness
May I ask why there hasn’t been a Java course released yet? May I ask do you have plans to release both a Java and/or a Google Adwords course? I like the idea of releasing titles a chapter at at time, but I am so far behind on all the other courses that it is going to be awhile before I get caught up to you! Thanks for all you guys do!
@OgdenOrthopedics: Our first Java course, called Up and Running with Java, is in production and is scheduled to be published in late June to early July. Our Google Adwords Essential Training course is also in production and is scheduled to be published in mid June.
Great News! Thanks for the reply!
@Michael Ninness
Hello There, When do you reckon you will indeed publish the Java course please?
Its 1st of August.
Thanks in advance.
Any word on the Java course?
i searched every where about j2ee and struts in java but does nt find anything i really need the projct u did woth php and mysql with one small project but in java i doesnt find anythink like that please realse someting like that