Infosemantics Services
Infosemantics delivers specialist services focused on learning and development but especially geared towards online learning. Our services include the following:
Technical Authoring
Preparation of all types of technical documentation and training materials. This includes user guides, quick-reference guides, trainers guides, and participant workbooks. A lot of our projects have dealt with software implementations including First Priority, SAP, and Microsoft. However, we have also prepared documentation for computer hardware, human resources, health and safety, and much more. Our documentation has even won national awards for excellence, beating out much larger organisations.
E-learning Design and Development
In recent years this has become our most popular service because of the explosion of interest in online learning and the continual rise in cost of equivalent facilitated learning delivery. We predominantly use the Adobe suite of products for course development including Captivate (the current world leading software for rapid e-learning), Flash (for animation and interactivity), Soundbooth (for extra sound quality), Dreamweaver (for web development and deployment), Photoshop and Fireworks (bitmap and vector graphics development). Our clients range from small family-owned software companies, to statewide utilities, to global resources companies. Topics covered include software training, health and safety, environmental management, sustainability, office-based waste management, and many more.
Our e-learning courses stand out from the rest by clever use of graphics and animation (rather than just boring page-turner text), voiceover audio (closed-captioning and 508 compliance as optional), interactivity, assessment quizzes, and an element of fun thrown in for good measure. Where the client wishes to use a Learning Management System to track e-learner interactions, we can also build our courses to conform to the internationally recognised SCORM standard.
While we have always tried to make our courses enjoyable, an upcoming feature of our e-learning will be the inclusion of "Serious Games" based on Flash. Stay tuned for more about this later!
Information Design
This service is normally delivered as part of a larger documentation or e-learning project. It includes designs for presentation of information in a variety of diagram formats for viewing both online and in print. In this genre of work we admire (and aspire) to the diagrammatic art of Edward R. Tufte. Graphics tools used include Photoshop, Fireworks, Visio, MindManager, and many more. We believe the secret of good information design is in its simplicity and clarity, rather than its graphical richness.
Instructional Design
We apply a variety of internationally recognised (and some home-grown) instructional design principles to design curriculums and online courses for clients. We use a customised version of Bloom's Taxonomy to break down complex information into a logical hierarchy. Our courses benefit from this approach because it allows us to simplify even very technical topic domains so as to take learners from novice to expert in the shortest possible time.
LMS Integration
Due to our involvement in building SCORM-compliant e-learning courses we have also become proficient at integrating our courses with Learning Management Systems. If a client has no LMS, we can implement an open-source LMS which is more than capable of fulfilling their organisactional needs for delivery and tracking of courseware.
Online Help Systems
We have developed online help and performance support systems for clients using tools such as RoboHELP, Dreamweaver, Captivate, Flash, HDK, and others. Most of these projects center around online help for software applications, however, very similar systems can be used for delivery of instructions about company policies and procedures.
Graphic Design
This service is usually performed as part of a larger project such as the development of documentation or an e-learning course. However, we are more than willing to design graphics, stationery, or presentations to suit your needs.
Web Design & Development
Since most of our work is for the online environment, web design and development is very much part of our skillset. We use Adobe Dreamweaver as our tool of choice, heavily supplemented with Flash for animation and interactivity, as well as graphics from Photoshop, Fireworks, SnagIT, and others. We program in several web-based languages including HTML, XML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL, PHP, and ColdFusion. We build mainly database-driven dynamic websites nowadays because most clients want their web-based information to change regularly and many even want to be able to update it themselves (without intervention by a web administrator). Some of these websites are very sophisticated, even approaching the status of a content management system on occasion.
