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SAP, helping the world run better by enabling the development of great learning experiences for all.

About SAP

SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software, helping companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 77% of the world’s transaction revenue touches an SAP system. Thier machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers’ businesses into intelligent enterprises. Thier end-to-end suite of applications and services enables their customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. 

Key project features

Kineo Mobile friendly and accessible content
Kineo Adapt Authoring Tool
Kineo Personalised learning

THE CHALLENGE

Deliver consistent learning across all devices  

Following a review of SAP’s elearning authoring tool set, their content development community identified needs which weren’t fulfilled by their current authoring technology.

The main challenge facing SAP was the need to deliver consistent learning experiences that would meet the needs of today’s modern learner - to provide personalised, engaging, and accessible learning experiences at the point of need, on any device. 

SAP defined their business needs as:

  • Support the SAP purpose to “help the world run better and improve people’s lives”.
  • Increase engagement and improve the learning experience, particularly for learners using assistive technologies.
  • Improve the effectiveness and efficiency of content authoring.
  • Reduce expenditure on elearning authoring tool licenses.

Working in partnership with Kineo, SAP set the goal to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of content development through tool standardization, a consistent branded user experience, and workforce collaboration.

OUR SOLUTION 

Selecting the best and most extensible authoring tool

SAP’s vision is to help the world run better and improve people’s lives, which makes it imperative to drive behaviours and impact work performance for all learners including those with accessibility requirements.

To accomplish this, SAP’s learning experience team identified Kineo’s Adapt Authoring Tool and shared Kineo’s aims to meet the most advanced of accessibility standards.

Kineo's Edition of Adapt Authoring Tool ticked all the boxes - an authoring solution that was flexible, extensible, intuitive, and could be hosted internally, eliminating the need for multiple subscription-based products and services - reducing costs, increasing reusability and making learning accessible to all.

Accessibility first, not an after thought

Addressing accessibility needs in a learning content development is typically a complex task requiring programming skills. Kineo developers worked with SAP to improve the navigation and user journey through the content, added support for screenreader keyboard shortcuts and optimised the standard instruction text including the addition of named UI regions to aide navigation and orientation.

The outcome of this work is that V4 of the Adapt Framework now automates all of the complex accessibility development tasks for designers. Learning Designers do not need to worry about tab order, manually configuring button behavior or even drafting screenreader instruction text as all of this is handled by the tool.

The changes have also been shared with the 250,000+ participants of the Open Source community with the v4 release benefiting all organisations who use Adapt authored content.

Personalised learning experiences

A key enhancement delivered via this collaboration is in support of personalised learner journeys based on content filtering. Working with SAP our developers created a Role and Skill-based extension that allows a user to select his or her role and then only see content that is relevant to their role or skill level.

Alongside this a Diagnostic extension was created that allows users to only consume content that they need to work on by providing them with a course pretest. Eliminating the need to consume content in which the learner is already proficient.

Both extensions have dramatically reduced average completion times whilst keeping learning relevant and personalised.

Engagement and interactivity

The new Interactive Video Quiz was designed to add an immersive learning experience into Adapt. Learners can interact with a video story including a series of decision points - enabling a more intense and engaging experience.

The power of interactive videos moves us from passive viewing to active engagement. The experience becomes immersive and allows learners to use their judgement in order to challenge their assumptions, learn from mistakes and deal with ambiguous situations.

THE RESULTS

Learner-centric delivery and design for all users  

Adapt, which SAP refers to as the “content development environment” or CDE Adapt, is internally hosted, maintained, and fully supported. It has been accepted internally as SAP’s go-to content development environment and has over 425 SAP users globally across all areas of thier business with over 600 courses created, reaching approximately 100,000 employees. 

SAP content developers now have an intuitive, easy to use content development environment that enables them to work collaboratively in projects, create branded, personalised and highly interactive immersive experiences without compromising the accessibility of the learning. 

With SAP’s active participation in the open source Adapt project, and partnership with Kineo, a positive impact was made across the SAP organization, to learners, content developers, and globally – both internally and externally, helping to make a great product even better.    

Standardizing SAP’s learning delivery around Adapt provided the ability to be more learner-centric with content design and delivery. It’s also provided the dual benefits of greater efficiency of delivery and a more effective, consistent learning experience for all learners.

Learners are now provided with a mobile friendly, personalized, and engaging learning experience that is more accessible than ever.

“Providing accessible learning experiences that are modern, engaging, and relevant and supports the content development community for success both internally and globally has been my passion. SAP,  Adapt, and our partnership with Kineo has been the vehicle to do just that. We will continue to forge ahead and evolve to meet the ever-changing demands of our learners, the organization, and the success of the content development community.”

  Mark D’Aquin, Learning Solutions Architect and Strategist at SAP  

The project has since been awarded with a coveted Brandon Hall Group Gold Award for excellence in the Best Advance in Content Authoring Technology category. The win was announced on December 10, 2020 and the full list of winners can be found on the Brandon Hall Website.   


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