Editor's Note: This article hasbeen written by Douglas Dell, senior vice president of eLearningServices for Crawford & Company and frequent contributor toPropertyCasualty360.com.

Learning has been a prescriptiveexercise in corporate America for at least the last 100 years.Usually a need was identified, an assessment of skills gap wasmade, and the selection of a prescribed training regiment wasdeployed. Larger organizations would pursue top-tier trainingcompanies and content providers to act as developers and deliverersof these services.

It's a formula that has worked ratherwell. But what are smaller organizations with less structure,limited budgets, and no ready resource of training tools to do? Inthe past, they would develop homegrown solutions that lacked theinsights of true instructional design or a broader perspective farbeyond the focus of their business or industry.

Today there are options, available on the Web and delivered as afree service, for those seeking an immediate need for informationthey are pursuing. Let's take a look at two resources to considerin developing an affordable, do-it-yourself (DIY) training solutionto improve your team.

Whenever I ask my kids “how did you learn that?” they inevitablypoint me to YouTube. What started out as more of an online versionof the television program “America's Funniest Home Videos”—and thego-to place for cute cat videos or viewing the latest stunts gonehorribly wrong—has become a sophisticated network of channels,programming, audience-generated content and pure entertainment. Thebest feature offered on the site is search, which puts any cablesystem's channel guide to shame.

Non-Traditional Resources

For the insurance world, a few searches can secure access topresentations delivered by industry experts; keynotes of recentconferences; a vast chronicle of industry advertising; anddedicated channels by insurance carriers, universities, andconsulting organizations. With access to this broad and deepcontent for just the price of an Internet connection, anenterprising training manager can design a DIY curriculum of videosand build an assessment to track knowledge transfer andretention.

Let's start with a few scenarios where we first define a role,skill gap, and then the learning requirement. Next we conduct a fewYouTube searches, watch a few videos, consider the application inthe field, and finally think about how we might assess the impacton the learner. Using just this website we are able to implement ano-cost, almost instantly accessible, truly DIY approach toadvancing knowledge in your organization. (See “Now Playing” for asampling of the currently available YouTube videos that can helpcreate a learning curriculum.)

YouTube is a great resource but also is mammoth library inscope; it varies greatly in quality, validity, and value of thevideos available. As a result, training managers will need to wadethrough many videos to validate that the training is appropriateand unbiased. Much of what you may find with the term “accident”represents attorneys fishing for clients, and when you search“insurance adjuster” you will often find advice on what not to sayto the carrier agent or adjuster. Using the term “training” willinvariably produce a plethora of technical school marketing videos,and “loss” runs the gamut from hair and weight loss to bereavementcounseling. However, targeting your search terms to key phrases andindustry terms and sifting through all these links will result inat least a few gems. Distribution can be easilyaccomplished by forwarding directly to a prospective student or viathe “share link” function to a team Facebook or LinkedIn group.

Knowledge Transference

Now that you have found the perfect learning tool and providedthe lead-up and intended outcome to your target audience of claimsprofessionals, you must consider a means to assess the transfer oflearning and its resulting impact on the job.

One simple method may be to engage the learner or manager with aweekly diary of actions to identify when they have used the newlyacquired skill(s) and the resulting outcome. A common trainingmaxim is that if you perform a task repeatedly for 21 days, it islikely to become habit. That repetition might be a workable modelif the tasks are appropriate for the audience. Another option is abrief Web poll or survey that can be sent directly to the learnerat prescribed intervals; www.surveymonkey.com is one ofmany sources for such surveys. This method is very trackable, andthe data outputs to an Excel spreadsheet that can be manipulated toproduce meaningful reports.

Now, if the goal is to establish a more academically basedcurriculum model that can reflect high-quality content from abranded academic institution such as Harvard University or theMassachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), consider a massiveopen online course (MOOC), which is a gathering of availablecourses from respected institutions available for free or at lowcost to the online public. This is a developing area of education,and many of the early aggregators are establishing libraries fromwhich to select learning options. One such aggregator is Coursera. Its 200-plus courses aredesigned to help learners master the material by watching lecturestaught by world-class professors. The online delivery allowsstudents to learn at their own pace, test their knowledge, andreinforce concepts through interactive exercises. Other programswith greater focus on science and math are offered by Udacity, a for-profit with Stanfordroots, and edX, a not-for-profitrun out of MIT and Harvard.

More On MOOC The courses offered in theseenvironments shift from YouTube's more practical and technicalelements defined for application in a position such as propertyclaims adjuster to more of a management development or theoreticalfocus. A quick look at titles available under the business categoryof Coursera presents programs from the University of Virginia'sDarden School of Business on Foundations of Business Strategy andCorporate Finance offered by the University of Pennsylvania'sWharton School of Business, among many others.

The MOOC concept is evolving. It is likely that the deliverytechnology will advance along with the volume of available courses.Eventually, it will mature to a set of common standards and thecompletion of these programs will convey an accomplishment for thelearner and a recognized value among employers. The currentenvironment is a growing source of quality educational experiences,allowing training managers to design a program from a selection oftopics and institutions representing a credible alternative totraditional offerings.

The world of user-generated content and open networks hascreated a true opportunity for those willing to engage in a littleDIY learning. An investment in time, a bit of ingenuity, and acommitment to engage learners can establish an environment ofcontinuous learning for an organization with limited cost andeffort.