We've been with Zoho now for over five years. The only "non-Zoho" product we use is dropbox: for every other application we use Zoho and in all honesty wouldn't consider any other applications.
The scope and adaptability of Zoho has been the biggest benefit for us. I'm keen to share with other Zoho customers some of the solutions we've been able to use Zoho for, all with in-house solutions and minimal programming required.
The most recent, and exciting, way we have been using Zoho is to use the Wiki application for our competency training mapping. Anyone who has worked with the Australian competency-based training system will know what a nightmare it is to try and map and monitor all the competency units, elements, performance and knowledge evidence and to somehow link up all these isolated components to not only individual assessment items, but also to the actual material (content) that we use for training. And then to keep track of it all, monitored, feedback, updates, etc. Esp. if you are a smaller RTO without dedicated staff to deal with this.
We have found a perfect solution for our needs with Wiki.
First, we created a number of sections in the Wiki:
~ Competency Standards
~ Course Content
~ Course Assessment
we also had a few other sections relating to the specific industry guidelines and standards - these could be modified to suit your industry.
Then, in each section, is a breakdown. So, for example, the Competency Standard section is broken down first into the competency unit, followed by the individual competency elements, followed by the performance criteria each having it's own dedicated page.
The course assessment section has a number of sub-section pages:
~Assessment items banks (the individual quiz questions, essay questions, etc)
~Assessment tasks and groups (the grouping of the individual questions - e.g. "Quiz for Lesson 1.1)
~ Assessment performance evidence (straight from the CU)
~ Assessment knowledge evidence (straight from the CU)'
Then what we did on each page is insert tables that link all of the assessment and competency parts to each other.
So, for example, you can go to any page - say one of the knowledge evidence pages, and see from there, which parts of the course content address this, which question items assess it, and which performance criteria it contributes to evidencing. Likewise, you can go to any quiz question, and see which aspects of the competency it relates to. Or to a performance criteria and easily link through to the performance and knowledge evidence required and the specific measures of this.
Quite a bit of typing and mapping work to set up (and a bit of a mind-bend - but that is the nature of the Australian competency-based system anyway, right?) but the benefits have been:
~ A dramatically low-cost solution (compared to off-the shelf competency monitoring software, which often has features you don't need, and doesn't easily do half of what you do need).
~ A highly auditable system, it's so logical and simple to use, even the auditors can get their heads around it :-o And when the auditors come through the mapping is already done and it is quick and easy to pull the info and relationships they need.
~ A highly inclusive system - training staff have been able to quickly grasp it all, and it has really supported their understanding of the links between teaching, assessment and the standards. Simple features on the Wiki, such as the comments section mean that all teachers can provide input and feedback which is tracked and monitored and not lost.
~ Better teaching and assessment - because of the mapping capability, we have been able to take a much more holistic approach to teaching and assessment. Returning to our actual program for teaching based on student learning needs, rather than teaching directly to the competency in isolated chunks.
~ Monitorable - we use the tagging feature to indicate the date when sections or pages need to be reviewed and to allocate this task to the appropriate person.
~ An archivable and sustainable system - with the back ups and because it is all online, no documents get lost. Everything we do builds on what we have so (after the initial set-up) the work involved in reviewing and updating is minimal.
No down-sides so far.
Hope this idea helps other Zoho users or people looking for a realistic, manageable solution.
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