TRIBAL

One of Tribal’s major areas of activity is in management information systems. Some 80% of universities operate a Tribal system. Tribal systems are also in evidence in the further education (FE), work-based (corporate) sectors and local authorities sectors. Tribal also supplies the TARN bespoke data management system used in the NHS; the Will Finder system operated by the UK’s Ministry of Justice; the National Course Directory Service, and the NHS’s NIHR (for which Tribal developed the Central Portfolio Management System (CPMS), dealing with records relating to all NHS funded clinical research in England).

All of these Tribal systems require accurate, efficient, effective and state-of-the-art content creation and management if they are to do what they’re intended to do.

Solution

According to Darren Lloyd, Tribal’s Business Development Manager, Software Solutions, “In 2011, Tribal began using the eXact learning LCMS on its own projects – principally to help it
create learning content for the work-based (corporate) learning and further education (FE) sectors. We then noticed a close fit between eXact learning solutions’ learning content management system (LCMS)’s features and capabilities and Tribal’s educational technology product portfolio. So we began distributing the LCMS to our customers in the work-based (corporate) learning sector. These customers include two well-established ‘household’ names within the UK.”

The principal component of a suite of products and services from eXact learning solutions, part of the Lattanzio Group, the eXact learning LCMS allows for rapid content development through collaboration between subject matter experts (SMEs) and courseware designers, regardless of their location or specialization. Furthermore, being based on XML technology, the eXact learning LCMS enables and facilitates the reusability of ‘chunks’ of learning content. The LCMS supports SCORM 1.2 and 2004, IMS and xAPI (TinCan) standards – allowing for single source, multiple output publishing.

Other key features of the LCMS include the ability for subject matter experts (SMEs) and instructional designers to:

• Reuse all existing learning content materials in any format.
• Collaborate online, via template-based authoring, regardless of the collaborators’ location.
• Categorize data according to the demands of the business and/or process – via metadata, taxonomies, vocabularies and content tags – enabling authors to search for and swiftly find
  the materials they need.
• Tailor templates for large-scale, repeatable content production projects, via HTML/HTML5, to produce content in any required output – including pdf, Word and ePub versions.

Achievements

“The LCMS’s flexibility and ease of use allowed Tribal to develop its own HTML templates to help it meet its customers’ needs,” said Darren Lloyd. Using the eXact learning LCMS has saved – and continues to save – Tribal both time and money in terms of producing learning materials,” he added. “Not only are we keen to continue taking advantage of these savings – and continue experiencing further improvements in productivity – but we’re now offering the LCMS to our clients in the public and ‘blue chip’ sectors as well as FE and corporate learning, so that they can experience these benefits as well.”