ELI Webinar | Lean Content Strategy: Can Course Materials Selection Be More Efficient?

At Capella University, we discovered that our publisher request process failed to provide resources for adoption during the course development process, resulting in unplanned spikes in time and resources and rework for our centralized course development teams and librarians. Only 3% of courses used content from the standard process, and only 47% adopted aligned, cost-effective content. Faculty expertise and judgment, coupled with day-one digital access, require a streamlined approach for pairing faculty with materials. We'll look at applying lean methodology to content selection to create an efficient content-curation process in a centralized course development model. We will share our process of using lean tools to analyze current-state problems and uncover root cause, and the new process applying the six lean principles: effectively deliver value to customers; improve the value stream by eliminating waste; maintain flow; pull through the system; strive for perfection; and respect and engage people.

Outcomes

• Explore lean principles in the context of higher education
• Apply lean thinking and strategies to academic content selection, including isolating defects using a Pareto chart
• Explore strategies for aligning high-quality learning resources to learning competencies with minimal waste and rework