Leveraging Your Publishing Programs to Support New eLearning Products

As trusted discipline-specific homes of high-quality content, scholarly associations and societies are well-positioned to support educational initiatives for professional development or academic use. Developing an eLearning product can create a new revenue source for associations facing stressed budgets due to changing meeting attendance and open access. Systems and workflows that support traditional publishing may not equip associations to launch a program. Obstacles including SSO, systems integration, selecting the right Learning Management System, curating learning content, ongoing maintenance, and designing a model to see a financial return can seem daunting. It is worth the effort, however, considering the value in member benefits, retention, and the increased impact of the content. In this panel, we will share how associations are innovating to overcome these obstacles and launch new programs to support eLearning. Associations and consultants working in this area will share lessons learned through specific projects in engineering, medicine, and business.