Norwich-based online learning specialists Real Projects marked a milestone at the start of the month, launching the 100th course in its library. 
The business began building its portfolio of digital learning resources in 2012. “We probably had about 12 live in that first year,” says MD Scott Hewitt. “Then we stopped, to focus on custom work.
“We've been doing loads of really great custom work but we still wanted to have our own course library. So about 18 months ago, we started again and we really went for it - we've done the rest of them over that period.”
The courses cover a range of subjects – from cybersecurity to remote working and other key business topics to Covid-related areas and de-escalation. Real Projects works with subject-matter experts to develop the content, using its skills to package it into effective, easy-to-follow online lessons. “The concept now is for the courses to be quite short. The average is to be between four and 15 minutes - and 15 is actually really long,” Mr Hewitt says.
“We just launched a group of courses on hybrid working and another on data and business," he adds. “Invariably there will be between three and six courses in a series, because when somebody is done one course, they'll want to go onto then next one.”
The course library also helps grow the custom course business. Mr Hewitt explains: “Someone might say, ‘We've looked at this particular library course: now we want something that's a bit more specific to our organisation’.
“The key thing is the same production values are applied to both. The customer gets the same quality of product - the difference being that with a piece of custom work, we have to spend a lot of time with the client, to make sure we get every piece of granularity right.”
The quality of the courses in the library has already seen eight of them winning awards this year – most recently in the Viddy and Dot.Comm awards. “It’s great that they’re being recognised,” says Mr Hewitt, “But we’re delivering that quality across the board.”
For more information, see www.realprojects.co.uk
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