White Paper

Title: The Knoitall Learning Management Platform for Corporate Customers and Key Stakeholders

Version: 1.0 Date: February, 2015

Synopsis: Knoitall is a robust and highly flexible social learning platform that supports the rapid deployment of a corporate learning center to educate your external audience and key stakeholders on your products and services. Companies use our free platform to enhance their brand by educating their external audience. Core functionality of the product offering includes:

• Spidering technology that finds and organizes existing company learning assets available across the Internet at locations like YouTube, Slideshare, and a company’s own website

• A web-based course management and enrollment management platform so that companies can list upcoming classes, webinars, and other learning-related activities

• Integration with PayPal to support consumer credit card payments directly to the provider’s PayPal account

• Social components that allow users to follow your learning center and be updated when changes occur; social reviews of learning content; and endorsements when your learning is followed by other learning centers

• Search engine technology that allows for users to search through your learning center for specific content

• Competency assignment, where the Knoitall spidering technology attempts to assign key competencies and learning outcomes to each learning item available through your learning center

• Tools to build and customize a provider learning center and that is mobile and tablet friendly

• Social tools to support marketing efforts through the Provider’s Facebook page

• Automatic placement of the provider offerings in the larger Knoitall Learning Site so that they may be found through general searches.

Throughout the remainder of this paper, the core features and functionality of the enrollment management platform will be covered.

1) Introduction The Knoitall Learning Management Platform for Corporate Customers and Key Stakeholders was developed to meet the following objectives:

1. Provide a new social channel to organizations that wish to enhance their customer and channel interaction and their brand by educating their audience on their products and services (LinkedIn, Facebook, Knoitall)

2. Provide a superior learning management platform for companies that want to educate their external audience, channel partners and key stakeholders

3. Provide a way for social interaction to occur around an Organization’s learning content through reviews, comments, and endorsements

4. Provide a uniform channel for consumers who want to learn about company products, services, and key initiatives

The Knoitall Platform is delivered to organizations through a Software as a Service Provider model, accessible through Knoitall.com.

a) Why does the Knoitall approach make sense for organizations? Organizations approve of the approach that we have taken because Knoitall provides a new social channel for interaction between organizations and their external audience in a way that enhances brand by associating the organization with learning. Organizations use their Knoitall learning center to aggregate all of their learning resources, including support, into a single page managed through a robust but “easy to use” learning management platform.

b) What are the costs to use the Knoitall software? Knoitall is free to use. Organizations set up their learning centers for free. Organizations have the opportunity to promote their learning centers within Knoitall using the Knoitall promotional tools, which can include banner advertising, video promotions and special offers (see Knoitall pricing for more information).

For providers that offer classes or other learning-related services for a fee, Knoitall allows for registrations to occur through the Provider’s learning center for free. This is performed through the Knoitall online registration platform. In addition, these offerings are available through the main site. If purchases occur through the main Knoitall site, there is a fee for this service (check Knoitall pricing for more information).

2) Key Features and Functionality The Knoitall Learning Distribution Platform is used by organizations for the following purposes:

1. Manage all organization learning designed for external customers, channel partners, and key stakeholders in a single location through your Knoitall account

2. Provide learning search, review, and enrollment capabilities to consumers through your Knoitall learning center

3. Assignment of advisors to assist your audience with questions regarding your offerings

4. Provide a forum for reviewing the learning and support offerings of an organization 5. Provide a platform for distributing the learning through other learning centers and

to your general audience through the main Knoitall site

3) The Knoitall Technology Architecture Knoitall has developed a robust technology architecture to support all learning formats. The Knoitall database stores the following information regarding a learning item:

1. The learning format (class, webinar, free resource, product, certificate, and degree)

2. Delivery (online, face-to-face)

3. Competencies for the learning

4. Learning Outcomes (assigned by Knoitall)

5. Title

6. Description

7. Schedule of the learning

8. Inventory (if you are providing registration capabilities for the learning that is being delivered, Knoitall provides the ability to assign a certain number of seats in inventory. The Knoitall system will not allow participants past the maximum number of seats in inventory.

If the learning being offered is a free resource, such as a video or slideshare presentation, the Knoitall system embeds the link directly into the Knoitall page so that key learning components can be added, such as the learning outcomes, learning category, description, etc.

A number of optional fields are available to support various types of learning:

1. Assign as advisor. An advisor can be assigned to an item of learning to answer questions regarding the learning being offered.

2. Instructor. If an instructor will be delivering the learning, a profile for the instructor can be added to the learning offering

3. Location. If the learning will be delivered at a specific location, the location details can be added to the learning offering

4. Requirements. If there are certain items or prerequisites required prior to consuming the learning, these can be displayed to the learner

5. Image. You can assign an image to a learning item to be displayed alongside the description.

a) Web gateway for all learning management functions All learning management activities performed by a provider are accessible through a protected gateway within Knoitall.com. This gives the organization the ability to

add, delete, and manage learning items, accept purchases and registrations, and respond to requests from your audience.

b) Serving multiple enrollment channels through a centralized management system

One of the major challenges facing organizations is how to guarantee that all enrollments are performed on a “first-come-first-served” basis in an environment where enrollments peak significantly at certain times of the year. In order to accomplish these goals, a provider must possess a centralized repository of content which can be fed to these various enrollment outlets, and a solid technology architecture to manage the increased traffic during enrollment peaks. The Knoitall enrollment management architecture has been developed to support all enrollments on a “first-come-first-served” basis, whether the enrollment originates over the web, via phone, or through a physical outlet. In addition to providing a robust course and enrollment management platform, Knoitall is building its own distribution channel to support your offerings through Knoitall.com. Our web presence amongst life long learners and their children is growing rapidly through our promotional efforts to this audience, and we capitalize on those efforts by providing information on your upcoming classes as they are loaded into our Learning Management System. Knoitall provides an extremely secure environment for managing course content and enrollments. This is due to our hardware architecture, which utilizes firewall technology and an industry leading security standard for authentication over a secure connection (HTTPS).

4) Creating Your Free Learning Center An organization can create their free learning center through the following steps:

1) Create your account through the home page at Knoitall.com (click on the Sign Up Button and select the provider tab)

2) Log into your account and complete your profile (make sure to name your learning center)

3) List or tag certain items that you would like to add to your learning center. Knoitall will send out our spider to try and find learning that is associated to your Organization and bring it into your learning center. You will be notified when certain items and found and automatically added to your learning center so that you can tag them for your audience. These items will be held in a pending state in your account until you publish them to your learning center.

5) Linking to Your Learning Center Knoitall provides a number of widgets for you to include on your own site to link people directly to your learning center. Most organizations treat their Knoitall learning center like their other social channels (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter) and they add the Knoitall “Favicon” directly next to the other social favicons on their site. Internet users are becoming accustomed to associate the favicon with an organization’s learning center.

These widgets are all contained in your account under the tab “Community”.

6) Conclusion Knoitall provides a robust social learning platform to help organizations engage with their audience online by aggregating and organizing their learning and support items into a single learning center through Knoitall.