There are several main issues the ID needs to think about. First and foremost is time; Second, and sometimes more important, is money. The first things to consider is what resources do you have for an online course and how much money do you need to spend to set the program up. If the budget is minimal, there is a ceiling you will reach for success before you even get started. Do you pay these workers for the amount of time they will spend outside of work? Are the resources and assignments just digital copies the students can access or are they modules working off a CMS? The face-to-face aspect during work, and there needs to be more workers to pick up the slack created by having these trainees learning? There are many different aspects that need to be looked at when starting an online learning classroom.

The original program consisted of a face-to-face training that could have aspects transferred to the online module. This program sounds like it would be Distributed Learning instead of Distance Learning. Distributed Learning is associated with face-to-face instruction that incorporates some type of technology-based learning experience (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek (2012). pg 197) Therefore, discussions can be both online and in person, video, audio, and other aspects can also be a part of both types of classroom. This would just enhance the experience for these learners to promote more synthesis of the material. The adaptation of face-to-face to online requires inventiveness and innovation on the part of the professor (Simonson, et al. (2012). pg 216)

The trainer/ID will now have to worry less about being a classroom manager, and become a student-based manager. For example: He might have had intervals in the classroom for how long he would give the students to learn. Then create a formative assessment to measure their understanding. Now, he no longer has to worry about time as tightly as he has in the past. He is a manager or deadlines and student activities. His focus is changing to make sure his learners are understanding the concepts and the class pays off for the company. He still as a similar amount of worries, but the shift it towards technology and the learner. This should produce better results per time used by using problem-based learning, collaboration, and student-led discussions (Simonson, et al. (2012). pg 204)

To encourage students to collaborate online is probably the hardest job the trainer has once the course is up and running. Communication is an important component of ensuring successful distance learning experiences (Simonson, et al. (2012). pg 205) The trainer can require interaction similar to Walden University, and also break projects/assignments/applications into pieces. Each piece has a separate deadline that allows for peer feedback as well as the trainer's feedback. This requires the learner to interact with their peers and gives their group a more diverse set of ideas.

References

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and Learning at a Distance: Foundations of Distance Education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.