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Virtual corporate education isn’t something you can just set and forget. You need a means of validating that people have taken part in a training course. That’s training verification. You also need a means of determining if that training was successful. And that’s certification. This article discusses the differences between the two, the benefits of each, and best practices for both.
What is Training Verification in Corporate Learning?
Training verification confirms that an individual has participated in a training program. It can take a few different forms and may include checking attendance, module completion, and course completion. In some cases, such as with a new employee, verification of training and education may also include basic skill validation.
Training verification may be done for various reasons, usually for either internal compliance or for measuring a training program’s effectiveness. Achieving this at scale generally requires training software with real-time tracking and reporting functionality. Automated skill validation is also advisable for online training courses with internal verification requirements.
What is Training Certification in Corporate Learning?
Although they’re often regarded as interchangeable, verification and certification are two distinct concepts, each with its own role in corporate learning and development.
While the former is primarily concerned with measuring the completion or effectiveness of a training program, the latter assesses whether someone has achieved a certain standard of knowledge or mastery.
This generally requires a practical demonstration, assessment, or exam. Individuals who successfully complete this test are typically awarded some form of credential or certificate in recognition of their competence. Depending on the nature of the certification, they may need to periodically undergo another assessment.
As with training verification, delivering a certification program at scale typically requires some degree of automation.
Benefits of Online Training Verification for Enterprises
The most obvious benefit of being able to measure and validate your training is that it gives you insight into the effectiveness of your content. If a large number of people aren’t completing a particular module, for example, they may be encountering some sort of usability bottleneck or knowledge gap.
Verification is also important for compliance and governance. Being able to verify that an employee has completed their training helps to reduce both legal and operational risks, while tracking and reporting supports internal reviews and audits.
Lastly, online verification supported by automation significantly reduces administrative overhead, eliminating paperwork while still accurately recording data that can be used for both optimization and to calculate a training program’s ROI.
How Virtual Labs Enable Skills Validation and Certification
Virtual training technology, such as Cloudshare’s hands-on virtual labs, empowers businesses to validate and measure training success while also providing a more engaging, immersive learning experience. The data gathered from virtual lab-based courses can also be used for certification.
Here’s how:
Streamlined Skill Validation
CloudShare’s Guided Journeys feature allows an instructor to organize course content into independent sections. Instead of having to go back and reference previous material, participants can focus on each individual module, with step-by-step guidance on completion. The feature provides real-time feedback to learners and automatically monitors and reports on progress for instructors.
Visual AI Checks
CloudShare has also incorporated artificial intelligence into our software in a rather unique way: by augmenting Guided Journeys with computer vision. Rather than having to manually verify that a learner has completed a specific task or achieved a specific milestone, the instructor can offload that task to AI.
In addition to ensuring that verification is both accurate and consistent, this offers active guidance to learners and frees up a significant chunk of time for instructors, since this form of automated assessment doesn’t require scripting.
Comprehensive Integration
Via API and LTI, CloudShare integrates with an incredibly diverse range of software, including learning management systems and workplace collaboration platforms. In addition to creating a more seamless experience for learners, these integrations also support centralized management, tracking, and reporting for both verification and certification.
To learn more about how CloudShare manages integrations — including how to integrate with your existing LMS — you can visit our help center.
Hands-On Certification
We’ve always maintained that practical training is better than passive learning. That doesn’t just apply to education. Through our virtual labs, businesses can design practical assessments that imitate real-world scenarios supported by comprehensive tracking and reporting.
This experiential approach slots well into broader programs, enhancing both engagement and knowledge retention, while supporting more accurate certification processes.
Next Steps: Explore the Convergence of Experience and Education
Verification and certification are two different yet closely related processes. One thing they — and the training programs they support — have in common is that personalization and engagement matter just as much as content. Consequently, we’re seeing a considerable intersection between LMS platforms and learning experience platforms.
