How To Maximize The Value

In today’s fast-paced world of training and education, there’s an expectation for knowledge providers to deliver content in different formats across multiple channels. Simply delivering learning materials as printed textbooks is no longer enough.

Training providers and education publishers need to distribute content in smarter and more effective ways to ensure it reaches and engages learners through their preferred channels: everything from an interactive e-learning resource to a PDF. To make this happen, there really is only one answer – content reuse. 

The difficulty with content reuse is how to sustainably repurpose, repackage, and refresh the same content across multiple channels. For that, you need the right publishing technology. 

What is content reuse?

Content reuse – also known as content repurposing or content recycling – involves taking existing content and adapting it for use in different formats, platforms, or contexts. This process allows publishers and content creators to maximize the value – and the reach – of existing content without having to create new materials from scratch. 

Reusable learning content is educational material that has been adapted for use in multiple learning contexts and formats. These resources are modular and flexible, making them valuable for a wide range of teaching and learning applications. For example, the information from a short explainer video might be turned into a short piece of text, which is then enhanced with interactive quiz questions for an e-learning resource.

For deeper insights on digital publishing in the education sector, explore our blog: Why Leading Education Publishers Are Making The Move To Digital. 

Examples of content reuse in the education market

Here are 4 examples of content reuse in training and education publishing: 

1. Textbooks to digital platforms: converting chapters from traditional textbooks into interactive digital lessons or online modules.
2. Multimedia integration: adding animations, videos, and interactive questions to enhance static content created in a Word document.
3. Modular content: breaking down course materials into smaller components so they can be reused in various contexts, such as online courses, supplementary materials, or professional development programs.
4. Supplementary materials: repurposing learning content for workbooks, study guides, and test preparation materials. 

How to reuse learning content

In the past, ‘content reuse’ was synonymous with the ‘copy and paste’ technique. Whilst that’s still an option – and maybe even a viable one in some instances – in reality, it’s a practice that’s wide open to human error, leading to inconsistencies (and unreliability) in content. Not only that, the ‘copy and paste’ approach is an unscalable, time-consuming, manual process. 

It’s much more maintainable and scalable to have one repository – PublishOne – for all your learning content. That’s because with an intuitive and friendly UI, and powerful search functionality, it’s easy to locate and repackage learning content for different audiences and purposes. Need an example? Here’s one.

VAPRO provides training and education content to the manufacturing and processing industries. This includes repackaging and rebranding various components of its course content to create bespoke materials for different clients. The PublishOne environment enables VAPRO to quickly select and repackage existing content, such as the chapters of a science textbook.  

The use of ‘content links’ (shortcuts to documents) means the publisher can repurpose existing materials and structure them into various templates for different clients and channels – without altering the original content. At the same time, because all newly repackaged content originates from the same single source of truth, it’s possible to change content once, and update it everywhere – if needed.  

The final look and feel of print publications is done in Adobe InDesign. With PublishOne’s predefined templates for different outputs, it’s simply a case of selecting the content, choosing the relevant template(s), and hitting the ‘publish’ button. In terms of the template markup, and the page structure, PublishOne has a built-in workbench tool. 

Depending on the business need, some clients prefer to create their own templates in-house. Other clients use an outsourcing company or a PublishOne partner. Either way, we can provide training to enable your organization to do templates your way. We can even produce them for you. 

Interested to discover more about the use of PublishOne in the training and education sector? Take a look at our case study: How VAPRO Manages A Portfolio Of Workplace Training Materials In PublishOne. 

The wider value of PublishOne 

Convenient and time-saving content reuse is just one advantage of using PublishOne to create, manage, and publish learning content. With authors and editors working together in one place, on the same documents, version control is no longer an issue because different document versions are not flying back and forth via email. Plus, it’s easy to spot the most recent changes.

 Information and knowledge providers across different industries also choose ‘the friendly publishing platform’ because they need seamless integration with popular writing tools such as Microsoft Word. There’s also the appeal of being able to influence the roadmap and development of the product itself through the Advisory Council. This means our users get the product they need – not the product we think they need. 

Discover how to harness the power of PublishOne for creating, managing, and publishing learning content. Explore PublishOne