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Discover a unique feature of Alison.com that provides a means for career continuity as well as an opportunity for a new path.
By the Alison.com Editorial Board
Knowledge Sharing Empowers Yourself And Others
Online courses are a universally accessible resource for jobseekers and life-long learners. Learning online is an alternate way to introduce people in need of reskilling to education and helps build the confidence of those who may not have formal learning experience. Equally, for those who have gone through the traditional education system and gained qualifications, once they find themselves back in the job market, online learning is one of the best tools out there for gaining new, in-demand skills or aiding a change in career direction.
However, taking online courses isn't the only way for jobseekers to benefit from online learning platforms. Some e-learning sites allow knowledge experts to freely publish their expertise. Alison’s Publishing Tool is free to use for all learners, opening up two possible career paths. By directing jobseekers towards not just taking online courses but making online courses, workforce agencies can send their clients down a unique career pathway that is interesting, rewarding, and lucrative.
Monetizing Your Knowledge
By using the Alison Publishing Tool to create courses based on their own experience and expertise, jobseekers are continuing to work in the sector in which they are already skilled. They can transform the knowledge they have garnered throughout their work-life into courses that will help others. For example, an accountant who can't find a job can teach online accounting courses, rather than retrain in an entirely new sector.
Self-publishing also allows jobseekers to monetize their existing knowledge and skillsets, while upskilling important technical and teaching skills—both of which are highly transferable. Creating online courses can also be a gratifying career, as publishers are partaking in the democratization of education by sharing knowledge with a global audience, many of whom are in emerging educational markets.
To become a self-publisher on Alison, learners must complete a series of courses to train them in the technical requirements and bring them up to speed on the best pedagogical practices. To learn more about what it is like to self-publish with Alison, you can read this interview with S. M. Waqas, an industrial engineer who has become one of Alison’s most successful self-publishers.
A Career As A Freelance Course Creator
Even if a jobseeker doesn't already have a body of professional knowledge and experience to draw on, a career in course publishing is still a possibility. Freelance Course Creators build courses on behalf of subject matter experts that are interested in sharing their expertise.
The opportunity to work from home (or from anywhere in the world) along with the freedom and flexibility to determine your own working hours has become an attractive perk for Course Creators. It's a freelance position that offers plenty of fantastic opportunities for advancement and promotion. Alison’s Course Creator program has seen many freelancers go onto full-time management roles within the Publishing Department. Read the success stories of Simon Furnivall and Abasido Umoh who have taken this career path on the Alison Blog.
Becoming a freelance Course Creator on Alison also offers the opportunity to work directly with subject-matter experts and provides access to some of the sharpest minds across a variety of fields. It is a position that facilitates continuous development through exposure to a wide range of subjects and offers constant opportunities to learn.
All Course Creators are guided through the Course Creator Training Program by Alison’s supervisors, who work with them to publish their first course. After undergoing the necessary training, Course Creators work closely with publishers and the Alison team to ensure courses are of the highest quality. Alison also hosts regular webinars presented by in-house experts. These sessions ensure that all self-publishers and Course Creators have access to the most cutting-edge theory and methodology behind producing top-quality courses, allowing them to maximize their earning potential.
Self-Publishing For Workforce Agencies
Alison's Publishing Tool also offers workforce agencies the opportunity to create personalized training courses that cater to their client’s specific needs. Agencies know their clients better than anyone, but sometimes it can be difficult to point them in the right direction for training if the resources simply aren't there. By utilizing the Publishing Tool, agencies can create the perfect upskilling material, specifically designed with the needs of their clients in mind.
The Publishing Tool produces courses that adhere to Alison's tried and tested learning format, designed by our pedagogical experts. These are easy to follow and encourage quality learning and engagement. With Alison.com, workforce agencies will never be stuck for training resources again. If the training resource isn’t available, they will help create it!
About Alison
Alison believes that free education, more than anything has the power to break through boundaries and transform lives. Alison is one of the world’s largest free learning platforms for education and skills training – and is dedicated to making it possible for anyone, to study anything, anywhere, at any time, for free online, at any subject level. Today, Alison offers over 3,000 free online courses across a broad range of topics, produced by various publishers, ranging from major educational institutions to individual subject matter experts sharing expertise gained from decades of industry experience. Today, with more than 20 million learners in 195 countries, Alison is changing how the world learns and up-skills.