Custom eLearning is online training built from scratch for one organisation, around its people, its content and the change it is trying to make. It sits at the opposite end of the scale from an off-the-shelf course you buy ready-made. Here is what that means in practice, and how to tell which one your team needs.
A simple definition
Custom eLearning is a digital course designed specifically for your organisation. Rather than buying a generic module on, say, workplace safety, you work with a designer to build training that uses your policies, your systems, your scenarios and your brand. The result feels like it was made for your people, because it was.
It is usually built in authoring tools like Articulate Rise and Storyline, Adobe or Chameleon, packaged to SCORM or xAPI standards, and loaded into your learning management system so you can track who has completed it.
Custom eLearning vs off-the-shelf
Off-the-shelf courses are pre-built libraries you license, often per user per year. They are cheap, quick to roll out, and fine for generic, low-stakes topics where any reasonable coverage will do. The trade-off is that they are written for everyone, which means they speak to no one in particular. They cannot reference your processes, and learners can usually tell.
Custom eLearning costs more and takes longer, but it fits. It can carry your real scenarios, match your brand, and target the specific behaviour you want to change. If you want a fuller comparison, see our guide on build vs buy.
What goes into a custom course
A good custom course is more than slides. Depending on the project, it can include:
- Interactive screens where people click, drag, decide and explore
- Real-world scenarios and branching decisions drawn from your workplace
- Knowledge checks and assessments that test understanding rather than recall
- Video, animation, illustration and professional narration
- Accessibility built in to WCAG 2.1 AA
- A build that works on any device and slots into your LMS
When custom is worth it
Custom eLearning earns its place when the stakes or the specifics are high. That includes onboarding and induction, compliance tied to your own policies, product and systems training, leadership and capability programs, and anything where you need people to genuinely change how they work. In those cases a generic course will not move the needle, and the investment in something tailored pays off.
When off-the-shelf is fine
If you need broad awareness on a generic topic, on a tight budget and timeline, an off-the-shelf course can be the sensible call. There is no point building custom training for something a library already covers well. A good provider will tell you when that is the case rather than sell you a project you do not need.
How to get started
Start from the problem, not the format. Be clear about what people need to do differently, and let a designer recommend the right approach. For most teams the first step is a short scoping conversation to work out whether custom is the right fit and roughly what it would involve. That is what our free Health Check is for.
GloBug Learning builds custom eLearning for organisations across Australia. If you are weighing up your options, a free Health Check is a good place to start.