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Introduction: The Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector is a significant component of the country s economic backbone.

Tremendous amount of resources have been invested by both the government and the private sectors in the past decades to give SMEs critical financial, management training, counseling services as well a s policy and legislative support. However, in the area of SME counseling, the bulk of efforts may be attributed to the government organizational infrastructure, notably the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Local Government Units (LGUs), and the Department of Agriculture (DA), which focuses on agri/aquatic-based livelihood programs. On the other hand, the private sector has not been as active in SME counseling as it can, largely because SMEs are either unwilling or unable to pay for the services, making business counseling an unviable activity for the busine ss sector. It is no surprise therefore that it is government organizations (GOs), rather than private firms, that have taken it upon themselves to counsel SMEs. However, the quality of manpower associated with these GOs appears to be lagging behind compared with those found in private companies. Financial constraints slow down manpower training and development. Most counseling personnel are deployed in farflung locations. Moreover, many are less than willing to share in the cost of their own training. All these have created a bia s towards reasonably-priced training programs delivered by distance mode. Role and responsibility of SME It takes a large team of people to efficiently produce online instruction. These include Instructional Designer, Graphic Artist, DHTML Developer, and Project Ma nager, however one of the most important team members, the Subject Matter Expert , or SME (pronounced "smee"), often has the least information about their role a nd responsibilities. The SME is an expert on a particular topic covered in the instruction; their mai n responsibility is to ensure content accuracy. SME's are also often involved in gathering and filtering content, designing the course and curriculum outlines, providing real-life context for instruction and assessments, evaluating the inst ruction for completeness, and occasionally in providing information about the co urse's intended audience. The SME is critical to the successful development of WBT. More projects fail to meet their schedule, budget, and content quality goals because of SME problems t han any other single cause. On the surface this doesn't make sense. SME's are us ually bright, hardworking, people and often have a vested interest in the succes s of online training that they have contributed to. So why do they cause so many WBT projects to fail? Usually it is because of a lack of knowledge about their role, their responsibilities, and the time commitment needed. Because each online training course will typically need SME's with expertise in the topics specific to that course, they usually aren't core members of the WBT team. Instead they typically have another full-time job within the client's orga nization. The SME is an expert in their domain, but is usually a complete novice at designing and developing WBT. Experienced WBT team members have already lear ned their roles and often forget that a new, temporary team member needs to be e ducated in this regard. If not corrected this can lead to many problems. Some of the most common problems are: The SME thinking that they will just need to spend a few hours reviewing the cou rse when it's done, and not having the time for typical SME activities such as g athering and filtering content, meeting with ID for interview, recommending addi tional SME's, helping develop the curriculum and course outline, reviewing lesso

n outlines, providing information for the ID writing storyboards, reviewing less on storyboards, and reviewing final courseware. The SME becoming involved in aspects of the WBT that are another person's respon sibility. Classic examples of this are: The SME wanting to change the UI, design interactions, choose colors, choose fon ts, or design navigation, often at the very end of the project after all these h ave been approved and programmed. A SME that was brought in to discuss one specific topic or lesson re-designing o r re-writing the entire course. Multiple SME reviews coming in to the ID at various times, sometimes after the r eview period is over, and often in total contradiction to each other. The SME changing scope in the middle of the project. This can happen in several ways: Deciding after approving the outline that they forgot to include several topics that are absolutely necessary although they aren't included in the budget or sch edule Reviewing and re-reviewing finished lessons, adding just a little here and there until every lesson in the course is twice the size estimated. The budget will i ncrease by more than twofold because the last few changes were made after progra mming was complete. Deciding after the programming is complete that the previously approved interact ions are not quite good enough and suggesting new ways of presenting the materia l. Having "junior" SME's review and approve the early phases of the course because the "senior" SME is too busy and important to review the course until it is fini shed. Once the senior SME becomes involved the entire course must be re-written and re-programmed. Solutions include: Clearly define what is and what is not the SME's area of responsibility in advan ce, including a description of areas that are not their responsibility. Areas of responsibility include content accuracy and completeness. Areas that are not th e SME's responsibility are UI design, writing style, graphic choices (except whe n they represent information inaccurately), and functionality of the courseware. If the overall course structure is already finalized and a SME is assigned to a specific topic within that course, be sure to identify that topic and let the SM E know not to waste time reviewing and redesigning the rest of the course. Clearly define the time commitment for the SME early on. Because SME's usually h ave another full time job it is important that they understand how much time is required and agree to participate. An unavailable SME can bring your project to a screeching halt, or worse, cause it to drag on endlessly wreaking havoc on sch edule and budget. Often you will have multiple SME's on a project. It is important to coordinate t heir input especially during reviews. Assign one "Super-SME" who is in charge of collecting and collating all of the other SME's reviews, resolving any conflict ing opinions, and passing the information on to the ID. Scope creep is the most common cause of WBT projects' failure to meet schedule a nd budget. To avoid this it is important that the SME fully identify all topics at an early stage. The ID and PM must work with the SME to ensure that the origi nal outline is as complete as possible and includes scope estimates. SME's will have an encyclopedic knowledge of their subject and are usually capable of creat ing a course many times the size originally scoped. It takes constant monitoring by the ID and PM to help the SME choose what content is essential, avoid extran eous details, and stay within scope. Many SME's are more familiar with stand-up instruction than WBT. Emphasize that the SME review for content accuracy must occur at the storyboard phase. It will kill your budget if the SME doesn't notice content problems until after programm ing is complete. In a similar vein, any SME who has final approval must be invol ved at the beginning, not just at the end. Because of this they may not understa

nd the consequences of making changes late in the project. It is imperative that you set an approval schedule and explain the impact of missing review deadlines and especially of making changes after a storyboard has been approved. Importance of SMEs: Developing a group of diverse and competitive small and medium enterprises (SMEs ) is a central theme towards achieving sustainable economic growth. SMEs are cru cial to the economic growth process and play an important role in the country's overall production network. Some advanced economies have succeeded because SMEs form a fundamental part of t he economy, comprising over 98% of total establishments and contributing to over 65% of employment as well as over 50% of the gross domestic product. Although the numbers might be lower in Malaysia, SMEs have the potential to cont ribute substantially to the economy and can provide a strong foundation for the growth of new industries as well as strengthening existing ones, for Malaysia's future development.

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