After starting out in the U.S. Air Force, Holly Doyle decided to take a new path in her career. Work as a para-educator while earning her teaching degree, she started her education career as a 7-8 grade math teacher. After eight years in the classroom, Holly became an academic advisor for Minnesota online before moving into administrative roles leading e-learning initiatives for the eCampus using Brightspace. This unique experience gave her a deep understanding of helping students reach their goals through online learning.
As a D2L Brightspace super-user since 2008, Holly now channels her passion for education and technology as the e-learning program administrator at Sourcewell, where she is dedicated to making professional development more accessible for public agencies.
A D2L Champion, Holly loves giving back to the community and helping people realize the benefits of technology. She sat down with us to give an inside scoop on Sourcewell’s e-learning initiatives.
With close to two decades of experience as an educator in school settings, can you share your experience now with professional development for public entities?
Everyone should have the freedom to learn and feel like they are part of the conversation. And for resource-strapped organizations or working professionals, barriers to access can look different than they do to students in schools. When professional development is difficult to participate in or attend, people may see it as a sign and think, “Well, this isn’t for me, or I’m not supposed to be doing this.”
With e-learning, we’re helping people who otherwise wouldn’t have the chance to grow in their roles or get the training they need to better serve their communities. We want to make sure they have the tools and opportunities to succeed, just like what we strive to do for students in classrooms.
Public agencies define success by delivering to their taxpayer and meeting the needs of their community. They do this under great scrutiny often with limited resources. With online learning, we can track progress, monitor outcomes, and ensure compliance. This kind of accountability is especially important in the public sector, where transparency, accessibility and effectiveness are critical.
What motivated Sourcewell’s decision to move to online training?
As one of Minnesota’s nine regional service cooperatives, we’ve always been driven by our mission to empower community success in our five-county region. That passion extends to everything we do—from offering technology solutions to schools and training educators to providing funding opportunities to support public entities in achieving their goals and helping them serve their constituents.
Our shift to online training was about increasing our regional impact, growing our service and support for public agencies to build capacity and capability to meet the evolving needs of their communities.
Whether it’s to addresses critical needs for childcare and adult foster care in Minnesota or supporting new government employees, providing accessible training opportunities through online delivery help us address government-specific challenges.
What are the challenges when transitioning to online learning?
There’s often a fear of technology, especially in organizations that rely on traditional face-to-face training. I’ve heard concerns like, “Will this replace my job?” or “Will this diminish personal relationships with our learners?” It’s important to help people see that online learning is about supporting and enhancing their work, not replacing it. Our teams have built strong relationships with the people we serve, and the key was ensuring the shift to online would not only maintain but enhance those connections.
We also need to uphold Sourcewell’s high standards by ensuring our online courses match the quality of all our services. This means being intentional about how we design and deliver content. Creating effective online courses requires a different approach—you can’t simply upload a PowerPoint and expect it to engage learners.
Having a diverse audience—from K-12 educators to various government bodies—also requires us to be flexible in our approach. Each group has a different level of experience with technology, so our courses need to be adaptable, consistent, and easy to update when new legislation or guidelines are introduced.
How are you using technology to meet these goals?
We’ve been leaning on the Brightspace platform to help us meet these gaols. It is an LMS that really understands learning. D2L knows their strengths, and they bring in partners to help where it matters. With a lean team of course administrators and creators, we have been able to take advantage of that. For example, Bongo handles our video needs, and D2L Course Merchant manages the e-commerce side.
But when it comes down to building online courses, ease of use is crucial. Creator+ is one of my favorite tools that my colleagues and I use. Along with the HTML editor, it gives us the flexibility to customize everything—from the layout and color schemes to ensuring consistency across our courses.
And the time we save is huge. When I can get the content into Brightspace, the course-building process becomes much faster, looks fantastic, and is validated with the accessibility checker.
How has Sourcewell’s e-learning initiatives supported public agencies and community success?
We’ve built 16 courses, including our first community licensing programs for childcare and adult foster care, reducing the time prospects take to complete the application process to become a licensed provider from 4 to 6 months to 1 to 3 months. The new self-paced online orientation streamlines the process, enabling applicant packets to be submitted as quickly as 12 hours after the initial inquiry.
We’ve also seen a 300% increase in certifications issued and a 96% rise in course registrations. Teachers now benefit from more accessible professional development options, increasing completed continuing education hours to 1,030 from 321 last year.
We are also getting great feedback, not only from public agencies but also those who have gone through the courses. Our folks from childcare love the consistency, knowing learners are getting the same information in a way that’s easy to revisit when they need it. Even with something as dry as childcare orientation, where we’re teaching rules, statutes and regulations, learners have said, “Wow, that was great—I actually enjoyed it!” or “I wasn’t bored, I actually remembered this.” And that’s what we want—people not just completing the training, but really taking something away from it. Creator+ is a big help with that.
What tips would you give to others who are considering a transition to online training?
Brightspace is our second LMS, and we rolled it out fast. Looking back, I would say don’t forgo some of the setup pieces that you wanted. You will be so much happier setting things you will need in the front end and not having to go back to fix something or update it. For example, we don’t have the Course Merchant e-commerce piece fully set up, but we opted to have the registration part set up. If you can get it set up on the front end of the project, then do it.
Also, start with your champions. Find those individuals who are eager to embrace online learning and let them be the voice that drives adoption. Change is never easy, and it’s natural for people to be hesitant. By starting with those who are ready, you can build momentum and show the rest of the organization the benefits firsthand. This has worked well for us to generate and meet demands sustainably.
What future trends do you foresee shaping e-learning?
We’re seeing a growing demand for the capability to self-serve, with people expecting immediate access to information and feedback, and they want it to be engaging. While AI has fueled expectations for speed, the real challenge is on our end—ensuring that the content remains engaging and accountable.
In government, we are accountable; we have to be. Not only do people want recognition for their professional development efforts but the organizations we work with also need to ensure that mandatory training is properly documented in their HR systems for compliance. This adds an extra layer of responsibility when developing and delivering e-learning programs.
As the demand for online training continues to grow, we are strategically planning our continuous improvement efforts for our training and development program. This will help us manage the increased volume of requests we’re receiving, driven by the success of our existing programs, and allow us to continue offering diverse and equitable access to immediately relevant content to empower our vendors, clients and community members with the skills they need to succeed.
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