Increase in town planners online learning

A design makeover and enhanced content including a popular legal ‘blog’ has boosted visits to record levels at the Royal Town Planners’ Institute (RTPI) performance and learning support web site at www.planningmatters.co.uk

Visits to the site have doubled over the last six months (Dec 2005 - May 2006) with March seeing over 2,000 RTPI members make over 50,000 visits to the site compared to 32,000 for the same month in 2005.

Latest user statistics from site developer and manager Echelon Publishing revealed not only the highest hit rate yet to the site but consistent peak usage between 0500 and 0700 hrs and at lunchtime – notably on Mondays and Thursdays – and with little drop off over weekends.

The RTPI’s learning support site is also attracting users from a broad range of countries with over 70 different national domains recorded in user statistics, the majority from the UK, USA, Australia, Canada and Italy.

Statistics also show that the site is used by senior planners and new entrants alike with an Institute run mentoring and licentiate programme for nearly 200 young planners being mentored by over 150 established planners supported by the Planningmatters resource.

The site consists of bespoke planning modules, a library of generic management skills material, a portfolio of useful web-links and related articles and journals.

Updated every two weeks, the popular legal commentary ‘blog’ focuses on planning legislation and its interpretation by the Courts and local authorities.

The site also features interactive self-assessments and a personal electronic learning log enabling planners to monitor and record their continued professional development (CPD).

The RTPI see the site as a means of ensuring standards of professionalism are maintained and knowledge levels increased while users have 24/7 access to consistent and accurate pictures of the constantly changing planning landscape.

"This web site measures our commitment to maintaining the professional standards of members and helping them to do their job quickly and more effectively," says RTPI Secretary General Robert Upton. "Its relevance and reach are reflected in these latest user statistics which bear out its ever-increasing popularity."

Ends

Released July 2006 on behalf of Echelon Publishing by BLP&PR

Media contact: Peter Muir Tel + 44 (0)1296 715228
Email: echelon@pmpr.co.uk

Sales contact: David Hill Tel + 44 (0)20 8568 1500
Email: david@echelonl.com

About Echelon Learning

Echelon Learning is a consultancy-led publishing house that integrates electronically-delivered knowledge and learning into the development of management skills and business performance.

Echelon Consulting spearheads the company’s service with the development of new content in meeting clients’ requirements. This is usually derived from analysing employee knowledge and learning needs captured during client learning programmes.

Where appropriate, Echelon Publishing then offers this new content to a wider audience by publishing the material in generic format. This is made available in the form of easy to use ‘learning nuggets’ and is complimented with business development information licensed exclusively from one of the market’s best-known providers, Bloomsbury.

Echelon e-Learning provides the electronic systems which enable content to be published, distributed and usage tracked, and offers work-based solutions to a global audience. Now Echelon’s blended learning based on a bespoke site populated with material selected to support specific courses, builds knowledge prior to the event and refreshes application when back at the desk.

About Echelon Publishing
Echelon technologies help organisations place solutions at people’s fingertips, whether solving everyday business and work-related problems or helping gain qualifications and continued professional development.
Echelon:
• Has a content management system enabling informational or learning material to be developed or converted into XML so that it can be published and distributed in text and/or via the web.
• Has a learning management system to provide ready access via the web to highly structured information, which is easily searched and retrieved, and whose usage can be tracked and learning logged.
• Publishes and/or reformats content for professional bodies and commercial organisations to help students and employees maintain or develop requisite skills throughout their careers.
• Supports people from the outset of their careers in working with professional bodies to develop and deliver the learning content required by students in preparing for examination.
• Frees up the knowledge and learning contained within a business so that people have ready access to these resources in helping them to solve problems or develop their careers.