Upside Learning a winner in the Apex Annual Awards for Publication Excellence Competition for the third year in a row, with Two Apex 2009 Awards of Excellence

June 2009 – Upside Learning emerged with winning entries in the Apex Annual Awards for Publication Excellence Competition for the third year running. This year, we won two Apex 2009 Awards of Excellence. These awards were for a white paper on adopting digital game-based learning, and a custom eLearning solution for potential Branch Managers of a major chain of builders merchants.

The white paper, “Do You Need Games In Your Elearning Mix?”, was entered in the Special Purpose Brochures, Manuals, and Reports sub-category of the Brochures, Manuals, and Reports category.

Recognizing that today’s workplace generation of gamers has different expectations, the white paper recommends the use of games to interest this learning audience. The author advocates casual games as a good first step for organization setting out to include games in their eLearning mix. He then goes on to describe several types of casual games and explains what kinds of learning they can help achieve. You can download a copy of the complete white paper from here.

The “Branch Manager Commercial Skills” eLearning solution was entered in the Web and Electronic Publications sub-category of the Electronic and Video Publications category.

Targeted at potential Branch Managers of a major builders merchants chain, it is presented within the context of a typical branch manager’s day, with a clear focus on practice and application of the skills and knowledge that a branch manager must possess. The program is game-like in approach. The learner, in the shoes of a branch manager, is set a challenge to earn a target amount of money for the branch by the end of the ‘day’. This can be achieved through good performance on quizzes for ‘activities’ undertaken by branch managers as a part of a normal working day.

The Apex Awards are sponsored by the editors of Writing That Works, a newsletter published by Communications Concepts, Inc.
(www.apexawards.com). These awards are presented annually to recognize excellence in graphic design, editorial content, and the ability to achieve overall communications excellence. This year, there were 11 major categories and 122 sub-categories. The Awards of Excellence recognize exceptional entries within these sub-categories.

This year’s competition had around 3785 entries in total. There were 378 entries in the Brochures, Manuals, and Reports category, out of which 21 won Awards of Excellence in the Special Purpose Brochures, Manuals, and Reports sub-category. The Video and Electronic Publications category had 193 entries, out of which 6 won Awards of Excellence in the Web and Electronic Publications sub-category.