Professional development events can be surprisingly complicated to organise.

A relatively simple training day might require an organisation to advertise the event, take bookings, process payments, send joining instructions, manage cancellations, record attendance and issue certificates. Once the event is over, organisers may also need to distribute presentations, provide follow-up learning and keep a record of who attended.

In many organisations, these jobs are spread across several different systems. An events platform might handle bookings, a payment provider collects the money, spreadsheets hold attendance records, emails contain joining instructions and certificates are created and distributed separately.

Learner Journey is attempting to bring these activities together by treating an event as part of a wider learning process rather than as a standalone booking.

From booking an event to managing CPD

The distinction is particularly important for organisations delivering continuing professional development.

A concert organiser, for example, primarily needs to sell tickets and get people through the door. For a professional development provider, attendance is only one part of the process.

The organisation may need to know whether somebody completed some preparation beforehand, whether they attended the event, what they learned and whether they completed any follow-up activities. It may also need to provide evidence of completion.

This is the thinking behind the Learner Journey Events module.

An organisation can create an event, publish it online, take registrations and manage attendees. Events can be free or paid, with payments handled through Stripe. Organisers can set capacity limits, use promotional codes and collect additional information from people when they register.

The system can also accommodate events intended for different groups. An organisation could, for example, restrict an internal training session to employees using approved email domains, while making another event available to the general public.

This could be useful for a multi-academy trust that provides free professional development to its own staff while charging external schools to attend the same programme.

Payments are only part of the process

Taking payment for an event is relatively straightforward. Managing everything that happens around that payment is often more difficult.

A professional development provider might run dozens or even hundreds of events during a year. Some may be free, while others could cost £50, £200 or considerably more. There may be different prices, promotional offers or arrangements for particular groups.

Learner Journey connects the booking and payment process to the event itself. Organisers can see registrations and attendee information without having to reconcile several separate systems.

Capacity can also be managed through the platform. When an event is full, people should no longer be encouraged to buy a ticket for a place that does not exist.

These may sound like relatively small administrative details, but they become significant when an organisation is managing a large programme of events.

What happens when somebody cancels?

Events rarely run exactly as planned.

People cancel, dates change and attendees sometimes need to reschedule. An event might reach capacity more quickly than expected or an organiser may need to make changes after bookings have already been taken.

The Learner Journey Events module is designed to manage cancellations and rescheduling alongside the original booking.

The aim is to reduce the amount of manual administration that takes place through email. Instead of the event organiser becoming the person who has to connect the booking system, payment records, attendee spreadsheet and email correspondence, more of the process can be managed in one place.

For a small event, the saving might only amount to a few minutes. Across hundreds of events and thousands of attendees, it can become substantial.

Certificates become part of the learner’s record

Certificates are another example of a simple task that can become surprisingly time-consuming.

Many CPD providers still create certificates after an event and distribute them individually or through bulk email. Months later, attendees may contact the organisation because they have lost their certificate and need another copy.

Learner Journey allows organisations to associate branded certificates with events.

Once attendance and completion have been confirmed, a certificate can be issued to the participant. Where the attendee has a Learner Journey account, the certificate can form part of their continuing record of learning. Certificates can also be distributed electronically to other attendees.

The important change is that the certificate is no longer treated simply as an attachment to an email. It becomes evidence of an activity that sits alongside the event and the learner’s wider professional development.

What happens before the event matters too

There is also an opportunity to rethink what happens before somebody arrives at a training session.

Imagine a teacher attending a course on improving classroom oracy. A week before the event, they could be given access to a short video, some background reading and a simple self-assessment.

They might be asked to rate their confidence in leading structured classroom discussions before attending the course.

The trainer then starts the event with participants who have already thought about the subject. The organisation also has a baseline against which later progress could potentially be compared.

Because Learner Journey includes pages, quizzes, assessments, videos, podcasts, files and learning paths as well as events, these activities can sit alongside the booking.

The process therefore changes from simply registering and attending an event to completing a more structured learning journey.

Learning can continue after people go home

The period after an event may be even more important.

Traditional event management tends to end when the event finishes. Professional development should not necessarily work in the same way.

After attending a course, a participant could return to Learner Journey to access the presentation, watch a recording, download supporting resources or complete an assessment.

They might be asked a week later to describe one change they have made as a result of the training. A further assessment several weeks later could help the organisation understand whether participants feel more confident or have put the learning into practice.

This creates an important distinction between measuring attendance and measuring impact.

An organisation might be able to say that 400 teachers attended its training programme. That is useful information. Being able to demonstrate what those teachers learned, what they subsequently did and whether their confidence or knowledge changed is considerably more valuable.

AI could extend the life of a training event

Learner Journey also includes an AI Tutor that can work with content approved by an organisation.

This creates another possibility for professional development providers.

A trainer might deliver a two-hour session and provide presentations, guidance documents and other resources. Those materials can continue to support participants after the event has finished.

If a participant has a question several weeks later, the AI Tutor can help them find answers based on the organisation’s approved learning material.

This does not replace the trainer. Instead, it makes the trainer’s knowledge and resources easier to access after the original session has ended.

For organisations running large professional development programmes, this could help extend the useful life of the material they are already producing.

From individual events to professional communities

There is another potential benefit.

Professional events frequently bring together people who have very similar interests and problems, but the community often disappears when the event finishes.

A Teaching School Hub might bring together 50 science teachers for a subject network meeting. A professional association might bring together hundreds of members for a conference. A multi-academy trust might gather its headteachers for a leadership programme.

The people attending these events are potentially valuable to one another as well as to the organisation delivering the event.

By combining events with learning content and community features, Learner Journey can provide somewhere for that relationship to continue.

A subject network, for example, could hold face-to-face meetings throughout the year while using Learner Journey between meetings for resources, discussions and additional learning.

The event becomes one element of an ongoing professional community.

A different model for Teaching School Hubs and academy trusts

This approach could be particularly relevant to organisations such as Teaching School Hubs and multi-academy trusts.

A Teaching School Hub might run dozens of programmes, workshops, conferences and network meetings during an academic year. It needs to promote those opportunities, manage registrations, communicate with participants and record attendance.

It may also need to demonstrate the reach and impact of its professional development.

A multi-academy trust has a slightly different challenge. It may need to organise internal CPD for thousands of employees across several schools while also providing programmes that are available to external participants.

Learner Journey could allow these organisations to manage internal and external events through the same platform, while controlling who can register and whether they need to pay.

Certificates, learning materials and follow-up activities can then be connected to those events.

The bigger opportunity is reducing administration

Much of this is not particularly glamorous technology.

Automatically closing registration when an event is full will not transform professional development. Neither will generating a certificate or allowing somebody to cancel a booking.

The benefit comes from putting these small activities together.

If an administrator no longer has to maintain several spreadsheets, manually reconcile bookings, repeatedly answer cancellation emails, create certificates and send resources separately after each event, a significant amount of time can be saved.

More importantly, the organisation can spend more time thinking about the quality of its professional development rather than the administration required to deliver it.

The event is only one part of the journey

This is ultimately the idea behind Learner Journey Events.

Traditional event software tends to concentrate on getting somebody from discovering an event to attending it. For many events, that is exactly what is required.

Professional development is different.

There is an opportunity to connect what happens before an event, what happens on the day and what happens afterwards.

A participant might discover a course, register, make a payment, complete some preparation, attend the event, access follow-up resources, complete an assessment and receive a branded certificate.

They might then join another event or continue participating in a professional community.

For the organisation, all of those activities form part of the same relationship with the learner.

That is why the most interesting part of LearnerJourney’s Events module may not be the events themselves.

It is the ability to turn a single event into part of a much longer learning journey.