Last week I wrote about content management and content access for on-demand learning, as described by Mark Vickers of Bersin and Associates. As a subset of this, I’d like to raise the role of content curator in workplace learning.

Who is a content curator?

A good content curator is someone who:

1. Is keeny interested in a niche topic and is willing to share with others the information they gather
2. Has formidable skills in information search, retrieval, synthesis and management

Content curation is often a role taken up voluntarily by an individual for altruistic or other reasons. The curator scours the web, including social media, for breaking news, discoveries and opinions. They gather the information and make it accessible, helping time poor people stay on top of what’s going on in their field of interest or expertise. It’s important the curator remains consistent in the quality and specificity of the content they gather and disseminate.

What tools are needed?

Generally speaking, the content curator requires access to the internet and all social media platforms, including Twitter. They also require a platform to aggregate and distribute the content they gather and even critique. Click here for a comparison table of curation platforms.

In most instances, content curator platforms utilise RSS feeds to aggregate information from reputable sources. Examples of the popular Scoop.it platform include E-Learning and Online Teaching and Instructional Design for eLearning, mLearning and Games. My favourite e-learning curator is Tony Karrer of E-Learning Learning. Tony gathers the posts of tens of e-learning blogs into one easy to search platform that people can subscribe to.

Curators who critique information provide an additional service to simply gathering RSS feeds of reputable websites. Such curators do well with a blog platform to journal their reflections and opinions.

What’s content curation got to do with workplace learning?

Well, have a look at the examples above and you will soon see the relevance. What an advantage it would be to have a curator gathering quality information about specific topics into one platform for staff to access and build their knowledge. How wonderful it would be for an expert to have the opportunity to critique current news for it’s relevance to your organisation.

All your organisation needs to provide a budding curator is a suitable platform,  unrestricted internet access and a culture of reward for sharing and learning.

Further reading:

How to be a formidable content curator

Content curators are the new superheros of the web

Why a content curator is not an editor