Learning Curation vs. Learning Creation: Choosing the Right Approach

Last Updated on

March 7, 2022

Alicja King

‍Choosing curation or creation of content will depend on your strategy, of course, but it will also depend on the specific needs your organisation has. Indeed, creation can pretty much meet all the needs. However, is it always worth it, knowing that it requires a lot of time, energy, skills, and of course, money?

Curation vs. Creation: what differences?

First thing first, creation and curation are very different. The only similarity might be that both words start with the letter “c” but the common points stop right there.

Creation of learning implies creating a brand new learning journey from scratch. Not only do you have to design the specifications of this learning project but you also have to define the learning objectives, the script and the creation. All these steps can take a lot of time before introducing the new training to learners (which is also one additional step!)

On the other hand, curation means finding, aggregating and putting together content that already exists from different sources so they work together to form a meaningful learning experience. It’s much faster since you just have to find the right piece of content instead of creating something new.

However, when it comes to building your learning experience, you will probably want a mixture of both as they have different advantages and objectives. Let’s see when you should go for curation and when you should choose creation.

When to Curate?

Going for curation can be a much cheaper and quicker option in your learning strategy. Here are 3 reasons you should choose curation instead of creation.

When you don’t have the expertise and resources internally to build strong, interactive and learner-focused learning experiences. Creating courses requires a set of specific skills, that’s why curating content from experts can be a good option instead of doing everything yourself.
Why create something that already exists? Indeed, many companies have the same learning objectives. So when you want to teach skills or knowledge that other organisations teach as well, why bother creating it again?
Having a lot of content is great, but many learners might feel overwhelmed by the number of resources they have access to. One objective of curation is also to push only the ‘best in class’ content so learners get the best training straight away.

When to Create?

However, curation cannot meet all the needs of a learning strategy. It may be real time and money saver, but at some point you need to get your hands dirty. In other words, you need to go for creation. Here are the main 4 reasons you should choose creation.

Creating a learning course can be necessary when you train your learners about specific or technical knowledge within your organisation. Indeed, it’s more likely that there’s no existing content when it comes to an internal tool or a process internally.
When it comes to new skills, there may be no existing content. Therefore, you might want to create your own course because nobody has created it yet.
You may want a course that is personalised to your company rather than to someone else's. For branding or other personalisation reasons. Especially if it is a course for external learners like suppliers, stakeholders or clients.
Finally, creation can complete curation by filling the gaps of knowledge you couldn’t find existing courses for. That is why creation and curation shouldn’t be seen as separate approaches, but as complementary.

It’s all a matter of strategy

You got it: creation and curation can be both efficient and appropriate for your training. In the end, even though creation and curation seem more appropriate depending on your situation and your needs, it depends on your strategy. In other words, questions like:

What are the objectives and the targets of your learning project?
What are the resources you have in order to achieve your learning strategy?
What is the deadline?

...would define which option or what proportion of the two you should go for.

Want to know more about creation and curation and how it can serve your learning strategy? Then, book a call with us today to work on your learning strategy.

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