An eLearning programme for frontline humanitarian workers that used Degreed LXP to serve live, AI-curated articles, reports, and videos from across the internet — keeping knowledge current long after the final module was complete.
The organisation deployed frontline staff across active conflict zones, refugee displacement corridors, and communities affected by exploitation and trafficking. Their work required not just foundational knowledge — safeguarding, trauma-informed practice, child protection — but a real-time understanding of a field that never stood still.
The existing eLearning was a set of fixed modules, updated annually at best. By the time a new hire completed them, significant reports had been published, practice guidance had changed, and the crisis situations referenced in the training had moved on. The course was always, to some degree, already behind.
The organisation needed something that held structured foundational learning alongside a live, constantly updated window into the field as it actually existed.
A two-layer approach: structured core learning in Storyline, live curated content through Degreed — linked by xAPI so every external interaction fed back into a single learner record.
The Storyline modules were deliberately scoped to do less than a conventional eLearning programme would attempt. Rather than trying to cover every aspect of a complex, evolving subject domain, each module focused on the foundational frameworks a staff member could not function without — then directed learners outward into Degreed to explore further.
This was a philosophy as much as a design decision. The course stopped trying to be the complete source of knowledge. It became the starting point for engaging with a much richer world of knowledge beyond it.
At the end of each module, a curated Degreed content feed was embedded directly via web object — showing three to five live-updated resources related to that module’s topic. Learners could engage with content from within the course, with interactions tracked via xAPI. The feed updated automatically as Degreed surfaced new material, making re-visits to the course genuinely worthwhile.
The Degreed AI engine was configured with a topic taxonomy built from the six module themes — seeded with trusted source domains including UN agency publications, major humanitarian journals, established NGO research outputs, reputable international journalism, and practitioner-led communities.
Each learner received a personalised weekly digest of newly surfaced content — typically five to eight items — calibrated to their role and the topics they had engaged with most. A child protection officer working in a displacement setting received markedly different recommendations from a programme manager in a coordination role, even within the same organisation.
Crucially, the curation did not stop when the course did. Learners retained access to their Degreed feed indefinitely — meaning the learning relationship with the organisation continued as a live, growing resource rather than ending at module completion.
Most eLearning is designed to be self-contained. It tries to capture everything the learner needs inside its own walls. This programme did the opposite. Every module ended by explicitly naming what it could not cover — and directing learners outward into Degreed to find it.
This created something unusual: a course that grew the learner’s appetite for knowledge rather than satisfying it. Learners who finished the modules did not feel like they had completed something. They felt like they had started something. The 89% voluntary engagement rate with the Degreed feed was the direct result of this design choice.
Degreed’s social features — the ability to bookmark, comment on, and share content with colleagues — were not part of the original brief. They were included as default platform functionality and initially left unconfigured.
Within six weeks of launch, staff were using them spontaneously. Field officers were bookmarking reports and sharing them with their teams. A practitioner community was forming around the content feed that had not been designed or facilitated — it had emerged from giving knowledgeable people access to good content and a way to discuss it.
The L&D team formalised this by creating curated Degreed pathways for specific roles — collections of the most-shared, highest-rated content assembled by the community itself. The AI surfaced the content. The people decided what mattered.
The programme met its compliance requirements — all mandatory modules completed and tracked. But the measure that mattered most was continued engagement. In a field where knowledge becomes outdated faster than any course can be updated, keeping staff connected to a live, evolving body of knowledge was the actual learning outcome the organisation needed.
Three months after launch, the average learner had voluntarily engaged with over 340 pieces of external content through Degreed — reading, watching, bookmarking, and sharing material that had nothing to do with their mandatory requirements and everything to do with doing their job better in a world that had not stood still.
“I have done a lot of mandatory training over the years. This is the first time I've gone back to it after completing it — not because I had to, but because there was always something new worth reading.”
— Senior Field Programme Officer
Learning matters. Let’s build something that grows with your people — and never goes out of date.