To enter the Learning Excellence Awards you need to prepare your submission paper, complete the online entry form and upload your paper. Submitting your entry will then lead you to a payment page where you can elect to pay for each entry or receive an invoice for all your entries.
Entries must be submitted online. Your written entry must be no more than 1,500 words in English (12 point type, single line spacing) saved in PDF format (10MB maximum file size, including any embedded thumbnails or images), uploaded from your desktop to the Awards’ website, when asked by the Entry Form. All entries should be uploaded following the template sections listed below. The Judges will automatically mark lower any entries exceeding the word count. At the same time, the judges will appreciate the conciseness of an entry. There is no need to use the full word count. Please adhere to these basic rules of entry, together with any other specific criteria described below.
Photographs and video material may be made available for the judges to view, include a link to these in your submission paper or upload them to YouTube or Vimeo or a micro site of your own.
Do not upload a photo file larger than 5MB with your entry form as it will be rejected. Thumbnail images of illustrative material can be embedded in your written submission, if they help the judges understand your entry, but the judges will want to see larger reference images – one of which must be uploaded with your entry form.
The closing date for entries has been extended to November 8 2024 and you will need to pay the entry fees due before your entry/entries will be processed for judging. If you prefer to pay against invoice and need to provide a purchase order number please let us know in advance of placing your first entry.
Eligibility
A company may enter the Awards if the entry submission covers the eighteen month period from April 1 2023 to September 30 2024. Entrants and Finalists from previous years are not allowed to enter the same project unless there has been a major change or there are dramatic improvements to outcomes. For the Start-up category, the company must have been established on or after November 1 2022 and must be able to provide proof of at least one full year’s trading
Template guide
Your completed entry form and your written entry are the basis on which each entry will be voted for by the judges and shortlisted. Your written document should show how your programme, course, initiative, product or service met its aims, employed creative, innovative techniques, was enjoyed by users, and delivered enrolment or uptake, satisfaction and a return on investment, thus giving the judges a view as to effectiveness. At the beginning of your document the following information must be listed:
- Category entered
- Title of project
- Relevant URL for the programme, course or initiative
- Client company or brand
- Name of company making the entry
- Type of company about which the entry is written (e.g. manufacturer, retailer, etc)
- Relevant URL for access to supporting visual material or other data. (Links to Vimeo/YouTube, etc)
Within your submission it is preferred if you use the following as sub-headings under which you clearly provide your explanation for the judges. We have indicated the points that can be awarded to give you an idea as to the weight of importance the judges ascribe to each caption.
- Aims for programme, course, initiative, product or service, including why any goals were set (up to 10 marks)
- Strategy employed and implementation (up to 15 marks)
- Creativity/innovation/technology (up to 20 marks)
- Content (up to 20 marks)
- Feedback and experience summary from clients and/or users (up to 15 marks)
- Outcomes (including formal evaluation of results, ROI, etc, or in the case of a mobile app, the take up by the public or target audience, etc) all to provide a measure of effectiveness (up to 20 marks)
Support material
If you wish to provide additional support material (for instance if there has been marketing collateral or video work associated with your campaign) please provide a link to YouTube or Vimeo, where the judges can view your material.
The judges will want to feel fully informed about your activity, so please include whatever you feel is appropriate and relevant for your entry. If an entry is entered into more than one category, please indicate this clearly, but remember you need to remind the judges of the micro site URL or any links to the support material, each time you enter.
It is worth stressing that good training/learning is high in visual content. It has to be. It is, therefore, tremendously important that you include as many visuals as you can to illustrate content and its impact. The judges don’t want massive photos, but they’d rather have that than small postcard-sized or thumbnail images that are too small to be useful. Bottom line: making it easy for our judging panel to see and understand what you did will only help. Relying on tiny thumbnail images in your written summary is helpful, but not the best idea. Always provide the full size images, too.
Disqualifications
The Learning Excellence Awards are business awards. The organizers intend that the competition is open to the whole training/learning sector, but any entry that breaks national or international laws or offends public, religious, national or gender-specific sensitivities, or that flouts advertising, promotion or Internet rules (such as spamming) will be disqualified. If an entry is disqualified for any reason the entry fees will not be refunded.