|
in a confused market |
| Recent
articles in the industry press have suggested that current buyers of e-learning
are both cautious and confused.
This has come about as a consequence of a series of events in the marketplace: the dot com crash, continuing falling share prices and a stream of vendor mergers and acquisitions in addition to reduced training budgets and stories of unsuccessful LMS implementations and high course drop out rates1. n this article Jane Knight of the e-Learning Centre tries to make sense of the current state of e-learning and offers some advice for buyers of the future. In the beginning ... The e-learning industry, like any industry, is developing and maturing.In order to understand the current situation we need to take a look back over the last few years and identify some of the reasons for this confusion and caution. The advent of e-learning was hailed as a marvellous opportunity for employees to access learning in ways that were previously not possible. However, in many organisations the concept of e-learning was quickly seized upon by management as primarily a cheaper way of training staff. No longer would they need to send them away on expensive courses and have them stay in expensive hotels; it could be done very cheaply and easily with the employees sitting at their desk – and doing their job at the same time! Training managers with grand targets to achieve, of say having 50% of their training online within 3 months, simply bought in large quantities of online courses to replace their classroom-based courses. The result? Well, at worst, the employees didn’t know the online courses were available, so didn’t access them.At best, where employees did locate them, they found themselves sitting at their desktops for hours on end, clicking the “next” button as they worked through the online courses with no respite - not even the thought of a drink at the hotel bar at the end of the day! They soon got bored and tired of studying in this way and “dropped out”, resulting in poor completion rates. Even attempts to make the courses more compelling through the use of multimedia had little effect on keeping learners glued to their course materials to the bitter end. The reason for this poor performance was that it was assumed that learners could study in the same way at their computers as they could in the classroom. In other words, that the traditional classroom course could be replicated online by simply converting the content into a web-based format. But what worked in the classroom, doesn’t work on the desktop. What was wrong, was not the materials per se, but the whole course paradigm. In a fast moving world, employees don’t have time to study vast amounts of comprehensive course materials just in case they might need them in the future, they need access to just in time information for them to carry out an activity or task in hand. Formal and informal learning Even
today, most people equate e-learning with e-training or e-courses, and
most training in organisations still takes place on a very formal basis
using the traditional training object – the course.However,
it is now well recognised that something like 70% of learning takes place
informally in organisations2. That is,
not in the classroom nor working through an online course, but in
everyday working life as employees carry out their jobs, finding
out information, reading documents, talking to other colleagues etc.It
is these kinds of informal learning activities that need to be supported
and encouraged online. It
has taken a long time for the message to get through from inspirational
companies like Cisco Systems3who
understood very early on that e-learning is more than just e-training,
and that it is also about “information, communication, collaboration and
knowledge sharing”. Buying e-learning is more than buying courses Buying
“e-learning” today no longer just means buying courses (whether they be
off-the-shelf or custom-built) but buying appropriate learning solutions
that match both the learning problem and the learners themselves as well
as fit within the corporate culture. Planners,
managers and designers of e-learning initiatives need to be aware of the
whole range of e-learning technologies and techniques that might be used
to create an appropriate solution.This
might well be a formal online course, but could just as easily be an e-
presentation, an online demonstration or simulation, a live e-learning
event, a collaborative learning experience, a learning game, or simply
a job aid or other performance support tool. e-Learning
purchasers of the future will therefore need to understand more about how
to build these different types of solutions – either in house using the
new tools (or systems) that are becoming available, or in partnership
with external vendors who provide e-learning services. e-learning is firmly linked with business It
will no longer be a matter of purchasing solutions and systems for a series
of ad hoc training purposes. e-Learning needs to be firmly linked with
business so that it becomes a process of continuous updating and development
of the employee. e-Learning
is not just another delivery mechanism, as Marc Rosenberg points out4;
it requires a fundamental shift in the mindset of the traditional purchasers
of learning content and systems. It
also has to be said that many training departments are still overly concerned
with the numbers of people being trained, and whether they’ve completed
the courses or passed the tests.(Hence
the frenzy of purchasing learning management systems only a year ago.)But
at the end of the day it’s not about how much employees have learnt, it’s
about how they’ve applied their learning, and how their performance has
improved. e-Learning, just like
learning itself, is a means to an end, not the end itself. Or, as Jay Cross,
from the Internet Time Group puts it: "All
of my fellow eLearning gurus will tell you that learning is the important
part of eLearning, not the "e". I say, "Balderdash!" (not an exact
quote.) What's really important is doing.
If an organisation's people perform proficiently, it matters not whether
they learned how in a course, on a prior job, or by meditating in a cave." Unfortunately
for a number of larger organisations, there has been a downside to this
enthusiasm in the business units for e-learning.Vendors
have recognised this thirst for solutions or tools to create just-in-time
content, and have gone straight to them to sell their wares, bypassing
the traditional purchasers - the training department.The
consequence has been that the organisation has either been sold the same
product many times over or else, has ended up with a number of competing
solutions, e.g. four different types of virtual classroom tools or five
different learning management systems. Coordination
and control
What
is needed in such organisations is central control over the selection and
implementation of vendors. The issue then becomes: which is the best virtual
classroom tool or learning management system for the whole of the organisation?Since
most e-learning purchases need to be justified as they can be very large
and budgets are currently much lower than a few years ago, there has got
to be much more due diligence in selecting a vendor.Particularly
as the question on the lips of every purchaser, is whether the vendor of
choice will still be in business tomorrow. Every
week there is a story of a merger or acquisition of an e-learning company
in the news.Only recently Peoplesoft
acquired Teamscape6and
the two big content giants, Skillsoft and Smartforce merged7,
and there have been a number of high profile failures along the way.So
together with a heightened level of confusion about what is available in
the e-learning marketplace, purchasers are also ultra cautious in making
any decisions.And yet they must,
if e-learning is to survive within their organisation and reach its potential. So
how can purchasers help themselves and become more prepared for the task
of making future e-learning purchases?The
second part of this article looks at the two main ways: Education and the
Vendor Section Process. Education
First
of all, as we have suggested earlier, an organisation’s e-learning team
needs to have a far wider skill set than they currently hold.Some
of the things they need to understand are: ·how
to build the e-learning strategy – so that it fits with the business strategy ·how
to design appropriate e-learning solutions – so that the best technology
and techniques are employed for the different learning needs and learners
in the organisation ·how
to promote and market e-learning internally – so that employees can find
what they want when they need it ·how
to evaluate and validate e-learning – so that managers can measure the
success of e-learning in terms of its impact on the organisation How
does the e-learning team acquire such skills?Well,
there are both formal and informal ways of learning about e-learning.Which
is the most appropriate for the team will depend on the factors previously
cited: the extent of the learning problem, the types of learners involved
and their particular styles of learning as well as the corporate culture.But
here are just two options: The
e-Learning Centre is the place to find out everything you need to
know about e-learning in an informal way.It
specialises in providing quick access to relevant information about e-learning,
and understands that the majority of its users have ad hoc queries about
e-learning and are not looking to work through the material in any formal
way.e-Learning Centre users (which
number well over 500 every day) dip in and out on a regular basis, finding
resources as and when they need them. For
a more formal approach to helping e-learning teams acquire the skills they
need, FM Systems,
an e-learning consultancy company uses its unique E-Learning
Toolkit.Recognising that every
organisation is unique, this generic tool set is customised for each organisation.FM
Systems works alongside the core team to help them understand all the issues
involved in implementing e-learning within the organisation. These are
then documented in the online Toolkit so that they can be disseminated
via the company intranet to the wider team members. But
whatever, the approach that is taken to equipping the team with the necessary
skills, this is only the first step in approaching the task of purchasing
e-learning products and services.It
will have provided the team with an understanding of the techniques;
now it is time to buy the technology. Vendor selection process Most
receive a large number of brochures, demo CDs, free trial subscriptions
and invitations to vendor seminars every week.Although
these are excellent ways of finding out about the variety and nature of
solutions and systems on the marketplace, they are unlikely to provide
enough information to make an appropriate purchasing decision.So
where else can purchases find out about the marketplace? Well,
the vendors themselves can’t be expected to give independent advice about
the best products, solutions or suppliers.After
all they are there to sell their own products not someone else’s!Ideally,
what is recommended, is to seek vendor-neutral independent advice to help
define what is to be purchased, identify who has the products and services
that meet requirements and provide guidance on how to buy it.Consultancy
companies, like FM Systems and the e-Learning Centre can
help with the purchasing of single applications through to running e-learning
preferred supplier programs for global organisations. Those
who prefer not to use the services of a vendor-neutral consultant, will
first need to research the e-learning
marketplace thoroughly.This will
involve finding out about all the different suppliers of the required e-learning
product or service.In the past this
would have been a daunting task, but a new publication, the European
eLearning Directory 2003, which has recently been produced by the e-Learning
Centre and FM Systems, will make life a lot easier. The
Directory is the first comprehensive guide to the e-Learning marketplace
in In
putting together the Directory, a number of ground rules were set to try
and ensure the suppliers represented passed a minimum threshold.These
ground rules included: ·having
been in the e-learning business for two years or more
- it was felt that this was a sufficient amount of time for a business
to become established in the marketplace, and although it does not guarantee
longevity, ensures that the vendor has some history in the industry ·having
a physical office in at least one European region operated by them and
not a partner
- this was due to the fact that it was known that some purchasers had had
bad experiences with vendors who were not based in the same geographical
region as themselves, for instance they were unable to respond quickly
and easily to requests for support, etc ·providing
named clients in ·e-learning
must represent a significant part of their revenue
– e-learning was not to be just a new label on an existing service or solution. Updates
and new entries to the Directory are made available online at the Directory
website, as vendors are constantly redefining their products, services,
representation and partners in an effort to position themselves appropriately
in this changing market. People
often think they have the resources to research the marketplace themselves,
hence they are often reluctant to purchase market reports or surveys because
of the cost involved. But to do this effectively and thoroughly requires
a considerable amount of time and effort.If
the time (and money) spent on the task were quantified, in most cases it
would far exceed the cost of an industry report or survey.At
€255, the Directory therefore represents good value in terms of locating
e-learning vendors operating in Once
suppliers of a particular product or service have been located, the next
part of the process is to create a shortlist of these to be pursued further
and then apply some due diligence.This
might involve one or more of the following: ·submitting
a RFI (request of information) to selected vendors to find out more about
them and their products or services ·shortlisting
vendors on the basis of their response to the RFI using some system that
incorporates a wide range of issues and allows a variety of people to have
input to the decision ·running
a selection process, e.g. inviting vendors to a presentation or expo –
to see their products in action and to question them further about its
functionality or their services ·reviewing/scoring
vendors and advising vendors of the outcome – making sure that everybody
comes to a consensual agreement about the vendor of choice, and that the
vendors who did not succeed are informed as to the reasons ·negotiating
contracts with selected or preferred supplier(s) – to create an ongoing
partnership for the future The
due diligence aspect of the process can take some time to implement, but
it will provide an excellent opportunity to address meticulously all the
issues of concern, like the vendor’s viability in the
marketplace and the
longevity of the product. Of
course at the end of the day, nothing can mitigate against unforeseen circumstances
in the vendor’s activities or in the marketplace itself.But
if these guidelines are followed, it is believed that not only will purchasers
be more enlightened and more prepared but also more successful in their
purchasers of e-learning products and services in the future.
References 1The state of e-learning: Looking at history with the technology hype cycle, Kevin Kruse, e-Learning Guru 2 Informal learning: the learning revolution, The Manage Mentor 3 A conversation with Tom Kelly, Else Schelin and Gene Smarte, e-Learning Magazine, January 2002 4 The e-learning industry: retrospect and prospect, Barbara K Beach, Learning Circuits, September 2002 5 Time matters and profit returns: implementing the right e-learning platform, Jay Cross, Internet Time Group 6 Peoplesoft acquires e-learning firm Teamscape, Richard Karpinski, Internet Week, August 2002 7
Skillsoft
Smartforce merger is complete, Smartforce
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