On-line Learning - the Eye of the Storm

On-line learning is in the eye of the storm, reports Adrian Snook, in this article originally published in CONSPECTUS - the IT Report for Directors and Decision Makers

Storm Clouds Rising

The genesis of the Storm

Words… don't come easy

e-Ness Envy

Defining your strategy

IT is not where you start - it's where you finish

Synchronicity

What do learners gain from On-Line Learning?

On-Line Learning or Off-line e-Learning?

The best of both worlds?

Summary

Storm Clouds Rising

In the autumn of the year 2000 the HR World is being battered by a storm.

In a sense, this storm was five hundred years in the making, has been brewing up offshore for over 15 years and crossed the UK coastline in late 1998. Today it is shaking the foundations of traditional education, training and development.

The storm has had many different names over the years, but today we mainly know it as e-Learning.

At the heart of this whirling vortex lies a smaller zone, usually described as On-Line Learning.

As you would expect in any crisis, the HR press is full of drama, hype, rumour, claim and counterclaim.

Millions of dollars are being spent to inform and influence decision-makers and all the while fortunes are being lost and won. HR, IT and Training professionals are all seeking to make sense of this apparent chaos and to map out a path which will allow their organisation to weather the storm and emerge renewed strengthened and invigorated.

In order to do this, you first need to understand the meteorology of the storm, the path it has taken to date and its structure as it whirls overhead.

The genesis of the Storm

In the beginning, there was the word. And that word was Greek. In about 387 BC Plato established an Athenian school of learning devoted to research and instruction in philosophy and science in a grove of trees owned by a man called Academos.

What became known as Plato's Academy flourished until 529 AD when it was closed down by the Christian Emperor Justinian, who claimed it was a pagan institution. Having survived for 900 years it is the longest surviving university known and formed the basis for the conventional academic model of learning that survives to this day. From that point the delivery of formal learning became the function of institutions and the economic life-blood of the towns and cities where they were based.

By the 19th century the winds of change were buffeting the conventional academic model. The Victorian passion for self-improvement was creating a market for learning which was remote from the learned institutions. The combination of the Penny Post and the printing press together created the right conditions for the phenomenon we now know as Distance Learning. The first structured Distance Learning or correspondence courses were probably the shorthand courses offered by the Pitman organisation in the late 1800's.

During the early and mid-twentieth century the pace of growth in Distance Learning accelerated appreciably and conditions at the heart of storm system began to change under the influence of electronic technology. Whilst there are some who take a different view, e-Learning can be defined as the delivery of Learning via any form of electronic media.

Many would agree that the specific subset of Distance Learning we now know as e-Learning came of age in 1969 when The Open University was established by Royal Charter. The delivery of courses via electronic media such as radio and television opened up immense new opportunities for learners excluded from mainstream education.

It was not until the 1990's that an entirely new subset of what is now known as e-Learning became visible on our radar screens. The rise of the Internet had created the right conditions for what is now known as On-Line learning - the Eye of the Learning Storm.

As is the way with weather patterns, the storm gathered its resources over the Mid-West of the USA, crossed the East Coast and made its inexorable way across the Atlantic, with the Eye of the Storm making landfall in the UK in late 1998.

Words… don't come easy

One of the main problems facing decision-makers wrestling with e-Learning related issues is the confusing, incompatible and inconsistent terminology generated over the last twenty years. Terms such Computer-Based-Training (CBT), Technology-Based Training (TBT) Computer-Based Learning (CBL) all mean very different things to different people and are now probably best discarded.

As has already been pointed out, the term e-Learning denotes the delivery of learning via any form of electronic media including On-Line Learning. Today this might include:

• standalone PC with CD-ROM or DVD
• the Internet
• intranets
• extranets
• satellite broadcast
• audio/video tape
• interactive PC/TV
• simulators
• handheld devices.

On-Line Learning has a narrow and very specific definition and implies the use of any these technologies to:

• deliver courseware to remote learners via a network and/or Web browser
• provide links to resources outside of the course, such as
  • tutor support
  • references
  • e-mail
  • bulletin boards and discussion groups.

Take the holistic approach fostered by the Storm Model. Conceptualise e-Learning as a subset of Distance Learning and then visualise a central subset of e-Learning that is called On-Line Learning. With this model in mind you are well equipped to make some rational decisions about the relative merits of each.

e-Ness Envy

"According to the most recent study of corporate America made by the Masie Center, a Saratoga Springs, New York-based think tank, 92 percent of large organizations are implementing some form of On-Line learning this year."

FORTUNE On-Line Learning Supplement (May 24, 1999, Vol. 139, no. 10)

Industry pundits are queuing up to make pronouncements about e-Learning and On-Line learning. As with sex, it is easy to believe that everyone else seems to be doing it and they are doing it more often and better than you are.

e-Ness Envy is a little known condition that creates a pressure to implement high profile e-Learning or On-Line learning projects for reasons of personal or corporate prestige. Resist this pressure at all costs and focus instead on identifying the needs of your organisation. Fulfil these needs effectively and the corporate and personal rewards will follow.

Defining your strategy

If you are finding it difficult to define your approach to e-Learning or On-Line Learning then please don't despair. Most organisations find this very difficult.

Training and HR functions are largely staffed by arts graduates whilst IT functions are largely staffed by science graduates. These functions typically have a very different outlook on the world and to a certain extent use different languages. Rivalry or even mutual hostility is not uncommon.

In the days of standalone training PC's and manual training records, each function could continue to exist and co-operate at arms-length. Unfortunately e-Learning calls not just for co-operation but co-habitation.

IT functions are typically expert in managing accounting software and standard IT applications. Whilst they generally like the idea of spending large sums on e-Learning related kit, they sometimes feel out of their depth when dealing with exotic multimedia technologies.

Of course the last group of people they would ever admit this to is their colleagues in the HR function! On the other hand Training and HR Departments are experts in training and HR, but understandably defer to the IT function over technical issues. They often wield less power and influence than the IT function and can find it hard to get their voice heard.

Whilst the Training and HR function might have a large budget, this is normally drip-feed expenditure to support conventional training courses and they are typically very worried by the lump-sum expenditure that e-Learning can entail.

What this can amount to is the blind leading the blind.

The best way forward is to form a Project Steering Group made up of your IT Director, HR Director and any other board level sponsorship you can find. Get this group to commit to regular meetings on a quarterly basis. Form a dedicated cross-functional Project Team made up of a senior HR specialist, a senior IT specialist and a senior Training specialist. This should meet regularly and drive the project forward, presenting results to the steering committee when it meets.

The first task for Project Team is normally to establish if the knowledge and skill-sets they will need to define an e-Learning strategy exist within the organisation. If not, then you will need to find an external partner.

IT is not where you start - it's where you finish

The vendors of enabling technology are spending millions of dollars trying to persuade decision-makers that their tools are the answer to your problems and represent the best place to start developing an e-Learning or On-Line learning strategy.

This siren song can be very seductive, particularly if you love buying new hardware, software or other tools. As always, the best place to begin defining your e-Learning strategy is by clearly identifying the needs of your organisation.

Move on to define your strategy and then select the enabling technology you need to support it.

Synchronicity

As you look closely at the products and services in the e-Learning marketplace you will discover that there are actually two modes of learning on offer.

Synchronous learning implies a real-time event, in which all participants are logged on at the same time and communicate directly with each other:

• virtual classrooms
• chat rooms
• audio/video conferencing
• internet telephony
• two-way live satellite broadcasts of lectures.

Asynchronous learning describes an event in which people cannot communicate without some form of time delay:

• self-paced courses:
  • accessed on the intranet by an individual
  • downloaded from the Intranet
  • remotely installed to the client PC
  • delivered via CD-ROM/DVD
• videotaped classes
• streamed audio/video
• web presentations
• Q&A mentoring
• bulletin boards and e-mail.

Each form of learning has its relative merits and different advocates.

What do learners gain from On-Line Learning?

As your research progresses you will find that vendors are fond of citing unattributed research that demonstrates that On-Line Learning can have some quite startling benefits.

Because On-Line learning is a subset of Distance Learning, the On-Line vendors tend to aggregate all the proven benefits of Distance Learning to justify any investment in their services. This would be fine if they also took the trouble to set out the other Distance Learning options, but very few do so.

In fact most statements about the benefits of On-Line learning have been appropriated from research into the benefits of conventional self-paced Computer-Based Training conducted as long as 10 years ago.

One of the most commonly cited statistics is that "On-Line Learning can reduce training time by between 30 and 70 per cent when compared to classroom methods" Beware. This is only normally true of asynchronous forms of e-Learning.

Researchers actually found that self-paced forms of Computer-Based Training reduced overall training time. This was attributed to the fact that learners were released to work at the pace they preferred, rather than being held back to suit the slowest learner in the class. The benefit results from learners working independently rather than from being On-Line.

Learning via a synchronous On-Line virtual classroom can oblige groups of remote learners to progress at the same synchronous pace via a limited interface- in these circumstances it would not be surprising if learning times actually increased significantly! By all means buy a virtual classroom system, but expect to save the amount of time that learners spend travelling and not the time they spend learning.

Another commonly cited benefit of On-Line Learning is improved retention of knowledge when compared with classroom-based methods. Whilst this might well be true of On-Line learning this benefit was originally detected by researchers investigating the benefits of conventional interactive Computer-Based Training.

Whilst these research projects could be cited as a justification for investing in interactive Computer-Based Training it is debatable at present if it could be used to justify any additional costs involved in delivering learning On-Line.

Other commonly cited benefits include the elimination of travel and subsistence costs, reduced training facility costs and so on. Whilst these savings can be generated by On-Line learning they are also generated by simpler and less expensive forms of open and flexible distance learning such as self-paced workbooks.

If these benefits attract you, then consider these less glamorous options carefully incurring any additional costs involved in delivering learning On-Line. In reality, all existing forms of Distance Learning probably have a part to play in the training mix and you need to choose the option that best suits your pocket, your learners and your organisation.

On-Line Learning or Off-line e-Learning?

Ask your learner population if they prefer to learn On-Line or Off-Line and they are unlikely to state a firm preference. It's a bit like asking TV viewers if they prefer watching BBC1 on a terrestrial digital service or via satellite. Both routes of delivery are digital and largely invisible to the user. The only way learners with low bandwidth connections can tell if they are working locally or On-Line is by noting that the content delivery speed is more variable when they are On-Line.

The best of both worlds?

Whilst it makes sense for organisations to move learning On-Line in the long-term, most are seeking a way forward which is practical given the existing limitations of their technology.

A pragmatic approach is required to reconcile short-term business demands with the development of a long-term On-Line Learning strategy. For most this involves striking compromises and harnessing the mode of learning that best suits the business case.

The prospect of simplified courseware maintenance and version control makes On-Line Learning attractive to many types of organisation. It certainly makes perfect sense to address volatile content relating to things like products, policy or procedures in an On-line mode, for example.

The general approach summarised below is one that currently seems to suit many businesses:

Summary

When developing a strategy take care to distinguish between the different potential benefits generated by distance learning, e-Learning and On-Line Learning. Choose the mode that suits the business case and not the salesman.

• Recognise the strength of multiple training modalities and don't be seduced by the lure of monolithic technology based solutions.
• Choose your solutions with care on a case-by-case basis.
• Entering the Storm will bring some very real organisational challenges and it is important to make robust plans to address them.
• Finally remember that Learning in the Eye of the Storm is not intrinsically better than other forms of learning - it is just new, exciting and very different.

by Adrian Snook

CONSPECTUS is published by PM Publications. For further information please visit their website: http://www.conspectus.com