Higher Learning
BY PHIL BOLSTA
Once upon a time, in the long-ago era known as the late 1990s, e-learning Web sites were popping up faster than Starbucks coffee shops. Digital entrepreneurs were enticing customers with the premise and promise of teaching and training people through their computers. It was a heady time, with venture capital dollars flowing like cheap wine and entranced customers eager to sign up.
Then the dot-com bubble burst, and the Web-based learning market spiraled downward. In 2001 alone, according to Learningcircuits.org, an online magazine that covers the industry, more than 100 e-learning companies went out of business, and mergers and acquisitions absorbed 26 others. What’s more, the sunlight of increased scrutiny exposed multiple flaws in the e-learning model. Integration and interoperability issues, combined with bandwidth and scalability challenges, threatened to derail the providers that remained. Toss in features and functionality that were rudimentary at best, and e-learning was in for a bumpy ride.
Ah, but that was then. The picture is different today. Thanks to advances in technology, proponents claim that e-learning is finally living up to its promise. Whether it’s a 10-minute module on e-mail etiquette or a multi-year Ph.D. program, online learning is rapidly becoming the go-to model for teaching and training employees for companies of all sizes.
DO THE MATH
The growing numbers of working adults who are pursuing master’s and Ph.D. degrees online are ample evidence that elearning is here to stay. One example: Minneapolis-based Capella University, which has 13,000 online learners enrolled in more than 650 courses and undergraduate and graduate degree programs in nearly 70 specialized areas of study. Another example is Walden University, a Baltimore-based online university which has its academic headquarters in Minneapolis. Walden’s 22,000 students have access to 1,547 courses and two undergraduate and 22 graduate degree programs in more than 140 areas of study.
Even with such healthy enrollment figures, Dr. Barbara Butts Williams, who heads the graduate programs in Capella’s School of Business and Technology, sees room for significant growth. “E-learning is just coming into its own,” she says. “It’s now easier and more affordable to deliver education through electronic medium, and to customize content to satisfy corporate needs and academic requirements.”
“Satisfy corporate needs” is the operative phrase. “The assignments developed for our programs are projects that students can use right away,” Williams says. “We expect our faculty to give students timely and helpful feedback. Throughout each module, each unit, students are able to go back to their organization and apply what they’ve learned to real-world applications.”
Dr. Rebecca Sidler is a true believer in the power and future of e-learning. “I’m staking my career that there is a huge potential in the e-learning world,” says Sidler, who designed Walden’s high-tech MBA, a 12-course, online program targeted to tech professionals who want to move to a leadership or managerial role. “The business community is becoming more aware that educational development is a valuable retention tool that will help them keep their engineers and technical people, especially during times when those people are highly recruited elsewhere.”
COST, CONVENIENCE, AND TIME
Sidler also feels that online universities leverage technology to give working adults the best opportunity to learn. “E-learning gives us so many options to reach all the diverse types of learners out there,” Sidler says. “Instead of a traditional, on campus model where you sit in the classroom and take notes—and if you don’t learn well that way, that’s too bad—we have the opportunity to say, ‘OK, if you learn well by listening to someone give a lecture, we can do that. But if you are someone who learns better by reading key points, studying learning outcomes, doing homework, and self-checks, and then listening to a lecture, we can do that, too.’
” Not everyone is interested in a postgraduate degree, of course. Many businesses simply want their people to improve their computer skills or learn new job-related tasks quickly and efficiently. “The three primary benefits of e-learning are cost, convenience, and time,” says Lisa Price, sales manager and director of business development for Minneapolis-based CustomGuide Computer Training Inc., which specializes in elearning and customizable courseware for Microsoft Office products and other desktop computer applications.
Indeed, CustomGuide’s e-learning solutions, available through year-long contracts, can cut training costs by eliminating the need for instructors and for sending employees out of the office to seminars. E-learning can also ensure that both in-house and remote employees—whether within a county or state, or even globally—are all on the same training page. And unlike instructors, who can only train 20 to 30 people at a time, CustomGuide’s e-learning modules can be made available to all employees through any number of computers at any time.
E-learning is already paying dividends for the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), which contracted with CustomGuide last July to supplement its instructor-led PC training. Rockville, Md.-based NASD, which employs 2,500 people in 14 states and Washington D.C., needed a way to train employees in remote offices to upgrade from Windows 2000 to Windows XP, and from Microsoft Office 2000 to Office 2003. Contracting with CustomGuide dovetailed with NASD’s recent decision to do away with instructor-led PC classes. “Providing instructors for five to 10 people at a time isn’t the most efficient use of the department’s time,” says Phil Buckberg, NASD performance specialist.
THE BLENDED APPROACH
E-learning is a small but growing revenue stream for Anaheim, Calif.-based New Horizons Computer Learning Centers, which provides training on in-depth technical software skills, desktop business applications, communication skills, and project management. “We offer a blended approach to learning,” says Leslie Kapocius, director of operations for Edina-based New Horizons of Minnesota. “Our training solutions, both at our location and on-site at corporations, are still primarily instructor-led, but are supplemented by elearning. We also offer instructor-led training, both live and recorded, within e-learning components.”
Blended learning makes sense, especially for longer courses. After all, nobody likes to sit slumped in front of a computer screen all day without some interaction with an instructor or fellow learners. Online training that requires hands-on experiences, such as sales or negotiation tactics, is an effective way to keep participants fresh and engaged.
E-learning can optimize instructor-led training in a variety of ways. Let’s say an employee opts for the live interactive style of off-site classroom training. After returning to work, she blanks out on one component of the training. No problem. By logging into her company’s e-learning library, she can refresh her memory by reviewing materials or practicing the accompanying exercises.
E-testing is another valuable way to supplement instructor-led training. Pre-testing employees via an online module prior to classroom training provides instructors with helpful data on each learner’s existing knowledge and needs. Testing employees through their computers before and after instructor-led training also lets companies track progress, measure results and identify areas in which employees need to improve.
Measuring key metrics is crucial because learning is not an end in itself, at least in business. The goal of any type of elearning is improved productivity, whether it’s New Horizons’ Cisco course, which includes live labs on switches and routers, or its soft-skills library covering customer service, communications styles, and business approaches.
That increased productivity will be reflected in a program’s ROI. “The only way to gauge ROI is to assess both pre- and post-learning,” Kapocius says. “There are objective assessments built into most of our e-learning products, and we also have a subjective assessment product that allows users to self-evaluate their progress.”
Indeed, the ability to make choices is perhaps e-learning’s most compelling feature. “Different companies have different cultures and different learning styles,” Kapocius says. “Each company needs to know its culture and how its employees learn best. E-learning is most advantageous for people who like to learn at their own pace, but if a manger feels that an elearning product is not going to engage certain employees, then it’s best to have a live instructor to engage those people.”