By Brooke Broadbent 

 

Abstract, Introduction, Ready for e-learning? People, Place, Resources, Challenges and responses, Case study: a decision to use e-learning in the insurance industry, The decision, Case study: A decision to not use e-learning, Using the e-learning score card, 3 x2 x 4 report card to help decide e-learning readiness, Table talk, Summary
 

 

A version of this article will appear in the McGraw-Hill Sourcebook  for 2001.  Articles by Brooke Broadbent also appear in the sourcebooks for 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000.

Abstract

E-learning.  Has a training terms ever caught on like e-learning has in the year 2000?  Is it because training has caught dot com fever or is it because e-learning is a superior way to conduct training?  Frankly, we don’t know yet.  One thing is certain; however, e-learning is not the perfect fit in every organization.  To implement e-learning successfully in an organization you need the right people, place and resources. Does your organization have the right mix of people, place and resources?

The purpose of this article is to help organizations decide if they are ready for e-learning.  We offer a checklist and strongly recommendation that you adapt it to individual situations.  Every day, instructional designers, consultants, trainers and training managers make recommendations to use e-learning or not to use it.  The approach of this article will help them give reasoned advice and help organizations make wise decisions. 

In the first few months of the new millennium, e-learning looms large.  The term e-learning pops up in advertisements for training and education services, conference presentations, and it seems to be quite popular among marketers of technology-assisted learning products.  Is e-learning just a marketing device?  Or is this a new word to describe a new reality?  What does it mean to add an ‘e’ to the word learning? 

At e-LearningHub.com, we view the moniker e-learning broadly.  It represents convergence in the education, training and information fields.  As we see it, the term e-learning includes education; training and structured information delivered by computers, through the Internet, or the Web, or from the hard drive of the computer—or an organization’s network.  This definition of e-learning includes CBT, WBT electronic performance support systems, webcasts, listservs, knowledge management undertakings and other discussions on the Internet, threaded and unthreaded. 

In this environment that is supportive of e-learning, stakeholders are wondering if it could be the right approach for them.  After all, e-learning promises to offer training that is just in time, just enough and just the way you like it. 

Learning consultants from Canada, the US and the UK have identified best practices associated with e-learning.   They uncovered three factors that contribute to readiness of organizations to embrace e-learning: people, place and resources.  Within these three areas there are a number of variables.  For example in the people variable there is commitment and skill, for place there is stability and infrastructure, under the resources category we identified funds and knowledge.  These are sample variables; cited to kick-start your thinking process so that you will identify the criteria that are the most important in your situation.  When you make your list of criteria, keep it short, with key criteria—the ones that will have the greatest impact on the success of e-learning in your organization.  You might decide, for example, to develop criteria that assess whether there is enough time to develop the training in an e-learning format and whether e-learning will offer enough personal interactions for the type of training that is required. 

Our goal is to help you think systematically about whether e-learning will help your organization meet its performance targets.  Here are the six variables, two under each of people, place and resources. 

People
An international e-learning consortium team selected the following two people-variables as critical indicators of readiness of an organization to embrace e-learning: commitment and skill. 

Commitment. One way to measure commitment is by considering whether key decision-makers in the organization are serious about investigating the use of e-learning.  It is a positive sign if this commitment is rooted in an understanding of what e-learning can do and what it cannot do.  It’s an ominous sign if the commitment is based on a flavor-of-the month approach to training.

Skill. Can your organization tap into a supply of people skilled in all the aspects of e-learning?  If you are going to develop your own e-learning program; you may require a project manager, instructional developers, software programmers, multimedia experts, graphics experts, and others, including information systems experts.  Experienced people have had opportunities to develop their skills, so experience with e-learning is a very desirable quality to seek. 

Introducing e-learning challenges project management skills.  Managing e-learning demands the ability to scope work, assign resources, manage expectations, monitor progress and revise plans as required.  Your project manager will need to skillfully communicate with stakeholders throughout the e-learning project.

If an organization decides to develop e-learning it will either need to have the employees with the required skills or a direct line to reliable consultants.  And once the materials are developed or off-the-shelf materials are purchased, your users will need to be comfortable using the hardware and software that surround your e-learning, including using your operating system, and navigating in your learning package. 

Place

The two factors under place that are critical indicators of readiness of an organization to embrace to e-learning were flexibility and infrastructure.

Flexibility. Today’s organizations are spelled c-h-a-n-g-e.  The corporate landscape is a panorama of new companies, merged companies, new roles, new technologies, and new knowledge to learn.  We need flexibility to adjust to change. In order to meet change effectively, diverse groups must work together effectively.  Training project leaders must foster team spirit.  People assigned to training projects must put the accomplishments of the team before their individual successes.  Team members must help each other complete work on time and within budget. 

Infrastructure. E-learning does not necessarily require a huge infrastructure.  Some successful programs are simple add-ons to the enterprise-wide intranet.  However, many organizations build e-learning on an infrastructure of powerful multimedia computers, and the e-learning you adopt may also require Web access, and an enterprise-wide intranet. 

Resources

Under resources, the key variables selected by the team as critical indicators of readiness of an organization to embrace e-learning are funds and knowledge. 

Funds. The initial costs of developing e-learning are higher than most equivalent leader-led interventions.  So, deep pockets help.  Faced with high costs you might be tempted to cut corners.  In the long run, however, a well-designed e-learning package shrinks high costs associated with travel, accommodation, and instructors. 

Knowledge. When deciding whether your organization is ready for e-learning, you will need to assess whether there is sufficient knowledge about the range of e-learning options, knowledge about the impact that using e-learning will have on your organization and the people who work there.  Knowledge goes hand-in-hand with all the factors examined above.  It is probably the most important of all the factors we have listed.  And remember a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
 

Every day, instructional designers, consultants, trainers and training managers make recommendations and decisions to use e-learning or not to use it.  The following scenarios tell the stories of two organizations making e-learning decisions.
 

At a meeting of senior executives, the V-P of Human Resources of an insurance corporation learns that in nine months time over 1,000 employees will start to use a new computer system for registering and tracking insurance claims.  After considering the technology the corporation has now; and working with a consultant to investigate factors similar to the six explored above, the insurance corporation decided to use e-learning.  They selected a self-directed Web-based training application that allows employees to learn the new computer system from their own computers on the job, at their own pace.  Super-users of the new computer system are stationed at each office, and a help-desk is established to provide personalized assistance. 

Let’s look at how the insurance corporation evaluated the six factors.  We used a scoring key of 0 for no evidence of meeting the criteria, 1 for low compliance, 2 for medium, 3 for high.  Our rating scale is examined further in the table below. 

Commitment
The key decision-makers are somewhat committed to investigating the use of e-learning.   They have attended presentations about it in other organizations and they have a vague idea of what e-learning is.  On our scale of 0 to 3, they score 2. 

Skill
The insurance corporation has produced a few videos in the past and they have developed expertise in multimedia as a result.  Past projects have offered opportunities to develop skills in project management, and crafting training materials.  In summary, the corporation has a few skilled people in e-learning related matters but no directly-related skills.  Score: 1

Flexibility
The company merged with another three years ago.  Employees demonstrated considerable flexibility during the merger.  People work relatively well together.  The training organization has had some successes and some mild failures when working closely with operational and administrative groups.  Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and score 3.

Infrastructure
Most people have access to the technology required for e-learning.   They use it competently.  There is a good support system for people who have questions about the new technology. 
Score: 3

Funds
The organization has always been cautious about spending money on training.  However, in this case it seems that stakeholders have decided that e-learning is a priority.  They realize that costs are higher than most equivalent leader-led interventions.  They also acknowledge that the initial outlay could be substantial and skimping on the quality of the design phase will end up costing more in the long run.  Score: 3

Knowledge
Employees are comfortable using their computers.  Some operational and administrative employees have used e-learning and CBT successfully.  There is not however much knowledge of e-learning in the training group or elsewhere in the organization.
Score: 2

Adding up all the points from above gives a total of 14.  Accordingly, this insurance company is fairly well-suited for e-learning.   The combined score of 14 out of 24 tends to emphasize this.  Also, the high scores in flexibility, infrastructure, and funds, augur well for introducing e-learning.   These strong areas will continue to need some work, as will the weak areas.  All shortfalls need to be addressed, especially—commitment, skill and knowledge. 

You might think that an organization that has many years’ experience with e-learning would readily adopt e-learning for a new major training program.  We will see below that an organization heavily committed to e-learning still needs to look at each case individually.  And indeed after studying a situation they might even decide to not adopt e-learning—even when they score high on our factors. 

This resource industry leader uses WBT (a form of e-learning) extensively.  The company has found that the e-learning is a cost-effective way to provide a consistent, up-to-date message to employees just-in-time.  They have used e-learning for many years extensively in their training programs for safety, operational procedures and employee orientation.  In the existing e-learning programs, employees use a computer to obtain background facts.  For example they use a Web-based training program to learn the theory of driving a fork truck.  After the online training, the student drives the fork truck under the guidance of an instructor.  They refer to the technical knowledge gathered in the e-learning lesson as required.  An added bonus: after the training, employees can access the company Web-site and use the WBT modules as a reference manual.  There is no longer a need to print manuals and worry about updating them.  The updated version of materials is always available on the company intranet site. E-learning modules have replaced thousands of pages of training manuals.

With strong support for e-learning in the company, experience, expertise, commitment and other positive signs, we might assume that e-learning would be used for new training programs as they come along.  After considerable soul-searching the company decided to shun e-learning.  Let’s examine why.

Although the company scored high on the six criteria of our decision-table, with several threes, they are missing key ingredients.  First of all there are 2,000 people to train in a short period of time.  They must learn how to use the new enterprise-wide management (ERP) software the company is introducing to all employees.  To learn to use the software in an online mode, every learner requires access to a personal computer. However in a production environment there are few desks and fewer desktop computers.  Making computers available to these people and ensuring that they have the time to practice in the workplace is inconceivable.  In addition the design team had only two months to develop the training program and it is feared there will not be enough time to develop WBT modules. 

The final nail in the e-learning coffin is the ERP project leaders’ concerns about the quality of training.  They feel that classroom training offers the best option for ensuring that people taking the training learn what is required.  Instructors and classroom coaches will monitor participants as they complete exercise and help them when they have problems.  Also, classroom training offers opportunities to discuss the difference between the legacy systems and the new ERP, to deal with resistance to the new system—and to point out the advantages of the new software.

In the end the company did use its intranet to support classroom training.  Information about the new software and the training program was distributed via the company intranet—as well as up-to-date manuals and job aids.  These uses of the Web represent effective uses of Web technology to support classroom learning. 

You can assess your organization’s readiness for e-learning in the way that we assessed the two organizations above.  Using the table below read each of the six items and select one answer that most closely maps to your situation.  If you realize that the replies are going to be different for various units in your organization you should complete more than one survey.  For example, an administrative unit might score differently from an operational one.  To score your organization against the grid add the weighted totals from the four columns.  This total score represents the readiness of your organization to use e-learning. 

People
Commitment
0. No decision-makers are committed to e-learning. 
1. Some decision-makers are committed to e-learning. 
2. Most decision-makers are committed to e-learning. 
3. All decision-makers are committed to e-learning.   Their commitment is rooted in an understanding of what e-learning can do and what it cannot do.

Skill
0. Your organization does not have skilled people in any of the aspects of e-learning: a project manager, instructional developers, software programmers, multimedia experts, graphics experts, and others including information systems experts.  Nor do you have access to consultants. 
1. Your organization has a few skilled people in e-learning matters or knows consultants in some of the areas. 
2. Your organization covers most of the e-learning skill requirements either internally or through consultants. 
3. You have all the skills in your organization to develop e-learning or you have identified consultants who can help.

Place
Flexibility
 0. Diverse groups do not work well together.  Leaders do not foster team spirit. 
1. There are examples of people working together but there is conflict among diverse units in the organization that would be involved in e-learning. 
2. Most of the people assigned to the project will put the project before their individual successes. People assigned to training projects always put the accomplishments of the team before their individual successes. 
3. Team members help each other complete work on time and within budget.

Infrastructure
0. You have none of the required multimedia computers, Web access, nor an organization-wide intranet. 
1. You have some of the required technology. 
2. You have most of the required technology. 
3. You have all of the required technology, know how to use it and have an effective 24x7 help service.

Resources
Funds
0. Your organization does not have sufficient funds.
1. Your organization has most of the required money.  A few stakeholders realize the importance of committing sufficient resources. 
2. Your organization has the required money.  Most stakeholders realize the importance of committing sufficient resources. 
3. The organization has sufficient resources and all stakeholders are committed to using those resources to develop a quality product.

Knowledge
0. People are misinformed about e-learning and about the range of e-learning options, about the impact that using e-learning will have on your organization and the people who work there. 
1. Some people are well-informed about e-learning.   But most are not well-informed. 
2. Most people are well-informed about e-learning. 
3. Everyone is well-informed about e-learning. 
 

The main use of the e-learning report card is to assess where you are, and to gain insight into what you need for moving ahead with e-learning.  After you have calculated the readiness of your organization for e-learning you will need to interpret your results.  The table will reveal the areas where your organization is most vulnerable.  The low scores on the six variables, for example the zeros and ones, indicate where you might run into roadblocks if you implement e-learning.  If you take action to raise your scores in these areas, your organization will be better prepared to implement e-learning. 

How should we interpret scores?  Will it be a snap to implement e-learning if your organization scores 24 out of 24?  Probably not.  Introducing change to any organization is a complex matter and it requires careful planning at the best of times.  What does it mean if your organization scores 6 out of 24?  Will it be impossible to implement e-learning?  Any organization can implement e-learning but you face more risk if you have a low score on this table.  It’s best to attenuate risks before embarking on e-learning.  In other words you should develop ways to address your low scores very early in your project.

Implementing e-learning can be challenging.  You could experience setbacks, even failure.  To succeed you need to think critically about the ability of your organization to implement e-learning successfully. You need to address the weaknesses.  Successful implementers of e-learning think systematically about people, place and resources, as well as other factors in their individual situations. 

Some thought-leaders and marketers are positioning e-learning as a panacea.  This is misleading.  E-learning is not a universal solution.  It is complex.  It demands the right mix of people, place and resources.  Or a concerted effort to improve that mix.