The Hindu Business Line : Open the page to e-learning 2.0

The knowledge fountain in any organisation is, more often than not, either the water cooler or the canteen. How many times have you met colleagues at the water cooler and picked up valuable tips — whether it was about how to ask your boss for leave or a shortcut to complete the report you were working on. Wouldn’t it be great if timely and valuable advice was available to tackle all learning processes at work?

The days are not far, as many companies have started blending formal and informal sources of learning onto one platform and making it available for employees. This paradigm is called e-learning 2.0.

Professionals want to learn tips, tricks, and techniques from successful peers in their community. They don’t really want to listen to scripted “talent”, or to professional trainers, says a blog by Thomas Kelly, co-author of The Business Case for E-Learning and advisor for many small and medium-sized companies focusing on learning organisations, systems and strategies. Jay Cross’ book Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways That Inspire Innovation and Performance, says 80 per cent of all learning at a work place happens informally, such as at the water cooler. Therefore it is important to blend formal learning with informal learning.

This means integrating social media/communities, such as wikis (derived from Wikipedia modelled search engines), discussion forums, podcasts, blogs and non-profit Web sites that give greater and, at times, more practical insights on a subject, with traditional classroom or e-learning based courses. Information, therefore, should be presented in brief, focused modules that are two to ten minutes long and not full courses, white papers or one-hour video segments.

For instance, one could host a 2-slide presentation on ‘short keys used in Microsoft Excel’ along with the basic course material that defines all important functions and operations of the software. That way the user, depending on his need/availability of time, could choose which module to study. Unlike traditional learning, that is structured as “one-size-fits-all” modules, users now have a choice of what to learn first, how long to learn and when to learn a module.

2 key issues addressed

According to Robin Lloyd, Vice-President and General Manager, Global Content Development, Lionbridge Technologies, e-learning 2.0 addresses two key issues that earlier training systems lacked: The linkage between the educational event, and its application in a dynamic, real-world scenario and the failure to fully capture and incorporate the collective knowledge and experience of the learners themselves. E-learning 2.0 creates an environment where users can give feedback and engage in discussions with peers, thereby continuing to remember and extend their classroom learning much beyond the scope of an exam.

In Europe, for instance, e-learning 2.0 is directly linked to the imminent ‘pappy-boom’ where many senior employees will retire in the coming years, potentially without transferring their deep experience and know-how to a new generation of employees. So a key objective of e-learning 2.0 is to establish interactions between learners and enlist them as peer-teachers using Web 2.0 tools, says Lloyd.

This eliminates the need to hire formal trainers all the time (not to mention costs of the study material) and therefore e-learning 2.0 is also significantly cheaper than traditional e-learning technologies and classroom training. For example, classroom training for 100 students per course could cost an average of $3,00,000 while the same may amount to $75,000 or lesser depending on usage of e-learning 2.0 tools. While one session/module of e-learning could cost up to one-fifth of a classroom session, Lloyd says early adopters of e-learning 2.0 are targeting as much as 30 per cent improvement over their first generation e-learning benefits.

Take the case of Perot Systems, a technology outsourcing firm that has added elements of web 2.0 into its learning. The in-house portal houses several communities such as project management, Java, .NET, Mainframe, agile development framework, enterprise architecture, telecom and healthcare. Formal learning is delivered through webinars that are connected to these communities for furthering discussion. Individual members can also start blogs on their professional areas of interest. “We have (so far) seen a 15 per cent reduction in training costs and a 20 per cent increase in the number of employees opting for certification courses,” says Bhanu Potta, Director - Knowledge Management Group, Perot Systems’ Applications Solutions.

A major financial services giant in the UK invested (according to industry sources about 1 million pounds) in Web 2.0 tools to train employees on compliance and regulatory issues. Nuggets of information were delivered to employees’ mobile phones, PDAs and Blackberrys.

Rob Gillam, Sales Manager at Giunti Labs UK, that provided the content management technology, says that most employees rarely had 40 minutes of working time to spend on an e-learning course. Additionally, like all other financial services institutions, the client too had reserved all its network capacity for business operations, thereby leaving no capacity to host e-learning modules. Web 2.0 tools helped as the information nuggets could be read in 10 minutes during lunch and other breaks. It was also easy to update or correct information because you only had to deal with correcting one nugget and not the entire course.

Expertus, a Learning Outsourcing organisation, has seen learning development time cut down by half using tools such as wikis, blogs and podcasts, says the company’s Founder and Vice-President, Client Services, Mohana Radhakrishnan. Sharing the case of a large storage solutions provider, she says collaborations tools such as discussion threads and “answers” forums have made doing business with the company as simple as online banking.

Prior to implementing a smart portal, the company’s interactions with various parties — channel partners who make sales, customers and vendors — was at best described as unsatisfactory. These parties would find it difficult to hunt for product information or apply for certificate programs. Expertus blended together concepts of easy buy, formal training, and informal education to create a portal that would allow one easy access to data. Additionally, a kind of security measure was also enabled that linked access to the credentials of a user. Only verified users would be allowed access to information. Needless to say, the Web site is seeing a surge in online sales, Mohana says, without sharing figures.

These results are significant in the current economic climate where training and developments budgets have drastically been cut or in some cases, not allocated at all. Amazon.com was one of the first to use e-learning 2.0 by allowing users to provide book reviews, thereby adding value to their service. Today it also incorporates blogs and RSS feeds on its site. Firms such as Pfizer (with its wiki Pfizerpedia) and the US Intelligence community (Intellipedia) have followed, and as the recession continues, many industry watchers believe e-learning 2.0 implementations will mushroom.

A study by Brandon Hall Research, titled ‘Emerging E-Learning: New Approaches to Delivering Engaging Online Learning Content’ published in January mentions that Sun Microsystems’ new environment for Web 2.0 learning provides more collaborative, modern features that combine search, formal and informal learning assets, training plans, comments, tagging and ratings. This is expected to boost companies’ transition to e-learning 2.0.

In its Global Enterprise Web 2.0 Market Forecast: 2007 to 2013, Forrester Research reports that organisations’ spending on Web 2.0 technologies will “surge" over the next five years, growing 43 per cent each year, to reach $4.6 billion globally by 2013. It will predominantly be used to connect with customers and help employees collaborate. The market for web 2.0 technologies in 2008 was around $764 million. (See graphic)

Reflecting this is the consistent triple digit growth that Cornerstone OnDemand, an on-demand integrated learning and talent management software provider, has seen for at least the last three years. “December 2008 was our best quarter in our 10-year history,” says Charles Coy, Director of Product Marketing, Cornerstone Ondemand. “We started with large size clients averaging 10,000 employees each but are now moving downstream towards mid-market and small and medium enterprises,” he says, without disclosing any numbers. The private company raised $32 million in venture capital in late 2007 for its expansion plans.

Source: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/enterprise_20_to_become_a_46_billion_industry.php

Forrester Research and the ReadWriteWeb, a blog that provides Web Technology news, reviews and analysis:

The Writer, a former Business Line staffer, is currently based in New Jersey, US. Her e-mail ID is archana.vratnam@gmail.com

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