e-Learning: Strategies for Delivering Knowledge in the Digital Age

Rosenberg, Mark J. (2001).  E-Learning: Strategies for delivering knowledge in the digital age.  New York: McGraw-Hill.

QUOTES

       --John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, Inc. (Quoted in the New York Times)

 --Nicholas Negroponte, Director of MIT's Media Lab

       --Alvin Toffler, Futurist

--Mao Zedong

       --William R. Brody, President of Johns Hopkins University

             --Tony O'Driscoll, IBM's Institute for Knowledge Management

      --Jack Welch, CEO of GE

PREFACE

Six Fundamental Beliefs

1. Internet technology is the key to a profound revolution in learning, but it is only a tool, not a strategy.
2. There is an enduring an important role for traditional classroom instruction.
3. Learning is a continuous, cultural process-- not simply a series of events.
4. The broad field of learning encompasses more than education and training-- it is a genuine discipline.
5. You do not necessarily have to be in the educational or training business to create opportunities for e-learning.
6. Strategy development and implementation are never really finished.

A Strategic Focus

Too often we become so enamored with the promise that technology offers that we ignore the climate in which it will be implemented. 

Disclaimer: This is not a "how to" book.  Rather, it is a companion to the many fine "how to" books on the market.

PART I: THE OPPORTUNITY

Chapter 1: Learning is a Lot More Than Training

Training has Four Main Elements

1. An intent to enhance performance in a specific way
2. A design that reflects appropriate instructional and assessment strategies.
3. The means and media by which the instruction is conveyed.
4. A more formalized assessment or certification capability (at least in high accountability situations)

 A New Era

It's clear from the above statistics that companies are shifting some of their training investments away from on-site classrooms. 

Training Pays Off

According to a 1997 study by ASTD, higher training expenditures per employee result in higher sales and greater profits for the company. 

A Transformation is Underway

It's good that training is paying off.  But in order to continue moving forward in the future, we must transform our perceptions of learning in five major areas:

1. From training and performance
2. From the classroom to any time... anywhere
3. From paper to online
4. From physical facilities to networked facilities
5. From cycle time to real time

Broadening Our Perspective

E-learning is diversifying, moving beyond courseware and instruction to the generation and dissemination of information (knowledge management), as well as performance support.

The Internet and Organizational Learning

Today, many companies are establishing "chief learning officers" or "chief knowledge officers".  They are investing in corporate universities and trying to become "learning organizations" by creating an environment and culture that encourages knowledge generation, sharing, and learning from mistakes.

Three Learner Needs

Three Business Needs

n       Information: businesses need to deliver the right information to the right people at the right time.

n       Open culture: the organizational culture should encourage the sharing of knowledge rather than hoarding it.

n       Effective technology: companies for Quark cost-effective technologies that allow all these needs to be met.

Chapter 2: The E-Learning Revolution

Throughout history, a few technological advances have been "disruptive" or "restructuring" technologies--- that is, have the power to completely alter society.  Examples include the printing press, communications technologies like telephone and radio, and airplanes.  The web is the latest restructuring technology.

A Short (And Often Frustrating) History of Technology For Learning

n       1922: Thomas Edison predicts that the motion picture would replace text books (and perhaps teachers) in the classroom.

n       Early 1940s: the Army training film revolutionizes mass training.

n       1950s: increased use of "programmed text" and "teaching machines", based on principles of behavioral psychology.

n       1970s: award-winning PBS television shows like "Sesame Street".

n       1970s-80s: rise of computer-based training (CBT), first on mainframe and then on microcomputers.

Why didn't TV Revolutionize Learning?

Because, unlike a good classroom session, it's not interactive.

Why Didn't CBT Revolutionize Learning?

n       It couldn't keep up with changing technologies

n       A rapidly changing knowledge base often rendered content obsolete

n       A lot of it was deadly dull.

The Cycle of Failure

The Rise Of A Web-Based Learning Industry

During the 1970's, there were only a few pioneers in distance learning (e.g., Florida's Nova University).  Today, hundreds of colleges and universities, including prestigious ones, are offering online curricula.

There is also been growth in:

E-Learning Defined

E-learning is based on three fundamental criteria:

Benefits Of E-Learning

A Strategic Foundation for E-Learning

New approaches to E-Learning (e.g., online training and knowledge management)

PART TWO: NEW APPROACHES FOR E-LEARNING

Chapter 3: Why Most CBT Doesn't Work and How It Can Be Better

Learning at the foot of a master has been around for thousands of years---call the tutorial model.  But as demand grew faster than the number of masters, a classroom model evolved whereby one master could train many more students.   Ever since, we have striven to recreate the quality of the original tutorial model.

Who hasn't wished to be able to monopolize a master's time, to benefit from his/her undivided attention?  This was the promise of computer-based learning---a promise that has gone largely unfulfilled.  Why?  Here are eleven possible reasons:

1. The content wasn't any good.
2. The learning wasn't authentic.
3. Form over substance.
4. One size didn't fit all.
5. The technology was a barrier.
6. It was useless after the initial use.
7. The learning wasn't reinforced.
8. There was no support for it.
9. It went against the culture.
10. It was just plain boring.
11. It was "shovelware".

The Road to Better Online Training

Does Multimedia Enhance Learning?

Adding multimedia to a bad learning program won't improve it, a fact unknown to many publishers who have rushed to augment their "shovelware" CD-ROMs with copious images that have little coherent relationship to the content.    Additionally, bandwidth remains an issue with most multimedia.

However, when used carefully (i.e., in service to sound instructional design), multimedia can augment learning.  The key is balance---balance between glitz and authenticity, between production values and instructional values, balance between cost and return and between "edutainment" vs. learning..

Chapter 4: Knowledge Management

Walk into a strange library, and chances are you already know how to use it.  That's because the card catalog and classification schemes are similar in virtually every library.  The web is a different story.  Search engines are not nearly as well structured or universal in format as a library's card catalog system.  Clearly, the web needs standardization.

What is Knowledge Management?

A system that supports the creation, archiving, searching, and sharing of information, expertise, and insight within and across communities of people and organizations with similar interests and needs.

Four Types of Information

Benefits of a "Corporate Brain"

The Knowledge Management Pyramid

Performance Support

Performance support enables you to:

Forms of Performance Support

n       Checklists

n       Forms

n       Reference Cards

n       Electronic Performance Suppor 

Gloria Gery's Three Levels of Performance Support:

Is Expertise Always Required?

Community and Collaboration in Knowledge Management

Knowledge management should provide methods that let people who use content to be involved in its creation and to collaborate with each other.  Face it---information exchange goes on in every organization; it's a matter of whether you create a climate that supports it and makes it more effective. 

A good deal of research supports the value of communities in learning.  For example, see www.wested.org, which presents work that suggests people learn best when they can interact with others in communities of shared interests.  The best learning takes place when people have access to the right information at the right time and are members of a knowledge community.

Managing the Information

The contribution side of knowledge management-- the collection, structuring and archiving of content-- is more difficult than the distribution side.  There are three key aspects of knowledge contribution:

1. Inbound information management: identify knowledge sources, prioritize and manage incoming information, deciding what to publish, tagging, templates, and cataloging.
2. Purging dated information: preferably by assigning each contribution a "life expectancy" as well as tagging it with identifying information including an expiration date.
3. Benefiting contributors: incentives should coax people to contribute.  Contributing should become part of the "fabric" of jobs.

Knowledge Structuring Is Key

Many organizations suffer from "information anarchy". Information must make sense for users.  You must have a structure for classifying knowledge and do a good job setting up search functions.  To accomplish this, you must know the content domain.

Moving Problem Solving And Decision-Making Skills To E-Learning:  A Case Study

Kepner-Tragoe, a consulting company, offers training and decision making, problem solving, and project management.  In response to clients who asked for tools that integrated these processes into an organization, they developed "eThink", a software tool with a variety of different work spaces suited to solving a problem, making a decision, sorting out complex solutions, avoiding problems, or taking advantage of opportunities.  the two can be accessed through Socratic wizards that provide more guidance or worksheets that provide less guidance.

Knowledge Portals

Portals from the Internet are good examples of knowledge management:

n       Cars:  www.carpoint.com, www.autoweb.com, www.edmunds.com

n       Finance: www.quicken.com, www.fool.com

n       Consumer: www.purina.com

n       Medicine: www.webmd.com, www.medixperts.com

n       Legal: www.lrn.com

n       Books: www.amazon.com

n       Education: www.education-world.com, www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/bluewebn

An Example: My Help Desk www.myhelpdesk.com

This Help Desk site is organized into sections like:

n       Get Help: knowledge and information

n       Get Productive: tools

n       Get Connected: community

n       Get Smart: training

Get Support: human support contact

Get Technical: specifications and technical documents

Users specify their hardware and software at a personal worst home page is created for them, with support and training specialized for their needs.

Information Dashboards

The government's interactive census web site (www.factfinder.census.gov) allows one to access and configure census data to meet commercial or research needs.  When you set your data parameters, the system reconfigure see information for you (this is both knowledge management and performance import in one).  A dashboard differs from a portal in that a portal organizes web sites while a dashboard organizes information.

Decision Support

E-Town (www.etown.com) is a consumer electronics site that also boasts knowledge management and performance support features.  Its "knowledge book" provides information on products as well as information on how to use and troubleshoot them, and its "expert advice service" ("Ask Ida") queries users and then helps them make the right purchase decisions.

Task Enablers

Task enablers take people to a higher level of capability.  For example, Ask Jeeves (www.askjeeves.com) is more than a search engine.  it uses a natural language, question and answer approach rather than the traditional keyword approach.  Other task enabler sites include travel sites like travelocity.com and expedia.com, where users can search for flights, hotels, and car rentals--- then order those services from a single interface. Or Financenter (www.financenter.com) offers over 100 performance support tools called "ClickCalcs".

Other examples of task enablers in business:

Such systems have the advantages of:

Two final reasons why knowledge management is so important:

Building a knowledge management solution

Chapter 5: Integrating E-Learning and Classroom Learning

The approaches discussed in the last chapter (knowledge management and online training) are even more powerful when combined with classroom training.  Now we are moving toward building a learning architecture.

Questions:

The New Role of Classroom Training

All classroom training is not antiquated.   however, introducing e-learning can lead to a number of changes in classroom based learning:

Building a Learning Architecture

Can You Put Classroom Training On The Web?

Consider how much of the program is synchronous vs. asynchronous.  On the one hand, asynchronous programs are better suited to the web, but:

Synchronous programs have several uses:

However, while synchronous programs provide interaction, it's usually not as personalized or as casual as in a regular classroom.  If you require high levels of interactivity and teamwork, a web-based class may not be what you're looking for.

Killer Apps in E-Learning

The original justification for e-learning was to make learning better, faster, and cheaper.  but the potential also excess to create "Killer Apps"--- e-learning so effective and innovative they redefine learning in your organization (or at least significantly "raise the bar").  The initial development of performance support was a Killer App; so was knowledge management.   Who knows what tomorrow's Killer Apps will be?

PART III: ORGANIZATIONAL REQUIREMENTS FOR E-LEARNING

Chapter 6: Building and Managing an E-Learning Infrastructure

You Cannot Begin Without Access... Or a Strong Partnership with IT

If you are going to succeed, the people important to the success of your initiative must be on board.  A failure in one significant area (e.g., infrastructure, ISP, IT, bandwidth) can sink you.   If there our existing corporate platforms, it makes sense to use them to "ride" on the infrastructure practically for free.

How will you reach employees who don't use a computer on the job?  Kiosks? Wireless? PDAs?

The Rise and Fall of PLATO

Learning Portals

A learning portal is a web-based, single point of web access serving as a gateway to a variety of e-learning resources.  There are portals you buy and portals you build.  a company can set up its own learning portal and use it to "push" content, while users can still personalize it (think "MyYahoo").

Learning Management Systems (LMSs)

A modern learning management system uses the Internet to manage the interaction between users and learning materials. It helps management track who is learning what and keep skills databases.  It helps employees plan, access, and manage e-learning on their own.

Eleven Core Capabilities of a LMS

1. A common online course catalog
2. A common online registration system
3. An up-front competency assessment tool
4. The ability to launch and track e-learning
5. Learning assessments
6. Management of learning materials
7. Integrating knowledge management resources
8. Organizational readiness information
9. Customized reporting
10. Supporting collaboration and knowledge communities
11. Systems integration

An LMS Should Ideally Be:

The Goal of Interoperability

Interoperability is the ability of your e-learning systems to work with each other. Given the current state of market development, this is not as easy as it sounds!  Most products have consistency only across the vendor's product lines and are inconsistent with products from other vendors.   However, the development of XML shows promise and should accelerate work on standards.

Standards

Here are some key standards groups:

Learning/Knowledge Objects

He learning/knowledge object is a small "chunk" of instruction or information that can stand alone and still have meaning to a learner. 

By breaking down courses into component parts, we receive several benefits:

Example: consider what Integrated Project Systems (www.ipspm.com) is doing in the area of project management training.  they broke their project has been training into reusable learning objects, and now can use it for multiple purposes.

Don't Just Throw Stuff Out There

Systems and tools must work together, making learning more cost effective and easier to manage.

Some Notes about Authoring

Key Questions To Ask About An E-Learning Infrastructure And Tools

Chapter 7: The Four Cs of Success: Culture, Champions, Communication, & Change

E-Learning bridges work and learning.  The best classroom experiences bring work into the classroom; the best e-learning experiences bring learning into the workplace.  Note that this is a fundamental shift---you no longer go to school, the school comes to you.

The Four Cs

E-learning cannot thrive without attention to the "Four Cs":

Building a Learning Culture

Over and over again, we see people "reinventing the wheel".  that's because e-learning initiatives are often viewed as unique occurrences.  kept OSF usually, the real culprit is the corporate culture.  Many times companies invest in technology only to find that the culture will not support it.

Culture-Building Strategies That Don't Work

Culture-Building Strategies that Do Work

Signs Your Senior Leadership May Not Be Serious About E-Learning

Helping Senior Managers Become True Champions Of E-Learning

Leadership and Communication

Here are nine steps to follow to make sure that your communications are well received:

Four Additional Rules of Change

1. Don't put change management off until deployment.
2. One size doesn't fit all.
3. Focus on change from start to finish-- and beyond.
4. Be open and don't over sell.

Chapter 8: Justifying E-Learning to Top Management…and to Yourself

Criteria For Success

Justifying e-Learning Costs

An Example

Suppose an employee's salary plus benefits is 80,000 dollars a year--- $ 348.00 per workday.  A five-day training class means $1740 in lost productivity.  If an equivalent e-learning class can be completed in three days, the costs of lost productivity are only $1044--- a savings of $696.  If an organization has 1000 people who need to be trained, the cumulative savings are $696,000.

Demonstrating E-Learning Quality

Evaluating E-Learning Service

How accessible is the-learning program?

Evaluating E-Learning Speed

Sponsored is the system to the changing demands of the business and the changing requirements of its employees?  That is,

Two Questions Every Training Organization Asks… But Perhaps Shouldn't

1. How many hours of development time does it take to deliver one hour of e-learning?
2. What percentage of all our training should be technology-based?

These are poor questions because the answer to them is almost always "It Depends".

The E-Learning Value Proposition

Here is the formula for the value of e-learning: Cost efficiency + quality + service + speed = value

Chapter 9: Reinventing the Training Organization

Signs The Training Department May Not Be Truly Interested In E-Learning

Example:  at Microsoft, Bill Gates reported in 1999 that online training usage increased five times faster than classroom training, and that twice as much online training is offered than classroom training.

Can Training Organizations Change?

Factors that help resist change to e-learning include:

A New Business Model for E-Learning

Well, that’s it for the summary.   Here are other topics and chapters in the book:

Want to submit a book summary?  Email it to cogsim@cogsim.com.  If we post it, we'll credit you.