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

QUOTES

• "The next big killer application for the Internet is going to be education.  Education over the Internet is going to be so big it is going to make email usage look like a rounding error in terms of the Internet capacity it will consume." 

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

• "In my lifetime, I've never seen hype and understatement walk hand in hand.  But that's what we're seeing now.  I'm convinced that our great-grandchildren will look back and wonder why we didn't get it."

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

• "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."

       --Alvin Toffler, Futurist

• "All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience."

       --Mao Zedong

• "The paradox of our times is that we are inundated by information yet starved for knowledge."

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

• "In short, many training departments today are merely using the Internet to increase the rate at which they "spray" training at employees and "pray" that organizational performance will improve as a result. for many trainee departments, the Internet is simply a bigger hose with which to deliver training."

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

• "When the rate of change outside exceeds the rate of change inside, the end is in sight."

       --Jack Welch, CEO of GE

PREFACE

• Most people believe that CBT is a recent innovation when, in fact, it's been around over 30 years.   Yet in 1998 most organizations reported that less than 15% of their corporate education was technology-based.  We must conclude that, despite its promise, technology-based education has been disappointing at best.

•  Why This Book?  And Why Now?  Because the Internet is fundamentally altering the technological and economic landscapes so radically that it is now possible to similarly alter the use of technology for learning.

•   However, there's also a danger:  if we continue to focus too much on the technology and not enough on how well it is used, we will continue to fail.

•   The Inevitability of Online Learning: Businesses need to get information to large numbers of people 24/7, farther and faster than ever, and do it cheaper than ever before. 

•   "The question is no longer whether organizations will implement online learning, but whether they will do it well."

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

• Learning and training are not the same thing.  Training is the way instruction is conveyed, while learning is a our internal way of processing information into knowledge.  Training supports learning but is not in itself learning.

• An effective learning strategy must transcend training.

• In business, learning is a means to an end---usually, enhanced work force performance that translates into value (e.g., better products, better services, lower costs, better competitive position, greater productivity, increased market share).

•  Businesses have traditionally relied on training as the default way of improving performance, and instruction as the process that makes training work. 

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

• Amount spent on corporate training in 1998: $62.5 billion.
• Amount spent on facilities and overhead (e.g., classrooms): $4.5 billion---an 89% increase over the previous five years.
• Amount spent on outside services: $15 billion--- a 52% increase over the previous five years.

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

• Access is key: employees need technical infrastructure, empowerment, flexibility, and time.
• Comprehensive approach: information any organization should be reliable, accurate, complete, organized, and labeled for easy retrieval and use.
• Balance: a complementary balance between training and information.

Three Business Needs

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

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

•      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

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

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

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

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

•      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?

•      It couldn't keep up with changing technologies

•      A rapidly changing knowledge base often rendered content obsolete

•      A lot of it was deadly dull.

The Cycle of Failure

• Discovery
• Hype leads to high expectations
• Initial programs are poor and ineffective
• Disillusionment

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:

• The for-profit university industry, as witnessed by Jones International University and the University of Phoenix.
• Course management software like Blackboard and WebCT.
• Learning portals that consolidate courseware from different vendors.
• E-learning integrated into business web sites as a value-added feature.

E-Learning Defined

E-learning is based on three fundamental criteria:

• It is networked, making it capable of rapid updating, distribution, and share of information or instruction.
• It is delivered via a computer using the Internet.
• It focuses on a broad view of learning that goes beyond traditional training paradigms.

Benefits Of E-Learning

• Lowers costs
• Enhances business responsiveness
• Brings consistency
• Allows customization
• Content is more timely
• Content is more dependable
• Learning available 24-7
• No user "ramp up" time
• Is universal
• Builds community
• Is scalable
• Leverages corporate investment in the web
• Provides an increasingly valuable customer service

A Strategic Foundation for E-Learning

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

• Coordination of E-Learning with other training efforts
• Necessary infrastructure
• Learning culture, management of ownership, and change management
• A sound business case for E-Learning
• Reinventing the training organization

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

• Goals that are meaningful and motivational
• Learning by simulations.
• Learning from mistakes.
• Robust coaching and feedback
• Expert Modeling
• Learning from stories
• Authenticity
• Reuse after learnin

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

• Individual
• Organizational
• Tacit
• Explicit

Benefits of a "Corporate Brain"

• Learning: applying information in new situations.
• Vision and action: seeing and reacting to the outside world.
• Memory: Storehousing the collective intelligence of the firm.
• Toolbox: Access to performance support tools and systems.
• Creativity: a giant suggestion box and brainstorming forum.
• Integration: Bringing together the firm's various people & skills

The Knowledge Management Pyramid

• Level 3: Intelligence: at this level, the online knowledge has become so valuable that the organization depends on it to operate effectively.

• Level 2: Information creation, sharing, and management: people contribute to the system by creating content, thus growing the content database.  Information is kept current by constant updating. Common tasks are completed online in a manner that is more efficient than the older non-automated procedures.

• Level 1: Document Management: putting documents online and facilitating access and retrieval to them.

Performance Support

Performance support enables you to:

• "Get up to speed" more quickly in a new job.
• Perform tasks that you normally could not perform without the assistance of other people.
• Perform tasks better without having to learn them.
• Use tools that amplify your productivity.

Forms of Performance Support

•      Checklists

•      Forms

•      Reference Cards

•      Electronic Performance Suppor 

Gloria Gery's Three Levels of Performance Support:

• External: Provided externally to a system or process. Examples include job aids and help desks.
• Extrinsic: Internal to the system or process but initiated by the user. Examples include software wizards, context-sensitive help, and templates.
• Intrinsic: Internal to the system or process and initiated by the system in an attempt to anticipate problems and adapt to users' needs.  An example includes the pop-up help in Microsoft Office (well, sometimes!).

Is Expertise Always Required?

• Training people to become experts takes an immense amount of time, money, and practice.  There will probably always be jobs where true expertise is demanded (e.g., surgeons, pilots).  But there are also many jobs where expertise does not have to be internalized but can rely on knowledge support.

• Integrating Performance Support Into Knowledge Management

• Performance support and knowledge management complement each other as well as augment training.  If you're only using one, consider incorporating the other.

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:

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

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

•      Consumer: www.purina.com

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

•      Legal: www.lrn.com

•      Books: www.amazon.com

•      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:

•      Get Help: knowledge and information

•      Get Productive: tools

•      Get Connected: community

•      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:

• Proposal generation tools
• Online sales account management systems
• Automated expense and purchasing

Such systems have the advantages of:

• Faster task completion
• He informed process
• Greater accuracy
• Integration with other systems (e.g., allows for better reports)

Two final reasons why knowledge management is so important:

• Good knowledge management can reduce the need for training
• Demand for training tends to decline over time, while demand for knowledge stays constant or even grows.

Building a knowledge management solution

1. Determine if the effort makes sense.
2. Understand a community you are addressing. 
3. Know what you know.
4. Master the content. 
5. Employ the technology of the enterprise.
6. Develop a knowledge structure and test it.
7. Prototype.
8. If you include performance support, it should make work easier, not harder.
9. Plan for the running of the KM system, not just the building of it.
10. Work to generate support you'll need going forward.
11. One portal.
12. Don't stop at document distribution.
13. Understand a value of time.
14. Establish key KM roles: e.g., information architect, editor, online librarian, knowledge owner, content author, community facilitator.
15. Build collaboration into the system.
16. Balance explicit knowledge with tacit knowledge.
17. Give incentives and reward participation.
18. Finally, though be afraid to "hang" online training from your KM system.

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:

• Where is e-learning not appropriate?
• How should e-learning be used to supplement classroom learning?
• How should the e-learning and classroom learning components be sequenced?
• How much time should there be between each component?
• How can on-the-job experience be integrated into the architecture?
• How will the effectiveness of the total learning architecture be assessed?

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:

• The classroom may no longer be the default delivery system.
• Less teaching, more facilitating
• More reliance on online original source materials.
• Course start and end dates become increasingly irrelevant.

Building a Learning Architecture

• Conduct a thorough needs assessment.
• Base your architecture design on the competencies you wish to build.
• Keep the business need in mind.
• Test your architecture assumptions with all stakeholders.
• Start by associating classroom learning what application and teamwork, and e-learning with content and tools.
• Use existing source materials, if available.
• Use the web to link all learning components.
• Help people learn "how to learn".
• Think "precision learning".
• Create and maintain a community on the web.
• Use the classroom has makes tension of your online learning community.
• An gauge learners every step away: keep communications up, communicate the value of the program, provide incentives for sticking with it, create opportunities for employers to use the program, keep technological problems from ruining things, and be responsive to problems.

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:

• Require a much deeper understanding of instructional design
• Are more costly to develop

Synchronous programs have several uses:

• Quick applications or process training
• Create greater access to key events
• Learning management
• Community building
• Online conferencing
• Rich media delivery
• Preservation of key events

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

• PLATO was one of the earliest forms of computer-based training.  Mainframe-based, it was dominant in its day, but events (e.g., the rise of PCs) overtook its leadership in the market. 

• TRO Learning purchased PLATO and begin an effort to turn it around.  They upgraded it, replaced the closed, a flexible platform with an open system based on standards, and surrounded it with a training management system.  Today, PLATO is once again a leading educational software system.

• Moral: an appropriate infrastructure almost killed this meeting learning system, but rethinking technology and the surrounding environment rejuvenated it.

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:

• Authoring tool neutral
• Vendor neutral
• Browser neutral
• Platform neutral
• Doesn't use client-side software
• Free of Plug-ins (or use one that's ubiquitous)
  Scalable
• Capable of working through a firewall
• Intuitive Interface
• Real-time registration
• Tracking
• User personalization
• Robust test engine
• Fast
• Secure
• Easy to upgrade
• Dependent on established technology
• From a stable vendor
• Well-supported
• Reasonable in cost

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:

• Airline Industry CBT Committee (AICC)
• EDUCAUSE instructional management systems project (IMS)
• Advanced distributed learning (ADL)
• Alliance of remote instruction authoring and distribution networks for Europe (ARIADNE)
• IEEE learning technology standards committee (IEEE LTSC)

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:

• we can build object libraries that allow different products to use the same material. 
• it make objects searchable.
• costs are lowered because objects can be shared again and again, even for different purposes
• it enables customization of learning

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

• The claim that anyone can author online training is false
• Using subject matter experts (SMEs) as authors is a risky venture
• No authoring tool is good at everything
• Standardizing on one tool may not be a good idea
• Templates can help
• Much of the more complex interactions and simulations are often beyond the capabilities of authoring tools
• Authoring is just one aspect of building an e-learning solution

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

1. What is the level of web access throughout the company?
2. What is the relationship between the training and IT departments?
3. How collaborative and coordinated over e-learning are all the training organizations in the company?
4. Is there a comprehensive e-learning portal strategy in place?
5. Does the organization have a position on interoperability?
6. Does the organization have the right talent, positioned in the right roles, to make the best use of its 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":

• A Culture of learning
• Champions to lead e-learning efforts
• Communicating the value of e-learning
• A Change strategy to bring it all together

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

• Give customers what they want: this may not be what they need!
• Create and distribute a robust course catalog: sometimes organizations offer too many classes-- especially when existing classes are "sliced and diced" into a plethora of similar courses.
• Think of training as just another product and sell it: sometimes training gets thought of as another business instead of supporting the main business.
• Make training "free": usually, free training has little in the way of direction on who takes what.
• Build competency models, but don't use them: most competency models said in big binders and never get implemented.
• Call yourself a "Corporate University": just changing your name isn't enough unless it's backed up with fundamental changes in the training organization.
• Move everything to technology: ending all classroom training is not appropriate.
• Mandate training: making people come to training should be used only for certain categories like safety training and training to avoid sexual harassment.

Culture-Building Strategies that Do Work

• Make a coach or the directive manager accountable for learning.
• Focus at the enterprise level.
• Integrate learning directly into work.
• Design well and certify where appropriate.
• Pay for knowledge: i.e., offer incentives for learning.
• Everyone's a teacher.
• Get rid of the training noise (jargon).
• Eliminate the ability to pay as a gatekeeper (lest training become a "perk" for the richest departments).
• Make access is easy as possible.

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

• Work is assigned to people who are already overloaded
• Work is assigned to people who don't have a clue.
• Directives are given without any money.
• The e-learning budget is always cut first during hard times.
• Senior managers refuse to learn anything about e-learning.
• Leaves it to the team to make all the decisions.
• Refuses to tell his/her boss anything about it.
• Does not a sign any deliverables or accountability.
• Believes that going to training is either a perk or sign of a performance problem.
• Approves other learning strategies that undermine e-learning.
• Suggests that employees of the web at work is disruptive.

Helping Senior Managers Become True Champions Of E-Learning

• Build a sound business case.
• Use success stories.
• Educate executives.
• Coach executives.
• Overcome prior perceptions.
• Work the politics.
• Ignore the disbelievers.

Leadership and Communication

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

1. Consolidate your strategy development.
2. Trash old communications vehicles.
3. Use the web to communicate.
4. Avoid selling and focus on value.
5. Communicate value from the top down.
6. Build support approach with coaches first.
7. Build and promote an initial win.
8. Control external messages.
9. Encourage web savvy.

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

• Cost
• Quality
• Service
• Speed

Justifying e-Learning Costs

• E-learning is more efficient.
• Delivery cycle time: even though e-learning takes more time to develop, completed courses can be taken by many learners at once, so the overall time to train a work force is equivalent.
• The financial benefits of e-learning go to the organization rather than the training department, but these benefits do not occur until the delivery side.
• The biggest chunk of money saved is not in instructor costs or travel, but rather in "student" 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

• Level one: reaction ("smile sheets")
• Level two:  learning (assessment results)
• Level three: performance (better and/or fast productivity)
• Level four: results (the contribution to business effectiveness)

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,

• How quickly can it be up and running?
• How quickly can every Jeffrey one?
• How quickly can it be changed or revised?

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

• "We're studying it"
• "Nobody's asking for it"
• "Our e-learning strategy is posted on our web site"
• "We've got a couple of pilot projects going"
• "We're waiting for approval"
• "We're waiting for the technology to improve"
• "We're not sure if this is here to stay"
• "It will hurt our classroom business"
• "Let's see who else is doing it"
• "Our instructors or against it"
• "Our students don't want it"
• "You can't learn at the worksite---that's why we have a training center"
• "We can't afford it"

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:

• There is a long and reasonably successful tradition of classroom learning.
• There is a legitimate ego-building quality about teaching.
• Instructors and training facilities represent a major investment.
• There is the perception that if employees did new one classroom training, they wouldn't come.

A New Business Model for E-Learning

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

• Re-examining facilities
• Outsourcing
• Professional development and recruitment

• Chapter 10: Navigating the Vendor Marketplace
• Chapter 11: E-Learning on a Shoestring
• Chapter 12: Creating Your E-Learning Strategy
• Chapter 13: the Future of E-Learning