TOP VENDORS DISCUSS HOW THEIR
ORGANIZATIONS ARE ADDRESSING THE FUTURE OF E-LEARNING.
It’s
a cutting-edge issue among bigger LMS vendors. Web
services (also known as Web 2.0) dictates that learners
pool training (rather than having it “pushed out” to
them) by providing gWeb portals into a client company’s
learning resources (LMS’s).
A panel composed of representatives from leading vendors
took time to discuss the impact of “Web 2.0” on the
learning market via an e-mail questionnaire originating
from
Elearning!
magazine’s editorial offices. Participating on
Elearning!
magazine’s panel are:
>>Don
Duquette, senior vice president, Learning Solutions,
General Physics Corp.
>>Jim
Riley, CEO and president, Learn.com
>>Julie
Ogilvie, vice president of corporate marketing,
SkillSoft
>>Massood
Zarrabian, CEO and president, Outstart Inc.
>>Sanjay
Dholakia, senior vice president and general manager,
Learning and Talent Management Business Unit, SumTotal
>>A.G.
Lambert, vice president product marketing, Saba
>>Frank
Russell, CEO and president, GeoLearning Inc.
>>Steven
Shaw, chief learning officer, Eedo Knowledgeware On to
the discussion:
Is it more efficient and convenient for vendors to
enable a customer’s employees to pool their training
(rather than have it pushed out to them) by providing
Web portals into the company’s LMS’s?
OGILVIE:
Profile-driven portals that offer personalized access
into an employee’s individualized information needs
provide access to a variety of enterprise systems based
on the individual’s profile. It streamlines access to
information and makes employees more productive, so it
should be extended to an employee’s learning needs.
Bringing learning into the main interface will help
drive increased adoption. Rather than threatening the
learning industry, this trend is clearly a major signal
of learning becoming more integrated into the life of
the enterprise — which should be the ultimate goal.
LAMBERT:
It isn’t a question of what is convenient for vendors,
but of meeting customer and learner needs.
Employees need to be able to access learning in the
context of their daily jobs. To this end, Saba supports
a variety of ways for customers to make learning
available: They can prompt learners via e-mail to link
directly to a course offering or curriculum that has
been assigned; employees can view their ‘My Success
Plan’ on the Saba portal; or components of Saba
interface can be embedded in customer portals to enable
training to be presented with broader customer Website
information.
ZARRABIAN:
Rather than vendor convenience, let’s look at users’
convenience. Having Web portals as the go-to-place for
anything an employee, customer or partner needs is
clearly a great idea. Pooling should provide a wide
variety of necessary services like connecting employees
to IT services or providing support for customers.
E-learning can and should be a part of the Web portal.
But keep in mind that a Web portal is really only as
good as the content within it. This will equally apply
to an LMS or to e-learning. Pooling makes useful content
better. If there is no useful content, then pooling
won’t matter much.
DUQUETTE:
I refer to this as the portalization of learning, which
is significantly more efficient for accessing learning
and development needs. Today, it is critical to be able
to get the information you need when you need it from a
centralized place. Our approach is to create a learning
or talent management portal, allowing a unified view of
multiple applications that are important to the user.
Portals are effective vehicles for personalizing Web
content and directing applications and application
outputs to target groups and individuals. In their most
active form, portals can also be used to build
communities of practice, share team projects and foster
collaboration.
DHOLAKIA:
Both methods need to exist for a business to operate
efficiently. Employees need to be able to ‘pull’ quickly
when they need something, and the company needs to be
able to ‘push’ efficiently to deal with compliance
measures and business-critical information.
In knowledge-intensive industries where schedules are
less uniform, it is more convenient to have employees
access a pool of training through a portal of their
choice. This self-directed development gives younger
employees a more Web-2.0 feel in terms of access, but
with the LMS providing the platform, or ‘engine’ behind
the portal. However, in labor-intensive industries or
highly scheduled environments, our customers find it
more efficient to have directive learning.
SHAW:
[With] numerous LMS systems, content silos hide
available content from different parts of the
organization, leading to unnecessary duplication. The
schedule for mounting new courses or replacing existing
courses with updated versions is largely determined by
the schedules of IT or LMS administrators, not the needs
or requirements of learners. Users must often access
different systems: an HR system, an LMS system, separate
virtual classroom tools or collaboration platforms,
and/or subscription-based information services.
On-demand, just-in-time, just-enough learning is
generally believed to be more efficient and more
effective. For most organizations, on-demand learning is
a dream, not a reality. They simply do not have the
right technology of infrastructure to make the dream
reality.
RUSSELL:
Anything that makes it easier, faster and more efficient
for customers and their learners to access training
resources will undoubtedly increase their overall
satisfaction. Creating Web portals into the larger
company’s LMS can be done in several ways, most commonly
by user groups or domains. User groups require a
technology platform with very advanced permission
capabilities in order to be flexible enough to meet an
organization’s business rules. Creating a new domain is
essentially like creating a ‘mini- LMS’ or ‘storefront’
for a particular division or entity. It should enable
each new portal to have its own look, feel and business
rules. It can also be set up with ecommerce
functionality to facilitate training commerce
transactions.
To that end, is it your impression that on-demand
learning is becoming more critical to the success of
your customers’ overall e-learning programs? If so, why?
OGILVIE:
As learning becomes more aligned with business needs,
the need for on-demand learning and information is
increasing dramatically. [This need] has been a driving
force in our continued investment in ‘informal
learning’’ products, as well as our Open Learning
Services Architecture (OLSA) that allows learning of all
kinds to be embedded into a variety of enterprise
systems. Informal learning makes up the majority of
on-the job learning, and it’s extremely important for
organizations to provide tools that support this.
LAMBERT:
On-demand learning has been a reality for several years.
The new trend that is emerging today is learning based
on Web 2.0 principles, or the ‘read/write LMS.’ [These]
technologies enable e-learning programs to capture
knowledge and contributions from the community of
learners, and not just push pre-defined courses. For
example, virtual classrooms and communities of practice
can incorporate blogs, wikis, discussions and more, to
build an informal knowledge base that captures the
institutional knowledge of the enterprise. The
interaction of formal and informal learning programs
enriches the knowledge conveyed by formal courses and
provides structure that makes informal learning more
accessible.
SHAW:
Apart from the technology, the real obstacle is
entrenched models of training and development. The move
to on-demand learning requires changes in how content is
organized, how it’s structured, and how success of L&D
is measured. On the business model side, getting to
on-demand learning requires an investment in new
infrastructure at an enterprise level. Most
organizations are reluctant to make this investment.
Basically, the shift to on-demand learning has to be
motivated at a very senior level in the organization
with the support of business lines. Effectively, L&D
must be a partner in this initiative, but may not
necessarily ‘own’ the initiative.
RUSSELL:
On-demand learning is certainly critical to an
organization’s overall learning strategy success. The
extremely brisk pace at which job roles, individual
responsibilities, the marketplace and even whole
companies change and evolve make it absolutely necessary
for learners to access just-in-time resources.
Organizations and employees can no longer wait for the
planning, creation and rollout of formal training
programs. The world just moves too fast. To be
successful, companies must be able to incorporate
on-demand learning opportunities, justin- time training,
on-the-job-training, as well as the technologies that
enable informal learning like blogs, wikis and instant
messaging. In this free market of learning, learners
will find the best solutions to their learning and
development challenges.
RILEY:
Absolutely. As the talent pool of skilled professionals
shrinks, demand increases exponentially. If
organizations are to compete in today’s global economy,
they need to implement a strong trainingand
talent-development program to maximize the potential of
their employees while retaining them for future growth.
With the war for talent, you might have to change your
mindset and bring the desired skills to the employee
instead of finding the person who already possesses
them. On-demand access to world-class training
technology makes this more accessible for all companies,
not just the
Fortune
1,000. With on-demand software, there is no hardware to
buy or software to install, which means there is less of
an upfront investment.
DHOLAKIA:
The business value of ondemand learning to customers
lies in the speed with which they are able to achieve
their objectives as well as ensuring that the right
information is available to an individual at exactly the
right moment. Information is retained far better and is
more valuable to the business and the employee when it
is delivered closer to the point of need. This concept
is also being driven by a demographic shift as more
people in the workforce become more comfortable with new
technology and social networking. It is exciting to see
this movement in the marketplace, as it allows
organizations to derive greater value from their
learning and talent investments.
ZARRABIAN:
Without question, ondemand learning is a critical
success factor for a rapidly growing percentage of our
customers. Their view is that the key to success of
their learning initiative is availability of up-to-date
knowledge, independent of it being offered as a formal
training module. In fact, they tell us that when the
overall e-learning program includes interaction among
the users and training professionals, the e-learning
program becomes more dynamic and interactive and the
value increases exponentially.
In this environment, training and development
professionals get first-hand knowledge about the
training module and can continue on improving the
content. At the end of it, the more dynamic the content
is, the more collaborative the environment, the more
impact it can have on the users, and the more effective
and efficient they become.
DUQUETTE:
Technology-based learning is a critical component of a
learning strategy, because it provides training when and
where you need it. ASTD’s 2007 State of the Industry
Report shows that technology- based learning delivery
now accounts for 30.3 percent of the learning hours
available, up from 11.5 percent five years ago.
Self-paced online learning continues to be the most
frequently-used type of technology-based learning, at 19
percent. With the introduction of new technologies with
advanced design capabilities, manufacturing techniques,
cycle times and a seemingly limitless host of other
efficiencies, the challenge of maintaining a workforce
with the proper skill and knowledge sets has
fundamentally transformed corporations’ view of
instructor-led training (ILT). If you have to train your
entire sales force every 60 days on a new product or
technology, there’s no way that classroombased ILT can
work.
How is your company accommodating this new approach to
e-learning?
RUSSELL:
Our GeoEngage module facilitates communities of practice
(CoPs), enables social networking and provides access to
Web 2.0 technologies like blogs, wikis and instant
messaging. These are all integrated with our LMS
platform so that informal learning can still be tracked,
managed and measured as easily as more formal training
programs.
Clients like Cabela’s and Computer Associates are using
these tools to great success because they enable
learning to occur with the flexibility and at the speed
their marketplaces require.
DUQUETTE:
We are producing more custom on-demand learning than
ever before. Our customers recognize that training that
is directly applicable to employees’ jobs is the best
way to gain competitive advantage and maintain employee
skill and knowledge levels. We are tasked with taking
classroom-based curriculum and developing blended
learning solutions that employ classroom and on-line
delivery modes.
In addition, we have been working with our customers to
develop strategies on building learning portals that
take advantage of the Web services offered by learning
management systems, learning content management systems
and other training applications. These strategies are
utilizing various online services such as blogs, social
networking, wikis and podcasts that are known as Web
2.0. These Web 2.0 technologies are gaining traction and
allow companies to communicate with customers and
encourage collaboration inside the company.
LAMBERT:
Saba is the only major LMS vendor that provides a
comprehensive and unified Learning and Virtual Class -
room/Web Conferencing solution. This allows us to
capture the knowledge of the enterprise through
automatic publishing of Web conference content and
refine that content through integrated content
management and authoring technology. We also provide
comprehensive search and learning recommendations that
allow employees to find content and training whether it
be formal learning courses, community-published content,
or links to documents and URL’s.
In addition, Saba offers sophisticated communities of
practice that provide discussions, wikis and other
group-publishing tools that help employees build a
network around their role, an assigned curriculum or a
corporate initiative. The combination of online
collaboration and Web conferencing, community
publishing, sophisticated search and communities of
practice allows informal learning processes to be
ubiquitous and effective.
DHOLAKIA:
We began investing in this evolution many years ago. We
saw this merging of the traditional ‘formal’ learning
with the ‘informal’ (now encompassed under the umbrella
of Web 2.0) learning and information exchange as the
next wave. As a result, we added collaboration and
discussion capabilities to our suite, along with
portal-like searchable access to ‘learning nuggets.’
This allowed folks to not only take a course when
appropriate, but also engage in a discussion thread with
experts or find a small bit of information when they
needed it.
We are evolving the LMS as the information management
and deployment platform and the central system of record
that helps to connect communities of practice and
like-minded people in informal settings. We are doing
this through a variety of mechanisms, including: (1)
mobile technology, which is pushing the network out; (2)
impromptu connections around specific topic areas; and
(3) linking talent development with formal learning with
Web 2.0 to help the individual take control of his or
her own career path. All would be accessed through a
customized portal that can be a MySpace-like paradigm.
ZARRABIAN:
OutStart’s goal is provide solutions that help knowledge
workers easily get the information they need, when they
need it. This crosses the spectrum from formal and
informal learning to sharing knowledge through social
networking and expertise exchange, all in an integrated
fashion. No one way of learning, of getting knowledge,
is best or right. It’s the combination that gives users
the breadth of knowledge they need.
OutStart [offers] a portfolio of solutions, including
LCMS, LMS, informal learning, social networking
software, and expertise exchange.
We feel that traditional e-learning is competing with
‘knowledge management’ (KM) when it shouldn’t be.
Combining the set of capabilities that are considered KM
technologies with learning technologies creates a single
dynamic environment of interactions, information
exchange and collaboration.
OutStart TrainingEdge.com, is our new on-demand SaaS
e-learning platform that integrates traditional learning
capabilities (LMS, LCMS) with Web 2.0 functionality
including communities, wikis, private messaging,
expertise exchanges and expert events. A second new
offering, OutStart SellingEdge.com, is a SaaS solution
that addresses the learning and knowledge sharing needs
of the sales organizations. It focuses less on formal
training and more on providing them with the
just-in-time knowledge required to facilitate and
accelerate buying cycles.
OGILVIE:
Search functionality is key to the on-demand approach to
learning and is available to other systems as a Web
service via OLSA. Our Books24x7 product line is a great
example of an on-demand resource that enables enterprise
agility. It provides a database of over 18,000 titles,
including business and technical books; summaries of
best-selling business books; articles authored by
leading executives; and reports from leading analysts.
Using the patented Books24x7 search engine, users can
effectively pinpoint the precise piece of information
they are looking for in an extremely efficient manner.
In addition to Books24x7, Skill Soft also offers many
other resources that can be searched and quickly
identified by learners. It is increasingly common for
learners to use formal resources (such as courses) in
informal ways.
For clients who want to be able to track learning usage
data no matter how the learner accessed a Book or
course, SkillSoft offers an On-Demand Communications
service. This Web service allows clients to maintain a
single data repository, important especially if the
content was launched from an enterprise system other
than an LMS (e.g., portal, HRIS, ERP, etc.).
Finally, the OLSA asset integration feature allows for
automated content importing and updating into any
system. This allows customers to provide richer, up-todate
learning faster.
SHAW:
Our technology is designed to allow organizations to
develop, manage and deliver on-demand learning. We offer
a best-of-breed learning content management system with
rapid authoring capability and knowledge management type
functionality.
For example, end-users can use a Knowledge Share portlet
to contribute content in the form of relevant URL’s,
journal or book references, stories, best practices or
lessons learned. Once approved, the information is
available to end-users through a search portlet. [That]
portlet also allows end-users to search for courses or
learning objects (on-demand, just-in-time learning),
along with knowledge- share objects. Content is stored
in the LCMS in an object format: Text and graphic
objects are aggregated into pages, pages into learning
objects, learning objects into modules, modules into
lessons, lessons into courses.
Our technology uses a dynamic publishing paradigm [that]
integrates LCMS and LMS platforms. Once a course is
catalogued in the LMS or an HR portal, users will access
the content from that point of entry. However, in
delivering the content, the LMS will reach back into the
LCMS to serve up the latest content.
The LCMS makes content available through search to users
based on profiles that can include elements such as
role, department, region, language, experience. We can
also make content available in an appropriate format to
devices [like] Blackberrys.
In addition to the LCMS, we offer other products to
support on-demand learning: a taxonomy management tool;
a federate search and retrieval and metadata harvesting
tool; a tool to develop performance support and deliver
workflow-based learning resources; and tools to monitor
the efficiency and effectiveness of both formal and
informal learning support strategies (Dashboard
analytics tool).
