E-Learning White Papers and Research

Assessing the Risks: RoHS Compliance
By Rob Spiegel
Electronic News, September 2005

While large companies are mostly ready to comply with environmental imperatives such as the European Union’s RoHS directive, small- and medium-size companies are lagging, even though the July 1, 2006 deadline is less than 10 months away. But the actions, or lack of action, by these small companies could stymie larger companies. That’s because most large companies use products produced by smaller enterprises.
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Cost Comparison: Instructor-Led Vs. E-Learning
by Paul T. Walliker (Caterpillar University)
published by ASTD's Learning Circuits, June 2005

To help its managers better understand the relationship between cost and delivery methodology, Caterpillar University constructed a mathematical model to better calculate the key cost components. Its key finding: even when similar programs are compared, e-learning is less expensive to deliver almost regardless of learner population. Even with a small population and a class as short as one hour, e-learning was still more than 40 percent less expensive than instructor-led training. When larger populations are modeled the cost advantage of online learning is even greater, with savings as high as 78 percent. Walliker notes advantages of e-learning for such factors as: instructor costs, learner opportunity costs, training efficiency, velocity, timeliness, and consistency.
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EFFECTIVENESS OF LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES:
The Costs and Effectiveness of Technology-Based Approaches to Teaching and Learning

This project was carried out by a partnership of organizations led by the Office for Partnerships for Advanced Skills. The partnership included the Network of Ontario Distance Educators (NODE), Contact North (CN) and Bell Learning Solutions (BLS). In particular, the contributions of Cathy Boak (NODE), Lois Tobin (CN), and Barbara Shopland (BLS) are gratefully acknowledged.

The project design was guided by a Steering Committee comprised of Dr. Tom Carey, University of Guelph, Dr. Carole Farber, University of Western Ontario and Dr. Lynn Davie, OISE/University of Toronto. Their assistance added greatly to the success of the program.

Three consultants contributed considerable expertise to the project: Dr. Elyse Engel; Dr. Norman McKinnon and Lawry Trevor-Deutch.

The model benefited greatly from the appraisal of Dr. Tony Bates, University of British Columbia and Carole Farber.

Funding support was provided by the Office of Learning Technologies, Human Resources Development Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Education and Training, and Bell Learning Solutions. Their support is gratefully acknowledged.

7.4.5 CD-ROM: Soldering Skills Course (Page 98)

The soldering skills course is part of a suite of ten courses that were produced by Newbridge in collaboration with Learnsoft. Extensive use of Newbridge's expertise in the development ensured quality content in the CD that met Newbridge's needs. The focus in this report is on one of the ten courses: soldering skills.

The classroom version of the soldering course took five and a half days to deliver and complete. After converting the course to CD-ROM, the classroom time was reduced to three and a half days, and the time spent on the CD amounted to approximately 3 hours including the test. The test took about 30 minutes to complete. As a result, the time away from the job for training was reduced considerably and productivity losses were minimized by the multimedia training.

Assessment of the CD-ROM involved three focus groups and the test scores of 56 participants. Two focus groups each had seven participants while the third had eight.

Results of the Focus Groups

Test Scores: Of the 56 participants who completed the test, 13 failed to achieve the mastery level of 70%. The high, low and mean scores were 96%, 66% and 77.3% respectively.

Cost Analysis: Based on an internal analysis by Newbridge the soldering course produced a saving of $596,000.

7.4.6 Conclusions

Based on the results of the focus groups and the test scores it is clear that the soldering skills CD-ROM produced effective learning. Forty-three (76.8%) of the 56 participants achieved the required mastery level. In addition to effective learning, the conversion to CD reduced training time by 37% (5.5 days to 3.5 days) and saved over half a million dollars. Savings included instructor time and costs, classroom space and administration, and participant opportunity cost savings due to reduced training time.

This is an excerpt from the 117 page report. For the complete document, please refer to: Office for Partnerships for Advanced Skills.

September 30, 2002
e-learning Newsline
News

E-learning solutions lead the pack in 2002 when it comes to generating returns on corporate investments in information technology, says Nucleus Research of Wellesley, Mass.

Nucleus, which provides independent financial analysis of corporate IT investments, released in September its list of ROI leaders and laggards among enterprise technologies in 2002. The greatest ROI came from e-learning solutions and e-business integration platforms, the firm says.

ROI laggards (technologies demonstrating the lowest returns) included what Nucleus calls monolithic CRM systems, as well as standalone content management systems and e-commerce and business-to-business marketplaces.

Nucleus says the findings are based on thousands of ongoing ROI studies for Global 2000 corporations.

Those studies show that companies adopting e-learning initiatives have quickly recognized first-tier benefits including reduced costs for travel, human resources overhead, regulatory compliance, and customer-support costs. These companies later receive second-tier benefits including improved employee performance that directly impacts profitability.
Nucleus found that most organizations could gain significant returns from even modest investments in e-learning technology.

Also tagged as ROI leaders were e-business integration platforms such as Microsoft BizTalk Server and BEA WebLogic Integration, which allow companies to get more out of their existing IT infrastructures both through internal and B2B integration. Nucleus' studies show that they reduce costs, increase performance and ultimately generate new revenue
streams that translate into increased earnings.

As for the enterprise-technology laggards, Nucleus found that companies investing in e-commerce and business-to-business marketplaces in an effort to attract many new partners have found limited returns. They would have been better off investing in specific integration strategies with key partners, the research firm says.

Large CRM projects also are unlikely to achieve a healthy ROI because consulting and software costs outweigh returns, and a long deployment process slows pay-back. Nucleus finds that companies are better off investing in rapidly deployable CRM solutions with a smaller footprint and extending them over time as business objectives dictate.

Standalone content management is deemed a bad investment mainly because the higher costs associated with it have been rendered unnecessary by the growth of content management functionality in many Web server and portal products. The research finds that customers achieving high returns from content management are doing so as part of a broader strategy with tight integration.

For more information about the findings visit www.nucleusresearch.com.

THE BUSINESS CASE FOR NEW MEDIA

There is overwhelming evidence that NMLM can have a very positive impact on training in an organization. Research and experience show that the benefits can be both in financial terms and in terms of quality. How NML will affect an organization will vary considerably and depends on what products are used, how they are used and the cost of the products.

Other financial benefits can be achieved but are harder to quantify and attribute directly to NML. These include:

New media learning materials can be significantly more costly to develop than traditional training and therefore a cost/benefit analysis should be undertaken to determine how the implementation of NML will affect an organization. However, as inexpensive off-the-shelf programs and programs that can be customized to an organization become more available, the impact of development costs will be diminished considerably.

The quality of NML can, if developed properly can be superior to conventional training resulting in:

Human factors play an important role in the benefits of NML. Learning is more efficient because the individual has more control over what is taught and the rate of teaching. In addition, many people enjoy the interaction with the computer and so are better motivated to learn. Privacy can also play an important role as the computer is viewed as nonjudgmental.

To the individual, NML represents a great opportunity to learn more, in less time, and in an entertaining environment under the individual's control. To the organization, NML can provide significant overall savings and better trained individuals.

A series of models and approaches are described in this report to assess the value of NMLM to an organization. These range from traditional analytical tools, to the development of a multilevel return on investment which include "soft factors." The level of sophistication needed for developing the business case will depend on the circumstances. As strong as the argument is for NML, actual implementation must be assessed on a case by case basis. An organization must look at the alternatives being considered, in what settings, for what subject matters, and to achieve what instructional objectives.

Developing proper business cases will be necessary both for the developer - making the case for a sale, and for the user - to justify the change. To be useful, analysis for the NML alternative should be simple, flexible and believable.

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Source: Industry Canada - Government of Canada Market Assessment Study of New Media Learning Materials, Volume 2, March/96.

MOVING THE CAMERA
How e-learning can learn some lessons from the entertainment industry.

In 1894 the Lumiere brothers created in France the Cinematographe, which could record and project moving pictures onto a screen. A year later, the brothers held a public screening of their first minute-long film, “Workers Leaving the Factory.” The new medium inspired and fascinated a swarm of creative individuals who began to brainstorm a multitude of wondrous uses for it. The rest, as they say, is Hollywood history.

The evolution of the film industry is worth noting because parallels can be drawn between the moving pictures of the early 1900s and e-learning. For many years, the camera remained fixed while the actors, speakers, and scenes moved in front of it. People were used to watching theater actors move about before them while they sat motionless in their seats. When the new medium appeared, what did everyone do? They took the old ideas they were accustomed to and put a camera in front of them. Only years later did some imaginative individual think, “Hey, let’s try moving the camera as well!” Wow, what a concept.

Cinematography today is vastly different from how it started. It took time to explore the unique capabilities of the new medium and create from there.

Although online learning, in one form or another, has been on the scene for many years now, I contend that we are still in the early days of its development. The mistake that many organizations make is to jump on the bandwagon and shout, “We deliver e-learning on all our products! We are part of the e-learning revolution! Anytime, anyplace, blah, blah, blah.”

Some organizations have done a good job, but in most cases what passes for e-learning has been a crude attempt to turn existing instructor-led training (ILT) materials into Web pages and spice it up with a few cool graphics and so-called interactivity. We are still thinking, often unconsciously, in terms of the classic classroom-style training model and trying to get e-learning to mimic it. We are still keeping the camera stationary.

The traditional ILT model has a lot going for it in many respects, but let’s not try to shoehorn it onto the Web. We need to look at the new medium -- its strengths, its weaknesses, and its unique capabilities -- and start brainstorming from there.

I hear those starting to design e-learning systems throw all their existing training materials onto the Web and say, “We must have some interactivity with a real person; it’s a crucial part of the educational process. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but if you bought a book only to lament the fact that you couldn’t chat with the author for clarification, wouldn’t you consider that a badly written book? Just because education and learning has been dominated by the “sage on the stage” model for thousands of years doesn’t mean that has to be the only model for learning. Let’s stop comparing e-learning materials and delivery mechanisms to ILT to see if they shape up. E-learning doesn’t need all of the ILT elements to be successful. In fact, if you try to force the ILT model onto e-learning you’ll end up with square pegs forced into round holes.

An instructor friend worked with a software company that taught technical product information to customers using the standard instructor-led classroom method. The students sat and listened to an instructor explain the basics of the product architecture using PowerPoint slides. Then they developed applications with hands-on programming work. Management suggested that the PowerPoint portion of the training be moved online so that the students--mostly developer-geeks-- could learn the basic architecture back at their offices or homes before they flew in for hands-on training. This way they could save time and do more of what they loved -- hacking the code.

This had the elements of a great idea, but the assumption that accompanied the idea was not so great. The assumption was that the text and graphics from the slides could be moved to the Web and then, with the simple addition of some extra text, explanations, and navigation, you were home free.

There’s the root of the problem. ILT materials are different from those required for online learning. Training materials are designed to help push information to an eager mind. Learning materials must be designed to help a learner pull information. Taking existing ILT materials and dumping them on the Web is trying to force the ILT model on e-learning. It doesn’t work.

The materials my friend produced for ILT delivery consisted of basic ideas, bullet points, and diagrams. The slides were nothing more than a skeleton or a structure on which to hang information. The substance of the training was provided by the instructor, who elucidated with background information and examples, and also questioned and challenged the students. The diagrams in the slides enabled the instructor to trace flows with a finger or point to specific elements and highlight details. Like any good instructor, my friend constantly asks questions that clear up confusion and aid understanding. His ILT materials were only meaningful when accompanied by an instructor; they couldn’t, and were not designed to, stand alone.

So what happened? Under a tight deadline, and being new to online learning, he did a basic port of all the existing training materials to HTML pages and added some explanatory text where he felt it was necessary. After four weeks, he had “completed” the project. Management congratulated him and was happy. Then, unfortunately, customers actually tried to use the materials to learn about the product architecture and its capabilities. My friend’s training department got calls and e-mails every day from developers asking for clarification: “What’s the blue dotted line around the interfaces supposed to represent?” “Does traffic flow from left to right or top to bottom in Figure 10?” “What is the purpose of the four functions on page 20?”

When the developers arrived for their week of hands-on training, my friend spent the entire first day trying to clarify the content of the online materials and thus ended up doing just what he used to do -- teaching the basic architectural concepts in a classroom setting. The problem was not that the e-learning medium wasn’t suited to communicating the technical information but that the materials were not written for that medium. They were training materials placed online, as opposed to online training materials. He had a new medium to work with but was thinking inside the box of the old medium. He was keeping his camera still.

So how is one supposed to go about creating online learning materials? Consider two basic things: a) What are the crucial elements, concepts, and information that need to be communicated? b) How can the online medium’s capabilities be used to communicate these concepts and information? Doing this well takes a lot of time, expertise, and resources.

A simple diagram that allows a classroom instructor to point out operation flow is only confusing to an online learner. The flow that the instructor so easily illustrated with his index finger must be shown dynamically in an online diagram -- maybe using color schemes, animation, or streaming audio. Where the live instructor used to say, “By the way, although this diagram makes it look like element A is on top of B, it is actually parallel to it; it was just hard to draw it that way,” we now have the challenging task of trying to communicate this via text, audio, video, or by redrawing the diagram. A good instructor can, and often does, juggle and tap dance with mediocre materials. An online learning system cannot afford to have any mediocre materials; they must stand alone.

The good news is that developing e-learning content forces us to determine instructional objectives carefully, decide which crucial concepts and skills the learners must grasp, and painstakingly create complete materials that carry the full teaching burden on their own. For learning materials to stand alone, for them to be absolutely clear and self-explanatory, content developers and e-learning architects need to spend more time, more thought, more resources than when they produced ILT materials.

Content development is entering a new era because there’s a new medium. We previously could get away with poor content and courseware development with ILT materials -- the instructor could juggle, perform slight-of-hand tricks, punt, or apologize. Online learning materials and content must be light years ahead of the ILT model if we are to leverage the awesome possibilities of e-learning. We need to immerse ourselves in the new media, not drag stale ideas from the old classroom model and try to fix them. We need to start moving the camera.

Paul Clothier, author of The Complete Computer Trainer (McGraw Hill), is an education and training specialist, writer, and speaker. He can be contacted at paulclothier@yahoo.com.
Article used by permission of the author.







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EFFECTIVENESS OF LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES: The Costs and Effectiveness of Technology-Based Approaches to Teaching and Learning

THE BUSINESS CASE FOR NEW MEDIA

EFFECTIVENESS OF LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES:
The Costs and Effectiveness of Technology-Based Approaches to Teaching and Learning