This article is from the February 2003 issue of Update.
Although no commonly-accepted definition of ‘e-learning’ yet prevails, it is generally taken to embrace web-based learning, online training and distance learning.
The term has generated a lot of hype in recent times. But it is worth remembering that distance learning goes back a long way — at least to the 1850s, as US settlers drove westwards.
E-learning may be characterised by some or all of the following:
- a learner-centric approach, able to be tailored for individuals or organisations;
- content available any time, any place, anyhow;
- delivery dependent on technologies;
- allowing a spectrum of outcomes — from awareness to certification;
- amenable to online administration.
E-learning has emerged in two principal forms, each with pros and cons:
- ‘synchronous’, meaning real-time training, typically delivered via audio- or video-conferencing, TV/satellite broadcast, internet conferencing via a browser, chat rooms. Pros: instant feedback; cons: missed events disrupt learning;
- ‘asynchronous’, meaning that the learner accesses the teaching materials when convenient and via self-paced computer-based training (CBT), course materials accessed from a CD or a host website or a combination of the two, bulletin boards, email. Pros: self-directed; cons: learners feel isolated.
Huge numbers of e-learning vendors
The rapid growth in popularity of the internet, and the expectation that it would facilitate interactivity and cheap distribution, spawned more than 5,000 e-learning vendors. Although these start-ups soaked up the majority of new investment in private sector education, they have gained a tiny proportion of the market — of which no one has more than a three per cent share. Their offerings have tended to focus on content, services or technology. Only a few dozen vendors were managing to combine all three — often in partnership with top universities in the hope of obtaining ‘ready-made’ content.
The high cost of development (up to $500,000 for a 60-hour module) meant that the business model had to be ‘build it once and sell it many times’. The University of North Texas is reputed to have invested $25m and its website was recently offering courses for as little as $20 per head. Wharton’s offerings were priced at $3,500 and reports indicate that Harvard has pulled out of the race. This wide variation suggests market immaturity or reflects the amount of student/faculty contact offered — or both.
On the other hand, the Open University model has proved effective since 1969, although with very long timescales — typically more than five years to gain a degree. And MIT has been making its course notes freely available for several years.1
Training costs cut by 70 per cent
An article on the web attributed to Professor Maurer of Hyperwave asserts that e-learning reduces the costs of training by 70 per cent, by eliminating instructor fees and student travel and accommodation expenses — and that e-students learn 60 per cent faster than students on instructor-led courses. Such findings have encouraged a number of major employers to build their own solutions. For example, BT launched the BT Academy to offer staff a range of courses developed by a panel of e-learning suppliers for different specialised subjects.
These initiatives highlighted some serious issues. First, the difficulty of creating an e-learning course that accommodates the range of learning styles we are born with — holistic or serialist, image-centric or text-based. Second, the problem of testing e-learning effectiveness — particularly in the social sciences, including management, where there is rarely ‘one right answer’.
The proportion of UK managers holding a degree is far lower than in other leading European states. The government is trying to change this but, until recently, the norm in this country has been for managers to keep up to date through night school, learning-at-distance, conference seminars and ‘on the job’ training. But these techniques have only been partially successful in equipping managers to exploit innovations. This is particularly so in the area of business computing, where the best way to understand the capabilities of new tools is to learn to use them oneself.
Cass Business School (formerly City University Business School) foresaw this problem and in 1988 Professor Clive Holtham and Anne Leeming established Europe’s first MBA in Information Technology Management. In those days very few businesses had heard of email but, within a year, it was mandatory for all City’s postgraduate students to use email to bid for and submit coursework.
These developments were not confined to the classroom. The Cass team, including the author, sought every opportunity to introduce these ideas to the wider business community. Early communities were fostered with the help of the Institute of Directors, the DTI, the Parliamentary IT Committee and Computer Weekly. Initially the focus was on the use of email, Lotus Notes and CSCW (computer-supported collaborative working).
IT Skills Forum experiments
In 1994 the team was invited to collaborate with the IT Skills Forum — a consortium of leading enterprises whose aim was ‘to help executives get their arms around this thing called IT’. This provided an opportunity for fruitful business/academia cross-pollination. Over the next four years the consortium grew to 92 organisations, representing the private, public and not-for-profit sectors.
Some of the experiments proved successful; others did not. For example, we developed a searchable online database of 450 case studies of good practice in strategic information systems. Consortium members were given access to the User Group’s Notes server in Bristol linked to an Interliant server in Texas. The experiment was reported by the media, probably incorrectly, as ‘the UK’s first extranet’. However, the IT departments of several multinational firms refused to allow their directors to cross corporate firewalls. A conference was run with contributions via satellite by Peter Drucker and Arthur C. Clarke and this led a number of members to adopt video-conferencing. The outputs from interactive workshops were converted into handbooks, checklists and diagnostic tools, all distributed to members via a website.
The Executive Studio
A lasting legacy is to be found at the Executive Studio in West London.2 This installation, initially funded by the DTI, enables single or multi-company groups of executives to use state-of-the-art technologies to find consensually-agreed solutions to pressing business problems.
The design of the Studio was derived from our studies of pioneering installations in the US — such as the Executive Sandpit at Wake Forest University and Hoechst’s Innovation Lab at Charlotte, North Carolina. It also incorporated the pioneering work of Donald Winnicott at the Tavistock Institute and Seymour Papert in the US by promoting the use of metaphors and ‘transitional objects’ to accelerate executive understanding of new concepts.
Learning within a peer group
These experiments taught us that executives learn most quickly through face-to-face interaction and by hands-on experience of new technology solutions, within a peer group; and any planned series of learning events is invariably disrupted by the frenetic pace of executive work.
We have addressed this dichotomy by combining Argyris’s idea of the ‘atelier’ (a dedicated space for executive learning and work) with Schon’s concept of the ‘reflective practitioner’. The Studio and subsequent installations, such as the Centre for Virtual Work, constitute ateliers. We also use a ‘portable Lan’ (a network of 10 laptops running decision-support software) to create an atelier within 30 minutes in any suitable venue.
Support for the reflective practitioner is less tangible but no less important. It can be achieved by converting a series of events into a learning programme. This means providing the learner with continuous access both to the learning materials and to the rest of the learning community. Tools for this include a community website deploying the group’s objectives, timetables, downloadable content and members’ email addresses; access to online repositories of relevant information; email discussion areas; newsletters; and audio- and video-tapes of proceedings.
In short, the two components — ‘High Touch’ and ‘High Tech’ — must be integrated if the learning is to transfer knowledge and not merely information.
The combination of these ideas has enabled us to learn and develop a new pedagogical approach to executive education. Too many e-learning offerings are simply animated PowerPoint presentations. At best these induce boredom; at worst they permanently deter the learner from any form of e-learning.
Business executives are highly motivated and demanding learners — the typical profile of students on Cass’s day and evening MBA programmes. What we have learned from one group we have developed with the other, and vice versa.
For example, the case study database created for the IT Skills Forum was simultaneously refined with our students to create the ‘Dynamic Knowledge Network’. A student cohort is given a research topic; students then bid online for the case they wish to submit. Using an online template they add their case to the database and then review the entire collection, voting anonymously for the best case (not their own). After the prize-giving they retain an electronic copy of the collection for future reference.
We have found repeatedly that students freely admit that the quality of their work shot up when they realised it would be reviewed by their peers. The process also highlights the many different ways in which learners perceive value and extract knowledge. When one cohort of 49 students voted for the best case study, 30 of the entries were named.
The Cass evening MBA provides a further example. This programme (ranked by the FT as among the best in the world) is for business people in full-time jobs. They attend two evening classes per week for two years and so the majority of their learning must be done remotely, often while travelling on business.
Class into community
To supplement the face-to-face learning opportunities, in 2000 we launched course module websites to supply the ‘reflective practitioner’ features described above. Typically these also include hyperlinks to the proprietary databases subscribed to by the university and the library collections.
The effect of these facilities is to convert the class into a community. This can be onerous on the teacher: during one 10-week module the author dealt with more than 1,000 group and personal emails. On the other hand, paper is almost completely eliminated and, when they arrive in the classroom, the students have already studied the materials and can get straight into proper debate. The typical feedback from students is: ‘All courses should be run this way.’ And the graduates of these communities continue to send news.
Building on these experiences, Cass has adopted the Teletop platform and is developing this into CassLearn to support bespoke MBA programmes delivered to client cohorts as far away as China.
Earning your lavish learning event
So, what bearing did all this have on our recommendation to the financial services client? Having distilled the choice down to two candidate e-learning offerings, we set up an evaluation workshop. A panel of 12 senior executives tested one offering in the morning and the other in the afternoon.
The final decision was implemented in an innovative way. Completion of the e-learning module was made mandatory and a ‘pass mark’ was set to check that the basics had been understood. All learners were told that those achieving high scores would qualify for an advanced course held at the weekend in a luxury hotel in the countryside. This process enabled the client to identify those with a real interest in the subject (about seven per cent of the population) and treat them to an intensive but lavish learning event. The overall cost was estimated to be 40 per cent less than for putting the whole population through a brief training session — and the process was far more effective.
E-learning can certainly make an effective and economical contribution to executive learning — provided it is seamlessly integrated with a degree of face-to-face interaction to create and serve a learning community.
References
1 http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html
2 www.executive-studios.com
Dr Nigel Courtney is a chartered engineer, a certified management consultant and principal of Courtney Consulting (nigel@courtneynet.com). He is a visiting researcher at Cass Business School, City of London (formerly City University Business School)