Authors: Clayton, J., Elliot, R., Saravani, S-J., Huntington, N., and Greene, N. Reference number: 33
Year of publication: 2008 Introduction
This was a Ministry of Education funded project to review case studies from New Zealand and summarise key points.
Key findings
The report identified key emerging themes:
• Managers and employees need to be aware of e-learning’s benefits in order to be committed and participate.
• Effective use of Learning Management Systems allows businesses to meet their legislative requirements because of their ability to audit, track, and manage compliance related training. • E-learning-related strategic plans must be positioned within the broader organisational
training plans.
• Senior management support is critical to ensure that all the necessary resources are available to support the implementation of the e-learning solution.
• E-learning can more consistently deliver high quality training to employees regardless of their location or experience and allows them to revisit tasks until they have achieved competence.
• E-learning can improve the speed of the training or learning and reduce employee down-time.
The debates around the merits of e-learning for workplaces tend to focus on:
• Financial: The associated costs versus the necessary time and investment. Infrastructure costs for the ongoing development of the e-learning solution need to be identified.
• The e-learning materials need to be relevant and authentic and focused on organisational and workforce requirements.
• E-learning will be new so the benefits and impacts of its deployment need to be documented, published, and disseminated.
• Collaboration can reduce costs and increase the quality of the e-learning materials. The major barriers to e-learning fall into one of three broad categories (the three Cs): • connectivity (limited availability of the appropriate supporting ICT infrastructure)
• capability (the e-learning competence of the managers, employees, and trainers is unknown) • content (many of the available materials are not relevant to the specific needs of the
organisation).
Likewise the benefits of e-learning fall into one of three broad categories:
• Accessibility and flexibility (e-learning’s ability to provide training to more employees irrespective of time and place to better meet individual employee needs).
• Consistency and scalability (ensure training is delivered in a timely and consistent manner and there is more comprehensive compliance with identified best practice or standards).
• Sustainability and cost-effectiveness (increasing productivity by reducing employee down-time and improving and increasing employees’ basic knowledge which is a competitive advantage for organisations).
To ensure the quality of the e-learning experience a cyclical pattern is recommended (the five Ds):
• define (the training requirements) • design (the training events) • develop (the resources) • deliver (the training)
• determine how or if e-learning can or should be used to meet the above requirements successfully.
Critical success factors for the implementation of e-learning fall into three broad categories: • Organisational: Generic materials need to be developed in standardised ways for wide
employee access and use. There needs to be a clear action plan for the implementation and support of e-learning initiatives which should be part of the organisation’s key strategic initiatives.
• Training: although interactive materials are more expensive to produce, they are more engaging than their print-based counterparts. Deploying e-learning solutions via a Learning Management System allows the monitoring and evaluation of both the process and outcomes of e-learning use by employees.
• Learning: the lack of face-to-face interaction in e-learning and the effects this has on employee motivation needs to be acknowledged. There is a need to build confidence and competence in e-learning environments.
The specific critical success factors for large enterprises are:
• establishment of a diverse e-learning training and development team
• measurement of e-learning’s effectiveness on the organisation and employees • stakeholders are informed of e-learning’s impacts on the organisation
• an e-learning coordinator is appointed to develop resources and facilitate delivery. For small and medium-sized enterprises the critical success factors are:
• e-learning is embedded in normal training and education practices and events • measurement of e-learning’s impact and effectiveness
• the e-learning solution needs to meet their training and education requirements • identification of how and when e-learning can be used in training and education plans • recognition of e-learning’s benefits in industry training and vocational education.
The report suggests a variation of the well established Kirkpatrick-Philips evaluation model be used by firms to measure the effectiveness and impact of their e-learning solutions:
• Return on investment: identify how the e-learning investment benefited the organisation and make recommendations for future training activities.
• Impact: measure how e-learning impacted on business results.
• Application: analyse over time how employees’ on-the-job behaviour changed as a result of e-learning.
• Accomplishment: test if the employees have acquired the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that e-learning was intended to address.
E-learning for rail
Author: CRC for Rail Innovation Reference number: 36
Year of publication: 2013 Introduction
The Australian rail industry varies widely in the degree to which its individual organisations use e-learning. A scoping study found that the Australian rail industry stood to realise substantial benefits if it took a more collaborative approach to the adoption and use of e-learning.
A project has been developed to further explore e-learning use and attitudes towards it by key stakeholders as well as developing e-learning resources specifically for use by the Australian rail industry. The project has also developed a checklist and key questions for organisations to use and consider when they are introducing e-learning as a training method.
Key findings
Success in e-learning is interpreted and evaluated differently by the various stakeholders. At a management level these evaluations focus on tangible outputs and cost savings, while users assess different factors.
It is important that rail organisations assess what purposes their Learning Management System will serve including which courses will be offered on it and how reporting will be undertaken. If e-learning is to be successful it must be accepted as a new training method.