Towards Mobile Enterprise Content Management:
adding tablets to your existing enterprise eLearning infrastructure
by Bob Little
Mobile learning is developing fast – not just in terms of technology but also in its application of new educational
paradigms - and mobile learning apps are flourishing in the marketplace. But will mobile learning offer yet another
isolated and parallel learning experience within organizations or manage to be fully integrated within their existing
learning processes and infrastructure?
This article investigates the need for a more integrated mobile learning experience that is part of a larger blended
design of education, able to interoperate with pre-existing HR and learning management platforms within large
or-ganizations, and offer what many call an ‘extended blended learning experience’, eLearning 3.0 or - a term coined by
mobile learning expert, Fabrizio Cardinali - ‘Personal Ambient Learning’.
As technology has developed and mobile devices have proliferated, mobile learning has established itself as another
mainstream learning delivery method, alongside classroom-delivered learning and eLearning. Increasingly,
learn-ing material developers are realizlearn-ing that, to be most effective, eLearnlearn-ing materials must be adapted for delivery
via mobile devices. They also increasingly understand that the overall mobile learning experience must be part of a
“continuum” of education and, therefore, should not be designed alone but, rather, within the context of a larger and
more comprehensive organizational training plan and infrastructure.
This is creating an increasing need to integrate mobile learning architectures more effectively within streamlined
enterprise learning processes and infrastructures – especially within large organizations. As a consequence, a better
streamlined mobile learning is most likely to embrace well-established architecture interoperability standards and
best practices, which have already been adopted in enterprise learning and HR systems.
Towards Mobile Enterprise Content Management
While standalone mobile apps may be very attractive and useful for addressing and solving specific learning needs, they are still usually conceived and designed as isolated pilots and fully tailored software. Developed by “app boutiques” which have moved swiftly into the new landscape, escaping the more competitive market of traditional courseware design and development, mobile content authoring may take up to 90% of the allotted time and budget for a mobile learning initiative development.
This normally leaves very little time and effort for the orientation of mobile learning platforms into blended learning content design and their integration within the existing enterprise learning infrastructure. As a consequence, today, many purchasing and contracting offices assume that existing app stores provide all that is then needed for distributing and reporting access and use of the mobile learning experience they have commissioned. However, they soon discover that these apps are locked-in to device based environments, with poor interoperability support and, often, no interchange of tracking, profiling and performance of learners to and from the existing eLearning and HR platforms which are already installed in their organizations.
Mobile learning investors soon experience that a standalone content app approach works well for an isolated , ‘just-in-time’, ‘just-enough’ training need, where mobile delivery represents a unique medium to reach dispersed users and target popula-tions. However, if the learning design that you have in mind requires full information exchange on learner performance and profile, as well as authentication through the enterprise infrastructure to, perhaps, offer a more personalized and blended “learn-ing continuum” - extend“learn-ing web and classroom-based sessions with mobile and field based experiences – then you might have problems. Merely producing bespoke mobile apps is not going to satisfy your learning strategy.
To solve this gap it is important to separate mobile learning content from the mobile learning systems that will deliver, track and report usage of the learning materials and experiences. You need a mobile learning infrastructure which is able to download multi-channel apps on different devices, play and report usage of contents and assessments on such multiple devices, and seamlessly feedback user data to the backend learning platform backbone to enable classroom or online remediation, at the needed level and time.
Eventually, next generation mobile apps - thanks to this extension to a backend mobile learning infrastructure - will be able not only to adapt to user devices and locations but also to their skills and competences, study records and performances, abilities and disabilities. This means adapting in real time to user profiles and harvesting content repositories that are available in the backend learning and HR infrastructure of the mobile enterprise of the future.
Towards Mobile Enterprise Content Management
Mobile learning content management systems
Fabrizio Cardinali, CEO of eXact learning solutions North America (www.exact-learning.com), a leading provider of online and mobile learning content management solutions (eXact LCMS) with operations in Europe, the US and Asia, believes that it is only now that technology is able to provide the personalized and informal experience that eLearning was purported to provide when it emerged in the last decade of the last century. In addition, he believes that mobile learning needs to be fully integrated with the other types of learning models and infrastructures in order for it to truly succeed in the enterprise environment.
With a lengthy record in innovative learning technology companies, Cardinali has led eXact learning solutions since it was known as Giunti Labs, the development laboratory of one of Europe’s leading publishers, designing new solutions for educational and learning innovation. This has allowed him to participate in a number of large mobile learning research and development (R&D) projects funded by the European Commission - such as Mobilearn (www.mobilearn.org), wearit@work (www.wearitatwork.com) and IRMOS (www.irmosproject.eu). These projects were among the world’s first - and still the largest - research projects in new pedagogy and technical solutions for mobile learning, wearable training and real time location based learning.
Not only has Cardinali emerged from these R&D experiences as a recognized industry expert in mobile learning, but he has also helped his company to develop systems and solutions which have recently been launched worldwide under the name “eXact Mobile”.
“To date, there have been some 15 years of publishing online learning content,” Cardinali said during the recent launch of the eXact Mobile solution. “What we could call ‘eLearning 1.0’ - which was in vogue until around 2002 - was about providing formal learning materials, electronically produced by rapid authoring tools and systems. Unfortunately, this approach tended to produce ‘wordy’ and uninspiring contents – which were of interest only to those who needed to undergo compulsory training in strongly regulated markets, such as, the banking and pharmaceutical sectors. eLearning 1.0 users tended to be dissatisfied with the engagement and appeal offered by such learning materials. Gaming and other entertainment options on the web were far more appealing than educating one’s self online.
“‘eLearning 2.0’ emerged to address the poorness of first generation learning materials. From around 2005 to the present, we’ve seen many users generating their own content. It’s what many people call ‘grassroots publishing’. It relies on self-produced learning materials, very simple but effectively “personalized”, that are exchanged within peer-to-peer networks and informal settings. On the technology side, this eLearning 2.0 wave has made it possible to blend simple and collaborative authoring envi-ronments within learning content management systems.
Today, interoperability specifications - such as AICC, SCORM and IMS – have made content interoperability and user profiling a relatively simple possibility for online learning. LCMS and LMS platforms are able to interoperate to create, store and deliver effective contents that meet the various needs of both instructor-led training and web-based delivery. But what happens when mobile learning steps in?
Very few systems today support an architectural extension to add single sourcing of materials to mobile learners and reach them on their mobile devices, adapting content to its context of use and reporting back data to pre-existing LMSs/ VLEs in large organizations. Making mobile learning fully interoperable with enterprise systems appears to be the next big trend in mobile learning platforms. This is needed to make the mobile learner a real part of the enterprise community.
Towards Mobile Enterprise Content Management
“Clearly, the current 2.0 approach is not sufficient for a fully effective learning experience” he continued. “While we may hope self-producers are competent in terms of pedagogy and instructional design, we can’t rely solely on this self-populated, yet powerful, layer of information exchange if we want to also ensure that the highest quality of pedagogy, learning design and, thus, learning itself is delivered to our knowledge workers out there. Today our workers need to have the highest personal develop-ment options if they are to succeed and compete in the very challenging workspace they live in contemporary markets. “We need professional instructional designers and learning stakeholders to step back into the process and start offering next generation learning services and pedagogies, taking full advantage of the new personal media and mobile network coming to life. I presume future learning experiences will be mobile, cloud-based, always on and highly adaptive, able to profile users and personalize the offering of learning materials according to the device, location and skills of each individual, providing the learner with the ‘just-in-time’ and ‘just-enough’, yet highly personalized and qualitative learning and performance support he or she needs.
“I like to call this third wave, ‘Personal Ambient Learning services’ (PALs) – since it is based on the ability to embed cloud services able to adapt and specialize the learning to the required ‘ambience’ in which the learner is immersed. In other words, the ambience is the environment surrounding the learner, not only his location and device, but also his or her study background and track record, abilities and disabilities, as well as the limits and constrains of the workspace he or she need to optimize performance within. Learning in such ambience will use multiple devices transparently embedded in the environment access-ing multiple enterprise systems to retrieve highly customized and profiled data for his or her learnaccess-ing in a specific use context. “Just as, during the industrial revolution, standardizing processes and systems enabled us to harness energy from waterfalls, transporting electricity to power light bulbs and engines, empowering a more transparent and easy access to electricity to boost the emerging economies of the last millennium, today - to make the knowledge revolution happen and boost productiv-ity - we need a new generation infrastructure able to cater for knowledge workers’ needs from the enterprise ‘knowledge stores’ to the field: a highly complex, cloud-based, learning infrastructure to reach each knowledge worker and provide him or her with easy, powerful access to the enterprise knowledge on their tablets. This infrastructure will provide users with personalized ex-periences and, in the continuous learning process they will favor, help to boost the knowledge society at the level our economies need in order to survive amid global competition.
“Knowledge workers faced with the task of fixing a faulty airplane while reading their heavy loaded maintenance textbook know exactly what they need. Now, with mobile tablets and broadband connectivity, we can give them exactly the solutions they deserve.”
Mobile and location based learning content management systems
After a first wave of standalone mobile learning apps, what we are seeing today is a trend towards mobile learning architectures capable not only of producing multi-channel content from single source input but also of fully leveraging the power of interoper-ability standards and cloud delivery to integrate mobile learning within the existing enterprise infrastructure. This will allow the enterprise learning platform to deliver learning content and information on any device and to any location, feeding back user interaction and performance data backwards and forwards between user devices and the enterprise backbone, thus integrating mobile access into the overall learning plans managed by traditional LMS systems in the organization. Many people refer to this as ‘eLearning 3.0’.
Towards Mobile Enterprise Content Management
About the Author
For over 20 years, Bob Little has specialised in writing about, and commentating on, corporate learning – especially eLearning – and technology-related subjects. His work has been published in the UK, Continental Europe, the USA and Australia
eXact learning solutions
eXact learning solutions, formerly Giunti Labs, is a leading online and mobile learning content management and digital repository solutions provider, offering a wide range of tools and services for content development, management and delivery, covering:
• Multi-language bespoke learning content production • Content management and digital repository platforms • Mobile learning technologies
• Consulting and professional services
The company has over fifteen years of experience and more than 100 clients worldwide. Our technological innovations allow
eXact learning solutions - Headquarters Abbazia dell’Annunziata Via Portobello - Baia del Silenzio 16039 Sestri Levante (GE) Italy Tel +39.0185.4761 Fax +39.0185.43.347
Taking a major step in this direction, Cardinali’s company has just launched a fully mobile layer which is available for its flagship LCMS technology, eXact LCMS.
Known as eXact Mobile, the new suite enables instructional designers to create, deliver and track SCORM contents on any Blackberry, iPhone and iPad or Android device, tagging contents by user location, skills and device.
The uniqueness of the eXact Mobile lies not only in its multi-device availability, but also in its capability to interoperate with LMSs and VLEs already in the organization. This means it can exchange data, in and out, by means of a ‘mobile gateway’. This gateway is used for exchanging authentication, authorization and tracking data to and from any third party enterprise system which delivers mobile contents to the end user.
“Mobile learning is something you can use informally, on the move and often under time pressure, to continually refresh your knowledge, when and where it’s needed,” said Cardinali at the recent launch of eXact Mobile at the Learning Impact Awards in Long Beach, California, where eXact learning solutions won the Platinum Award for its implementation of eXact LCMS for medi-cal education within the UK’s National Health Service. “In this sense, standalone apps are perfectly suited for the use for which they were designed. However, if you want your mobile learning investment to not be just another piloting or standalone initiative, you should rather investigate the mobile learning infrastructure you’re setting up. This needs to be as complex and open on the backend as you want the user experience to be simple and useful on the front end.
“Learning content management systems are now helping to solve the isolation gap, which first generation mobile learning is experiencing,” he continued. “There should be no more standalone apps but, rather, fully integrated infrastructures on the backend using device apps separated from the content itself and dedicated corporate mobile knowledge stores to access them. These infrastructures need to be able to talk to any third party system – such as the LMS, CRM or ERP in your IT departments, exchanging user data and contents to add a mobile learning dimension to your organization without the interoperability limits and security issues implicit in adopting public stores for mobile distribution.”
Whatever you want to call this architectural move – be it ‘eLearning 3.0’ or ‘PALs’ - the next developments in mobile learning will be worth examining closely. This will represent a maturity test for learning technologies after the hype and under-delivery of the past.