Epic Think Tank
Corporate universities
Part 3: The role of technology in enabling the corporate university
The corporate university allied to the power of e-learning technology:
on the face of it, this is a marriage made in heaven. E-learning
enables several of the key requirements for truly enterprise-wide
organisational learning that had been touched on already in our
Think Tank discussion:
Elimination of duplication - Do it right once: copy it a
thousand times. Through the distributive power of the internet,
a corporate university need offer only one course in, for example,
time management; and can standardise on the best. E-enabled centralised
purchasing and administration, likewise, can bring great economies
of scale.
Convergence of knowledge management and learning - One of
our delegates' corporate universities carries a branded knowledge
management resource on the front page of its learning portal. Users
can be connected to internal documents and sources, but also, just
as importantly, to other employees with relevant knowledge and experience.
E-learning is not just about connecting learners to content, but
also about connecting to internal peers, mentors and SMEs. The use
of email and forums can offer instant, organisation-wide communication
for task-based or topic based knowledge sharing - cutting out duplication
and allowing the organisation to leverage its internal knowledge
resources more cost-efficiently.
Consistency of message, quality and values - In the case
of induction, for instance, which provides a once-only opportunity
to communicate core values to a mind as yet untarnished by organisational
inertia and departmental in-fighting, e-learning give the opportunity
to transmit these values clearly and unambiguously (see white paper
on induction and e-learning). Speaking more generally, e-learning
provides a unique opportunity to use learning to manage change,
control brand messages and spread best practice.
However…
There are severe drawbacks to the vision of enterprise-wide, e-enabled
learning that has been peddled by a heavily supply-driven, technology-lead
industry to date, it seems. Many learning management systems (LMS)
have been designed and configured from the point of view of a top-down,
command-and-control training model which will seem hopelessly 'old
school' in the light of the foregoing discussion.
Delegates were at pains to points out the importance of using technology
to personalise learning rather than to homogenise it. In the particular
context of the corporate university, it was felt more important
that an LMS should allow users to track their own learning, and
create their own personal development programme, than that it should
be used to deliver more of the old prescriptive, sheep-dip style
exercises - albeit on a larger scale.
A similar point was made on content. Bespoke content is a clear
favourite over generic on one delegate's LMS - 'the generic titles
just stay on the hook' - not so much because the latter are of lower
production quality, but because they don't address specific, local
needs so effectively, they don't reflect the learners' own work
context and professional values, and they don't have anything like
the same level of internal marcoms support.
The move towards blended learning can be seen as a corrective to
this crude, top-down view of e-learning, and it has to be said that
most of the impetus for The Blend has come from the client end and
from the face-to-face training community. But it is e-learning companies
who are going to have to play a large part in making blended learning
work, if only because the 'physical' constituents of the blend are
already, in a sense, designed (there is no argument about what a
workbook should look like, for instance): it is the 'technology'
part that has to be re-engineered in order to make blending work.
Highly personalised technology, rooted in the experience of the
user, was a clear requirement from our delegates of e-learning,
and it is no surprise that the discussion moved swiftly on to the
role of simulations. If we were looking for the 'crucible of experience'
that learners should be able to find for themselves through the
aegis of an e-enabled corporate university, surely it would be here.
Simulations have well-established role in many traditional training
programmes. Pilots train extensively on simulations. Trainee soldiers
go on manoeuvres. The modern campus-based university, with its many
extra-curricular activities, is in many ways a simulation of civic
life.
Computer-based simulations have moved easily into important roles
in teaching surgeons to do operations, for instance, or teaching
learner drivers the basics of handling a car. However they do not
always spring to mind as an essential component in the e-learning
mix, partly because it is often assumed that they are too expensive
and bandwidth-hungry to be an option.
But simulations do not have to be media rich in order to engage
and instruct. They don't have to reproduce in every detail the learner's
external environment, they only have to be psychologically convincing
(for a more in-depth discussion of this point see white paper: Simulations
and e-learning). At their best they can make the hairs stand
up on the back of your neck - indeed one of our delegates described
having exactly this experience while trialling an
interview simulator produced by Epic for the DWP.
On the scale at which most corporate universities operate, simulations
become not only a realistic option but a necessary one in cost terms.
And exciting possibilities can come from combining simulations with
real life practice in blended programmes - this is after all the
way an increasing amount of skills are being learned, as a generation
emerges which has grown up with computer games. A smart trainee
skateboarder soon learns that previewing some of his more ambitious
moves on his Tony
Hawk's PlayStation game saves wear and tear on the knees. Similarly,
simulations for management skills covering difficult human situations
can save a great deal of wear and tear on ancillary staff (not to
mention HR!).
Throwing into this mix the element of online collaboration, and
you have the potential for creating rich learning experiences which
are light years removed from the 'sheep dip' - and which your learners
will flock to.
John Helmer for Epic, September 2002
Introduction
Background
Part 1 Why corporate universities?
Part 2 The crucible of experience
More features
Related links
The following free white papers from Epic bear directly on issues
discussed here:
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