E P I C   T H I N K I N G

Issue 12: October 2002

This month:

1. White paper: Killer app? Induction and e-learning
2. Show report: OnlineLearning 2002, Anaheim
3. Epic Think Tank: Corporate universities & e-learning
4. Review: Delivering Learning on the Net by M Weller
5. Case study: Whitbread - Safe in Your Hands
6. News: Epic wins top WOLCE e-learning award

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W H I T E  P A P E R

1. Induction: e-learning's killer app?

Induction is one of the few learning interventions that applies to everyone. And it happens at a point in a learner's career when they are uniquely curious and receptive to learning. For the organisation that can get it right, induction offers a one-time only opportunity to communicate core values before organisational inertia and negative messages muddy the water.

Too often however, because of the behaviourist values that still underly a lot of 'sheep-dip' style induction programmes, this is a missed opportunity. Too many traditional induction programmes are haphazard and badly executed. People, it doesn't have to be this way!

This new white paper from Epic CEO Donald Clark argues that e-learning provides an ideal medium for producing really effective, compelling induction programmes. In fact, due to the medium's particular ability to put the learner, rather than the organisation, at the centre of the experience, induction might just be is e-learning's killer application...

White Paper: Induction & e-learning

To get your free copy contact us

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S H O W  R E P O R T

2. Online Learning, LA: The view from Anaheim

The Online Learning conference and expo in Anaheim, Los Angeles is billed as the largest gathering of learning technology professionals in the world. In line with our policy of bringing you the latest thinking in the global e-learning marketplace, we sent our correspondents to this year's event.

As usual, the sheer number and variety of sessions available on the conference programme was dizzying. However, discernible beneath the perhaps well-worn theme of the move towards enterprise learning solutions (a favoured platform, not surprisingly, for vendors) was a new emphasis on the need to establish performance improvement as the core objective of any learning intervention. In particular, the social side of learning came to the fore, highlighting the fact that simple solutions designed carefully around the people in the workplace can have a dramatic effect on productivity.

As a general rule, the US approach to e-learning tends to give more emphasis to an enterprise-wide LMS-driven view of the world than here in Europe, where the focus is more on content and implementation. The over-riding impression left by the conference this year is that Europe (in particular the UK and Scandinavian countries) need not necessarily feel that it has to continue taking its lead from the US...

Read the full report:

Integration, performance, collaboration
General Trends (Brandon Hall, Clark Aldrich)
John Seely Brown
Gloria Gery
Portals
Case study - Dupont Nylon Flooring Division

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E P I C  T H I N K  T A N K

3. Epic Think Tank 4: Corporate Universities & e-learning

With the days of the bricks-and-mortar corporate training centre all but a distant memory its replacement, the corporate university, is promoting a more accessible, learner-centred paradigm of organisational learning for the information age. The talk is all of aligning learning with strategic objectives, of learning as a lifelong activity and as an instrument of culture change

The language has certainly changed; but has the reality?

For this Epic Think Tank we gathered together e-learning experts from organisations that have corporate universities, some who are in the process of creating their corporate universities - and others who have decided not to go the corporate university route. The discussion was stimulating, frank and at times controversial. Delegates had no compunction about asking (and answering) the difficult questions - like, for instance, 'is the corporate university anything more than a branding exercise..?'

Read a FREE full report of this exclusive, high level discussion

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R E V I E W

4. Delivering Learning on the Net
Kogan Page, June 2002

Author: Martin Weller

Review by Donald Clark

This is a well written, introductory level book covering a broad range of issues in web-based learning. The introduction names its audience as including those in the commercial sector, however I'm not sure that this is true. It is really aimed at people who work in universities. Indeed, I would recommend it to those in education who are interested in using the web in that context. It is of less use for those outside higher education.

The opening chapter is a good and fair discussion of the potential impact of the web on learning. Chapter Two lists some e-learning myths, only one of which I would disagree with - the commercialisation of education. The internet will continue to pour pressure onto education. The internet is already the biggest learning resource on the planet and it's getting bigger, better, faster and cheaper. What's more, internet adoption is a process that is irreversible. The lessons from e-commerce in Chapter Three I found less interesting. In fact the lesson to be learned here is that the internet turned out not to be a vehicle for e-commerce but a medium for the delivery and exchange of knowledge.

The next five chapters, however, are excellent, covering motivation, pedagogies, communication, new working methods and assessment. However, the last two chapters dip a little. The technology section works to an inconsistent schema, moving from media types to a general form of learning delivery (CAL) then to specific technology classifications (data mining and XML) and finally, general web-based course delivery systems. I found this confusing. In the last chapter, the framework for classifying online courses has the classic 'four-way split' diagram of which educationalists are so fond. Take four variables, in this case didactic, constructivist, high-technology and low-technology and combine them. The diagram looks good but a more sophisticated survey of the many species of online learning would have been more useful.

Written very much from the Open University perspective, this book is obsessed with one course; 'T171 You, Your Computer and the Net'. I thought about taking the course, so as to give the book a fair review, but the next start date is February 2003! Aren't online courses meant to free the learner from the tyranny of the academic timetable? While the Open University has much to teach us about online learning it is in many ways a rather primitive model, rooted in the old campus model. While it certainly has student numbers on its side, I would have liked to have seen more examples from other academic institutions.

All in all, well worth buying.

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C A S E  S T U D Y

5. Whitbread plc - Food Hygiene Training: Safe In Your Hands

Whitbread needed food safety training to standardise training across its brands in this area, and to save on training costs. Epic's solution? A highly interactive programme to deliver learning and to test on eight key areas of competence...

Read more...

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E P I C  N E W S

6. Epic wins WOLCE Bespoke Product of the Year Award

Epic has won the award for Bespoke Product of the Year at the 2002 WOLCE e-learning awards. The winning programme is 'Missing Instruments of Payment' (IoPs), an interview simulator for front line staff created on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

The programme aims to improve the interviewing skills of front line staff dealing with customers claiming to have lost or not received social security payments. Sensitive, focused interviewing is required to arrive at the truth in such cases, and the skills of these staff can have an important impact in lowering levels of benefit fraud, which costs the taxpayer something like £100m per year...

Epic sustains development with Cambridge University and WBCSD

Epic powers growth companies

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F O R E T H O U G H T

Next month's edition of Epic Thinking carries a full report from *Techlearn 2002* in Orlando, Florida, USA by Epic CEO Donald Clark. Donald will be appearing at the conference in an interview with Elliot Maisie. For those of you attending, the session details are:
401 - Monday 2:45pm-3:45pm
Coronado K-L
Learning Executives: Alternative Views Of The Future And Industry

We will also be featuring the report of our fifth Think Tank, on Blended Learning, which takes place on the 23rd October in Harrogate to coincide with the CIPD Annual Conference and Exhibition at which Epic will be exhibiting (please drop by stand A48 and say hello!)

Guests confirmed so far for the think tank dinner include top-level decision-makers from both public and private sectors, but we are still open to offers to attend from subscribers who have an informed contribution to make. If you are vitally involved in this area and would like to contribute to the debate, please email mailto:thinktank@epic.co.uk. Attendance is free, but numbers are strictly limited, so don't delay.

Alternatively, if you have any questions that you would like to see our delegates address, or suggestions for further sessions, mail them now to: mailto:thinktank@epic.co.uk

Catch up on past think tanks…

Leadership and e-learning
Health and e-learning
Collaboration and e-learning

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R E T U R N  O F  P O S T

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