Show report

Online Learning

LA, September 2003
Report by Donald Clark, CEO, Epic Group plc

US goes blended, UK stays away

Next year this well-established online learning conference is being combined with the Training conference. You could say it's becoming a 'blended learning' event. Of the 2,600 delegates heaving up at the Los Angeles Convention centre this year, only five were from the UK. Epic was one (me), two from the MOD - couldn't spot the other two!

The exhibition (90 exhibitors) showed how truly fragmented the industry remains. Interestingly, the only profitable companies seemed to be the small to middle size players. The big news on the floor was Saba's $4 loss for the quarter, with many of their sales force gone and senior management changes.

Overall the top topics were, in order; strategic planning, blends, good design, simulations, games and implementation.

Selected presentations follow:

Richard Wurman: How big is Bhopal?
Curtis Bonk: The Perfect Storm
Case Study: Healthcare
Case study: Delta Airlines
Case study: IBM
Some e-learning nuggets

Richard Wurman: How big is Bhopal?

Richard Wurman

Five ways to organise information

The 68 year-old Richard Wurman has published over 80 extraordinary books based on his view that all information can be organised in only five ways:

• Location - place
• Alphabet - dictionary, index
• Time - storytelling, timelines
• Category - by topic or subject
• High and low - ranked list

His two books, Information Anxiety and Information Anxiety 2 describe in detail what he means by information overload and his solution to this problem. There's a tsunami of information hitting our brains, a cacophany. Learning is a filter on this information.

Learning is about answers to questions

He started with a question. How big is Bhopal, the site of the Indian chemical spill disaster? No one in the audience came close to identifying it as the largest city in central India, about the same size as Boston or San Francisco. His point was that information has a context. We're westerners with a western view of geography. For years, he says, he thought his brain was the most important organ in his body, until, he thought, 'look who's telling you that'! Always ask where the information is coming from.

More importantly he sees learning wholly in terms of answers to questions. All true learning, he claims, starts with a question. A question is a way in. It's a way of connecting. We're driven by questions. In fact, he recommends that every page of e-learning start with a question. This is exactly how he writes his books.

Learning is a journey

I don't have a sign at the end of my street with every city name and mileage on it. I have intermediate signs. Learning is also a journey with intermediate steps and a goal. The curriculum doesn't solve our learning problems because it's a journey we're often not interested in taking. Learning is remembering what you are interested in.

This was a marvellous talk with little or no powerpoint backup. I'll stop here as his main message was that 'less is more'!

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Curtis Bonk: The Perfect Storm

Curtis Bonk

Curtis Bonk was my favourite conference presenter. Slightly mad, wildly enthusiastic and full of insights. In this presentation he saw better technology coming together with changing learner demands to create new pedagogic models. This is a subject close to my heart as I've heard little sense but much overuse of the word pedagogy.

His proposition is that technology is really driving pedagogy and that the sheer breadth of innovation in technology has brewed up a storm that in turn has changed learners views on learning. Portals, p2p software, simulations, games, google, messaging, weblogs and e-learning have all changed learner expectations. It won't be long before computers understand and talk to you through wearable, wireless technology. Technology drives pedagogic change.

Turning to students and learners he cites the National Survey of Student Engagement to show that what really matters is student engagement. This is what makes the difference between those that succeed and those that fail. Challenging intellectual and creative work is central to student learning.

So who's more engaged according to the research?

• Women
• Full-time students
• Students living on campus
• Native students (start and finish at same institution)
• Learning community students
• International students
• Students with diverse experiences

He showed example after example of Universities where students participating in online e-learning were going through the roof and completion rates of >93%. These included Indiana University, University of Illinois, Ohio State, Hawaii and the University of Pretoria.

What did students want?

• Relevant information
• Organisation and structure
• Clear expectations
• Modeling and guidance
• Prompt and informative feedback
• Personal touch and caring
• More visual learning
• Application to their job setting
• Choice and challenge

Then comes motivation. In particular intrinsic motivation, the key to successful learning. So what motivates learners?

• Tone, climate, comfort, belonging
• Feedback: responsive, supporting, encouraging
• Engagement: effective, involved, exciting
• Meaningfulness: interesting, relevant, authentic
• Choice: flexible, opportunities, autonomy
• Variety: novelty, intrigue, unknowns
• Curiosity: fun, fantasy, control
• Tension: challenge, dissonance, controversy
• Interactive: collaborative, team-based, community
• Goal-driven: success, ownership

The Perfect Storm is, in Chris's view, a combination of innovative technology, demanding learners and creative pedagogy. Go see this guy at Berlin's Educa conference - he's good.

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Case Study: Healthcare

Healthcare in the US has surprisingly low levels of training spend with many hospitals facing with shrinking budgets, an unsophisticated infrastructure but a highly technical and diverse audience and 24/7 operations. However, they have lots of external training requirements - especially in health and safety.

The Joint Commission for Accreditation of healthcare Organisations (JCAHO), is an accreditation body that requires documented annual training. Then there's the Office of Inspector General (OIG) where compliance is backed up with huge potential penalties on fraud and abuse allegations. Hospitals therefore need compliance plans and need to adhere to national standards. Clinical professionals also need annual training. The Risk Management Issues are enormous, especially around professional liability and malpractice issues.

It was HIPAA (Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) that brought patient privacy issues to the fore. This is a big deal in the US where you need to take health insurance information from one employer to another. The final privacy ruling was published fall of 2002 and all healthcare employees had to be trained by April 14 2003 on patient privacy. However, the specifics only became available in September 2002. Everyone had to be trained quickly with serious threats for non-compliance.

Many looked at traditional options and train the trainer, paper, CD-ROM and video were all used, but a number used e-learning. The arguments were pretty compelling. The subject matter was operational knowledge and solutions had to be scalable. The classroom was inflexible and not scalable. The content had also to be sustainable, as there have been changes in the regulations. Getting the HIPAA policy out took several months putting a squeeze on the time available for training.

Assessment was also important. Most classroom-based training measured attendance, not attainment. The fact that e-learning was trackable was a real benefit.

Benefits included:

• 24/7 access
• Accessed from home and office
• Objective assessment
• Shortcuts for those who know
• More responsibility on the learners
• Real-time reporting on compliance
• Easy to update (sustainable)
• Consistent
• Could customise
• Pre and post test assessment

An interesting side-effect was the organisational change that came in the wake of these regulatory e-learning initiatives. Hospitals are not really learning organisations but the e-learning helped some acknowledge the need for accessible, flexible, decentralised learning. Pushing accountability down into the organisation was a benefit through decentralised education resources. Another key issue was the commitment of senior management.

Problems included:

• Resistance to mandatory training (whether classroom or e-learning)
• Access to PCs and the internet was a problem, especially for care staff and nurses who don't use PCs on a daily basis
• Speed of such access was a problem as high media require high bandwidth
• Security, namely firewall and virus protection
• High levels of English as a second language
• Basic literacy problems with wide range of reading ability

Reliable vendors were needed that could provide robust and reliable systems as it was not possible to do this in-house. Hospitals also wanted to use this investment for other types of training. Tracking of both classroom and online training was necessary. Electronic attestations or certificates were important. Reminder email also proved useful in getting people to take the courses.

HIPPA compliance audits led to the use of an online competency assessment tool. This included individual and departmental competence assessment. This included issues such as; Is patient data being communicated out loud? Are patient records visible to others in the room? Are privacy screens being properly used?

PDAs were also used for these competency assessments. The compliance officer in IASIS Healthcare could see all data in real-time. Baylor with 14,000 employees used e-learning to deliver all compliance training in less than 8 weeks. Top end data was then provided for all employees by profession (job-specific) then broken down into individual hospitals or sites. Baylor estimates a saving of $500,000 on HIPPA compliance costs alone with a longer-term potential of much more.

Cost reductions compared to classroom alternatives were clear, especially the expensive labour replacement costs for nurses, radiologists, pharmacists and physicians. The administrative savings are also considerable on scheduling, tracking and reporting. The investment also had other potential future training savings. This is an investment in the intellectual capital in the organisation, a key issue, as senior management had not seen this as important.

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Case study: Delta Airline

William Kline

William Kline, Chief Learning Officer at Delta Air Lines gave a chilling account of an organisation that spent $200 million a year on training with a large training department, had good strategy and then… 9/11.

On this day, aviation changed forever, with changed business models, challenges to the heritage of aviation, challenged management and real challenges in training. It was now about survival.

First, they had to get a core message across - the survival message. They took all employees through a business focus course with some pre-work on personal and Delta's financials. This was followed by a one-day simulation on P&L, balance sheet, choices and trade-offs using gaming techniques. Then finally a workshop for managers. All employees had to understand the need for change.

The strategy had to include cost cutting, security demands, JIT needs and the so the online learning strategy became the core strategy. With eight straight quarters of losses, there was no time to reflect, they had to cut costs. The training budget was cut by one third and the number of trainers was reduced by 400. This was achieved by having a 20-25% online learning target.

Lessons learnt included:

• Need for up front sponsorship
• Align learning with business
• Need for a collaborative network of key stakeholders
• Market your product, sell successes
• Measure and report business value

This was a hard hitting talk by someone who had implemented online learning under extreme circumstances. It was a success because it had to be a success.

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Case study: IBM

Ted Hoff

This is a well known case study in e-learning but well worth the retelling. Ted Hoff is the Vice President for Learning at IBM. He reminded us that IBM nearly went bankrupt a decade ago and had to reinvent itself under the onslaught on mainframes from the PC then internet.

They see learning as existing on three levels:

• Individual
• Team
• Organisation

Personal development had to lie at the heart of this transformation across 320,000 employees. They had to learn to become agents of change, not to learn what was the case but shape what will be the case. Learning was to be about creating the future.

There were three basic assumptions:

1. Business driven learning
2. Advanced learning
3. Pervasive learning systems

The idea was to pool collective wisdom. Customers were no longer buying technology but buying added value for their businesses. This meant selling financially defined value, selling to the CEO, CFO and CIO.

30,000 managers went through a programme split down into cohorts of 25 and a four tier model:

Level 1 - Learn from information (web-based
Level 2 - Learn from interaction (simulations, games, e-learning)
Level 3 - Learn from collaboration (electronic)
Level 4 - Learn from co-location (face-to-face)

Lessons learnt included:

• Get started, get going
• Business driven approach
• Change design as you go
• Not all trainers will make the transition to use of online learning
• Avoid customisation, don't tweak
• Integrate learning delivery
• Measurement matters - the currency that demands support

He added that he had a preference for trainers with some operational experience and thought that many trainers were in too much of a comfort zone. When asked to change gear many didn't respond. Training, he added, 'is not an end in itself'.

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Some e-learning nuggets

One hour long session had speakers give a series of 4.5 minute speeches. Those who overran had music drown out their words. This is a format that others should copy. Less is more. I've thrown in a few other nuggets from others sessions.

• Clark Aldridge described the rocky road to maturity in the e-learning market from theory, innovation, magic bullet, confused state to settled then advanced.

• Judy Brown of the Academic ADL Co-Lab had had enough of acronyms and called for a ban on LMS, VLE, MLE, LCMS, AICC, IMS, ARIADNE, SCORM.

• Mike Fanagan saw TIVO as hinting at the future of e-learning, with its 'set and forget' features - personalise learning.

• Wusman (see above) saw personalisation as the most overrated concept in e-learning... Customisation was unnecessary, he thought. We don't have customised books or movies, so why customise learning for the individual.

• Gerry Hudson Martin, Vice President of 'IT Training and Enthusiastic Learning' for Marriot International, had one a one word presentation - implementation... This meant change management, communications, rollout, measurement, support and sustainability. He thought the e in e-learning should stand for enthusiastic

• Kevin Oakes thought that we should concentrate, not on cost cutting, but increasing productivity

• Marc Rosenberg wanted to break the bonds of the course, refocus on performance, get serious about design and use technology as a tool not a strategy: he also wanted e-learning not to be a training department thing

• Allison Rossett, a prof at San Diego University, made an appeal on behalf of the poor learner. When learners are given complete control over their own learning, she claims, they stop learning. We need to help learners be more robust in their learning

• William Vanderbilt of CompTIA claims that people don't want training, they want solutions and productivity - E-learning should be problem- or project-focused.

• Gloria Gery, Performance support guru, wants a focus on design. When it's bad, it's bad. When it's good, it's very, very good

• Tom Stewart, editor of Harvard Business Review explained that the original JP Morgan vault in Wall Street was now a training breakout room. He saw online learning as one of the survivors of the dot.com era.

• Email's fine, but some sadistic Santa fills it up again overnight, and most seem to come from Nigeria!

• On the classroom - we don't drop out because we can't walk out

• Don't call it m-learning, call it sales enablement