Research Questions

The field is now open! I have uploaded my little starter set of questions on my future e-learning models research. I invite all who are interested to download and reply - please include (if nothing else) some kind of identifier as to country, level of experience, industry, etc. Thanks!

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[Ken Steinman]

I'm not sure how you wanted this, and I'll be happy to e-mail this in a word document, but here are my responses:

Research Questions

1) Could you please state your name, job title and company for the record?
Ken Steinman
Manager, Organizational Development, The Regence Group

2) Why is your organization interested in or currently employing e-learning?
We see the benefits as economical delivery (were spread out geographically), delivering a common message, linking with performance support and knowledge systems, etc.

3) What problems do you see for your employees in reference to distance learning? Are they primarily successful in completing courses?
Theres still some problem with acceptance, although were mostly past that. Participants are successful completing online courses in which its required that they complete the courses, but I also support browsing courses, picking and choosing the nuggets they need, etc.

4) A few weeks ago, at the Masie Center Summer Retreat, Elliott Masie remarked that he thought that the future LMS might look at lot like amazon.com. That is - an interface that customizes itself on the fly to the learner based on needs, past performance, etc.
What do you think about that model? Does that seem feasible in the short run?
Not the short run at our company. Were in the middle of implementing websphere portal technology. When thats a reality, maybe in 2005 when its fully implemented, well be able to provide that level of customization.

5) What economic models for e-learning companies do you think will be viable 10 years from now? What will their product offerings look like?
I believe theyll need to provide their content in a manner that will support the amazon concept above, and in small enough chunks that it can become part of the work itself, as Sam Adkins has preached.

6) What is happening to the corporate/institutional timeline for purchasing decisions related to e-learning? Is it getting longer or shorter? What factors do you see impacting the trend? Is there a need for new pricing models?
Vendor pricing models have always been a pet peeve of mine. They still want to sell butts in seats and sell their entire library, but business isnt looking at training for a benefit anymore. The model needs to be something like how many clicks do we pay for, and how do they sell things by the chunk. Its similar to the recording industry right now. They sue the Napsters and Kazaas, but havent figured out how to deploy a model where we pay a buck a song for the content we want, when we want it, in a context we can use it in!

7) How does your organization deal with e-learning in a global environment? Is it even a concern? Are there prominent issues that surface outside the U.S. that the U.S. market is largely unaware of? OR In your opinion, what are some of the global issues confronting e-learning today? Are you aware of any cultural or legal issues that could serve as roadblocks to organizations trying to implement e-learning globally? Have you noticed that different issues get different levels of attention in varying parts of the world?
Im kind of out of touch with this issue right now, but I do know developing localized content is important so that it translates well.

8) While there are clearly international issues with e-learning (differences between countries) is your organization face with multicultural issues (cultural differences within a single country)? How is e-learning playing out in this mix? We try to be sensitive to language and examples we give. Certain words or phrases are offensive to some.

9) Do you see a convergence or divergence between the worlds of corporate training and higher education in the realm of e-learning? When I look at how much I get pitched from Harvard Business Press, I think Higher Ed is trying to do more marketing, but Ive always seen a pretty big gap between the two.

10) Are you aware of any groups or skill sets not currently represented as fully as they should be in the e-learning mix (e.g. anthropologist)? Have you ever seen a company attempt to also sell the ability to shift corporate culture to maximize an investment in e-learning along with the product? Im not sure about the first part of this question. As for the culture, I think some vendors offer marketing help, but they dont do much to address cultural issues. The real issue is whether the company truly has a learning culture, not just an e-Learning culture.

11) What will happen to training departments when kids who have been raised with a PS2, broadband access, Pocket PCs, as their baselines hit the corporate world? The same thing that will happen to the rest of the boomers, theyll retire! Im already seeing more of gen x in our industry, probably not much gen y, and who knows whats next!

12) Right now gaming, game-based learning and simulations are all hot memes within the e-learning world are their impacts (even potential impacts) significant? How so? If we get some tools to effectively develop simulations that dont require us to be programmers, I think the impact will be significant.

13) Is there any piece of hardware that seems to be missing from the mix? What is the next killer device for e-learning? Are there critical/needed technologies or implementations of currently existing technologies that would help e-learning? I dont know what I dont know here, and I try my best to stay up to date.

14) Can a cell phone be a learning device? Sure, how much more just in time can you get?

15) What role do you see standards playing in future e-learning models? Something that needs to be there, like law, but hopefully will just be something in the background that we all can adhere to. Right now were still in the chaos of building our learning legal system, not so much AICC v SCORM, but web services, etc.

16) Have you ever been an e-learner? Got my Masters degree online (BSU!)

17) What impact do you think the current copyright battles will have on e-learning? See my current comment above about Napster and Kazaa.

18) The management legend Peter Drucker, has said that:

Increasingly, an educated person will be somebody who has learned how to learn, and who continues learning, especially by formal education, throughout his or her lifetime. There are obvious dangers to this. For instance, society could easily degenerate into emphasizing formal degrees rather than performance capacity. It could fall prey to sterile Confucian mandarins--a danger to which the American university is singularly susceptible. On the other hand, it could overvalue immediately usable, "practical" knowledge and underrate the importance of fundamentals, and of wisdom altogether.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ecbig/soctrans.htm

First, do you think Drucker is right? How can this impact e-learning? I disagree about the especially formal in nature part. I think learning will be come less formal and more just a way of life.

19) What is the most innovative thing in e-learning you have seen recently? I havent been wowed in a while, but TechLearn is just around the corner!

20) Here is a quote for your consideration from William Gibson?s recent book, Pattern Recognition:

''Of course,'' he says, ''we have no idea, now, of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our grandparents had a future, or thought they did. Fully imagined cultural futures were the luxury of another day, one in which 'now' was of some greater duration. For us, of course, things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures like our grandparents? have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our future is too volatile.'' ''We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moments'' scenarios. Pattern recognition.''

Let's assume for a moment that the same author who coined the term cyberspace is right again.

How do you see ISD surviving in a world with very little 'now'? Since risk is part of the consideration of design and delivery method, I think ISD, although maybe compressed and quick, will always be there in some form.
Do you see the 'course' surviving as a meaningful unit of instruction? Definitely not, it will be the chunk!
How can ISD survive / add value in an environment that demands dynamic updating? Make it part of a rapid prototype process. You still have to ask and answer the right questions or youll miss the mark.

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