E-Learning for the BC Tech Industry (Premiere Edition)
An opinionated monthly column exploring the current use, future potential, and commercial value of e-learning in BC’s high tech sector.

E-Learning:
April 28th 2000

By Paul Stacey

“The next big killer application for the Internet is going to be education. Education over the Internet is going to be so big it is going to make e-mail look like a rounding error.”  -- John Chambers, CEO, Cisco Systems

"An organization's ability to learn and translate that learning into action is the ultimate competitive advantage."
-- Jack Welch, CEO of GE

“More than 70 million people worldwide received some form of education via the Internet in 1999.” – Communications International

Nothing like a little hype to kick things off. But if dotcom is the future then Cisco, arguably  the most successful Internet company so far, is worth listening to. E-learning is coming of age and has hit the radar screens of corporations, working adults, and venture capitalists alike.

Don’t know what e-learning is? Haven’t tried it yet? This monthly column will explore the entire phenomenon. We’ll look at what it is, what the learning experience is like, how it differs from classroom, why its important, who the players are, how it parallels the new economy, its emergence as a sector of the economy, and its importance to BC high tech companies.

I spent thirteen years from 1985 to 1998 providing education and training in the high tech sector. Over those years I developed and taught software courses, managed training departments, and for six years delivered large scale international training programs around the world as part of Hughes Aircraft (now Raytheon (http://www.raytheon.ca) locally here in Richmond. As a professional educator in the high tech learning workplace I’ve been part of other educational technology phenomena – laser disc, video-conferencing, multimedia, CD-ROM, simulation, and computer-based training - but nothing compares to the experience of e-learning.

In 1997 I made a presentation at Canada’s National Telelearning Centres of Excellence conference in Toronto on “Enjoying Wine” in which I chronicled my own personal learning experiences taking a wine appreciation course on-line through DigitalThink.

Enjoying Wine was an excellent course to take over the summer. Usually I did the learning on our home computer just before dinner. Learning activities were often done at the dinner table and shared with my family as we sampled the assigned wine with our evening meal. We learnt how to pour wine, smell wine, look at wine, and taste. Champagne with popcorn was a particularly memorable assignment one hot summer night – a taste sensation! I also grew to appreciate the fine bouquet and rich lingering flavours of port. What can I say – the learning was multi-sensory, evocative, social and useful.  Although the Enjoying Wine course is no longer available, DigitalThink (http://www.digitalthink.com) is still one of my favourite e-learning companies and just recently went public on the NASDAQ trading under the symbol DTHK.

Wanting to contribute to a more in depth and all-encompassing implementation of e-learning I left Hughes Aircraft in 1998 to join a small team in creating the Technical University of British Columbia (TechBC). TechBC presented the opportunity to be at the leading edge of an enterprise-wide e-learning initiative and to help create a university from scratch with a specific focus on high tech. With all of the courses at TechBC on-line (though not necessarily 100% on-line), the last two years have been full time e-learning immersion

This column will provide a dispatch from the field. The applicability and usefulness of e-learning to BC’s high tech companies will be the focus. I’ll also provide a first-hand account of what the experience is like as I continue my own e-learning education.

To set the stage I thought I’d provide an overall context for the field. So here’s my broad brush view of e-learning trends.

General

Although in an early phase of development e-learning is impacting public education, especially in colleges and universities, and private sector learning as provided by training vendors, corporate universities, and learning portals.

The number of courses available on-line has increased from less than 100 in 1996 to close to 1,000 in 1998, to more than 8,000 in 1999 and more than 30,000 in 2000. More than one hundred thousand courses are expected to be available on-line in 2002. (http://tenb.mta.ca/articles/
telecampus/index.html)

Public Sector View

Public sector education accounts for more than $33.0 billion in Canada’s national economy and is growing. (Statistics Canada 1995)

One source of information on the growth of on-line learning in public education are published on-line course directories.

The New Brunswick’s TeleCampus (http://telecampus.edu) on-line course directory provides data on the size and growth of e-learning internationally. The TeleCampus online course directory has developed as a central repository of course information for students. The directory only includes courses that can be taken on the Internet from anywhere with no residence requirements or need to attend sessions at a physical location. As a result it does not provide a full picture of the market but can be viewed as respresentational.

The following synopsis of the Telecampus directory was distilled from Rory McGreal’s “Telecampus On-line Course Directory” article published Jan-2000. http://tenb.mta.ca/articles/
telecampus/index.html

More than 17,000 courses are included in the TeleCampus Online Course Directory. These courses are delivered from more than 30 countries in over 10 languages. More than 90% of these courses come from North America. The USA dominates with more than 75% of all online courses world wide. Canada is second with 16% of online courses. Australia is third with 5%. Some northern European countries like Finland, Norway and Sweden deliver many courses online, but these courses all require a residency period on site, so they are not included in the TeleCampus Online Course Directory.

Universities and particularly the open universities are offering the most courses accounting for 44% of the total number of courses (5400 undergraduate courses and 2800 graduate). Colleges account for 21% (3500 courses), Private 22% and Other 13%. In North America, nearly every institution is either offering courses online or planning to do so.

In terms of subject area, computer courses predominate comprising about 4,500 courses. Social science accounts for 3,700 courses, followed by business 3,200, arts 2,600, sciences 2,400 and personal 500.

Current university leaders in e-learning innovation include:

Canada has established itself as a world leader in e-learning based on work done through its National Telelearning Centres of Excellence http://www.telelearn.ca.

Locally, B.C. has contributed on-line learning tools with Virtual-U coming out of SFU (now Virtual Learning Environments Inc. http://www.vlei.com) and WebCT out of UBC (which joined forces with Universal Learning Technology in May of 1999 and now provides a learning hub as well as a set of tools http://www.webct.com).

Private Sector View

Two comprehensive reports on the private sector side of e-learning were just recently released and provide excellent overviews of the field.

“Corporate E-Learning: Exploring a New Frontier” from WRHambrecht +Co. (http://www.wrhambrecht.com/
research/coverage/elearning/)

“Riding the Big Waves – A White Paper on the B2B E-Learning Industry” from Thomas Weisel Partners (http://www.tweisel.com) 

I’ve provided samplings from these reports in the statements below.

In 1999 U.S. companies spent $62.5 billion on educating and training its workforce. At $3 billion the technology delivered corporate training component occupied only a small fraction of the total market but is growing rapidly.

In 1999 approximately 92% of large corporations implemented web-based learning pilots.

In 1998 the U.S. corporate on-line learning market for IT and soft skills was about $550 million. By 2003 this is expected to grow to about $11.4 billion, which, if it holds true, represents a phenomenal 83% compound annual growth rate making e-learning the hottest trend in corporate training

According to learning advocacy group, Corporate University Xchange, there are over 1,600 corporate universities in the U.S. up from 400 just 10 years ago. In addition to the rapid evolution of the corporate university, the creation of a new job title, the Chief Learning Officer (CLO) or Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) illustrates that corporate leaders want managers of their learning organizations to participate when the executive team plans strategy.

A survey done by the Corporate University Xchange suggests the overall share of classroom training will decline from 80% in 1999 to 60% in 2003 doubling the current share of e-learning.

While spending on IT and soft skills education has been split fairly evenly in corporate training departments, IT training has dominated the e-learning training segment since its emergence. Between 1997 and 1999, the IT online training market outpaced soft skills four fold. The Internet seemed to be a more natural medium for teaching desktop applications, networking, or Internet skills than for imparting business management or customer service skills. However, the mix of IT and non-IT training is expected to shift dramatically in the next three years. Vendors will increasingly adopt a “Web-first” delivery strategy and more vendors will ramp up soft skills offerings. With a compound annual growth rate of 123% the business and soft skills training segment is catching up quickly and should, according to IDC estimates, finally surpass IT training by 2003.

Globally the e-learning industry comprises approximately 5,000 companies, the vast majority of which are private. Its early days still and no single competitor in the market accounts for 5% market share or more.

Publicly traded e-learning companies include:

On the private sector side the biggest trend in the past year has been a proliferation of learning portals. Anyone can sign up for an on-line course through a knowledge portal like Hungry Minds (http://www.hungryminds.com) which provides access to more than 13,000 online courses.

North Vancouver’s very own TrainingNet.com knowledge portal (http://www.trainingnet.com) just got a $33.7 million dollar third round of venture capital financing to continue building itself as a B2B e-commerce marketplace for training and education.

Conclusion

The e-learning market is just starting to heat up and this article provides only a taste sampler of  the field. I hope this wets your appetite for more.

As for me I better get to the DWeb e-learning course I’m taking now http://www.telestraining.com. 

Gotta go. I’ve got homework to do.

Paul Stacey is the Director of Corporate Education and Training at the Technical University of British Columbia, a long time education professional in the high tech private sector, and an e-learner. Contact: Paul Stacey


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E-Learning: An opinionated monthly column exploring the current use, future potential, and commercial value of e-learning in BC’s high tech sector.