Canadian Companies Rock at Online Learning
2002: September 27, 2002
By
Paul Stacey
In
these tumultuous times Canadian companies are rising to the top in the highly
competitive e-learning space. Its exciting to see Canada emerge as a major
knowledge services player and source of e-learning innovation and talent.
The
chaos and change of the past year has put the U.S. market in a state of mental
and emotional catharsis. Corporate e-learning has been pummeled by the downturn
in the economy. Stock prices of publicly traded corporate e-learning companies
are dramatically down.
For
a glimpse of publicly traded e-learning company performance see the portfolio of
companies Bryan Chapman has been tracking since Jan-2002 at: http://www.brandonhall.com/public/ticker/index.
On
the up side Canadian supplier presence at Online
Learning 2002 was at an all time high. New Brunswick, Quebec and British
Columbia all had provincial booths. Thirty percent of exhibiting companies were
Canadian.
If
you are pursuing e-learning or considering making e-learning purchases, I urge
you explore what's available here in Canada.
To
find out more about BC's seventy e-learning companies check out http://www.elearningbc.ca.
Exhibiting
in the BC booth at Online Learning were ten organizations including:
Serebra
www.serebra.com
Odyssey
Learning www.odysseylearn.com
Trimeritus
http://www.trimeritus.com
Ingenia
Training www.ingenia-training.com
TAP
Ventures www.tap.ca
Now
International www.nowinternational.com
Fluid
Perception Media www.fluidperception.com
Justice
Institute www.jibc.bc.ca
Open
School www.openschool.bc.ca
Nortia
Learning Systems www.nortia.com
To
find out more about Quebec's forty or so e-learning companies go to http://www.numeriqc.ca/elearning.
Companies
exhibiting in the Quebec booth at Online Learning were:
Arinso
http://www.arinso.com
Big
Knowledge http://www.bigknowledge.com
BMG
Multimedia http://www.bmgmultimedia.com
Cadmian
http://www.cadmian.com
Eduglobe
http://www.eduglobe.ca
Info-Kit
Technologies http://www.info-kit.com
Humeng
International http://www.humeng.ca
ilasalle
http://www.ilasalle.com
J.E.D.
New Media http://www.jednm.com
Mentor
http://www.grmentor.com
NAD
Centre http://www.nadcentre.com
Novasys
http://www.novasys-corp.com
Strategia
http://www.strategia.ca
Technomedia
http://www.technomedia.ca
New
Brunswick was the first province in Canada to really go after e-learning as a
sector of the economy and has been a longtime exhibitor at Online Learning.
Organizations exhibiting in the New Brunswick booth at Online Learning were:
CGS
Learning Services http://www.cgsinc.com
Engage
Interactive www.engageinteractive.com
Lansbridge
University http://www.lansbridge.com
LearnStream
http://www.learnstream.com
MCA
International www.mcainternationalcorp.com
Vital
Knowledge Software www.vitalknowledge.com
NRC
http://www.iit.nrc.ca/e-learning.html
Theorix
http://www.theorix.com
Mosaic
Technologies www.mosaictechnologies.com
In
addition to the provincial pavilions several Canadian companies kicked butt at
Online Learning 2002.
Vancouver
based company i3Dimensions won Gold in the Innovative Technology Category at the
Sixth Annual Excellence in E-Learning Awards. i3Dimension's product NGrain is a
breakthrough graphics technology capable of rendering complex, highly
interactive 3D visualizations and simulations in real-time. See www.ngrain.com.
Calgary
based Elluminate http://www.elluminate.com
won second place in the Synchronous Shoot-Out beating out Centra, WebEx,
Interwise, and Placeware.
For
me the highlight of Online Learning was the dialogue between and among Canadian
companies. I'm biased but I spent more time talking to and looking at Canadian
solutions than anything else.
Its
clear to me the Canadian e-learning sector is reaching critical mass. Companies
are already successfully generating business independently. An exciting new
opportunity exists for them to band together and pursue opportunities
collectively that are too large for any one company to go after on their own.
With representation from B.C., Quebec and N.B. we have the framework for a
national e-learning entity.
All
companies are looking for the federal government to establish a single point of
contact and champion for e-learning business development. The current fragmented
distribution of e-learning responsibility between Industry Canada, Human
Resources Development Canada, and DFAIT is frustrating to the extreme.
Having
said that the enthusiasm for Canadian e-learning of people like Jane Pak from
the Canadian Consulate Trade Office in Silicon Valley, Victor Landry of Industry
Canada in New Brunswick and Lisa McPhail of the Office of International
Partnerships is providing a great infusion of energy and point of interface for
the companies.
The
companies themselves are already rocking and it is clear that a little support
of the right kind could be extremely beneficial. Provincially support is coming
from Glen Scobie of BC's Trade and Investment, France Forget of the Ministere de
l'Industrie et du Commerce in Quebec, and Stephen Kelly of Business New
Brunswick.
The
challenge now is how to bring all this energy to bear on a common goal.
Pursuit
of this goal must be in a business context. The e-learning market is evolving.
My view on the top ten e-learning market trends coming out of Online Learning
2002 is as follows:
1. Higher Education
In contrast to the poor performance of
publicly traded e-learning companies in the corporate sector those in the
higher education e-learning space are having a good year, up over 20%. Higher
education has a proven business model and strong cash flow based on solid
enrollment growth due to growing demand for e-learning academic programs. In
hard times many turn to professional development as a way to reposition and
advance their career. The University
of Phoenix Online has about 45,000 students. eArmyU
expects to increase post-secondary participation of their staff from 25% to
50%.
2. Custom E-Learning
With massive libraries of off-the-shelf
content available from providers like Serebra,
SkillSoft, NetG,
KnowledgeNet and
others, companies are now seeking custom e-learning developed for their
particular need. Off-the-shelf content represents only about a third of the
content market with custom and customized content representing the remaining
two-thirds. Many Canadian companies have capitalized on this need,
establishing themselves as providers of choice for custom e-learning
instructional design, development, and evaluation.
3. E-Learning Content Verticals
I expect the focus to shift from e-learning
technologies to e-learning content. While Information Technology and Soft
Skills represent early e-learning content domains many suppliers are now
specializing in a particular vertical niche. Sales training, finance,
healthcare, ERP and other content areas unique to the product or processes of
a particular company are increasingly being developed but remain relatively
wide open with opportunity. Integrating multi-vendor and custom content into a
single LMS will be an imperative as will exporting content from one e-learning
platform to another. Standards and learning object models for interoperability
and reusability will be key enablers.
4. Human Capital Management - An Enterprise
Application
Many corporations have, over the past few
years, implemented a series of enterprise applications ranging from
technologies for Supply Chain Management (SCM), Customer Relationship
Management (CRM), and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Human Capital
Management (HCM) is emerging as a new enterprise application for the knowledge
economy with e-learning as an essential component, along with knowledge
management and e-HR. Interestingly SAP and PeopleSoft have extended their
product offerings into the e-learning arena. As a side note many e-learning
providers report being frustrated at having to deal with HR and Training
departments who often lack the organizational clout and experience in dealing
with purchases of an enterprise nature. As e-learning becomes more mission
critical I expect the decision to move up from HR/Training to C-level
executives.
5. Extended Access to Experts
The early days of e-learning adoption were,
for the most part, driven by a top down push from management. A great deal of
corporate e-learning content has focused on cost-savings by removing the human
from the learning equation. Many off-the-shelf elearning experiences are
self-paced and autonomous without access to a teacher or mentor. The next
phase of e-learning will be driven by end user pull as learners seek out the
human interaction and access to experts e-learning enables. I expect this to
have a whole host of spin-off transactions as people like to buy from their
teachers.
6. Extended Communities - Peer-to-Peer Learning
Peer-to-Peer learning within an extended
online learning community is to me the killer app of e-learning. Threaded
discussion, instant messaging, searching, polling, application sharing and
other dynamic exchanges enable peers to explore, discuss, and access
experiences with others who share a common interest or background. The
resulting learning goes far deeper than anything we ever experienced in a
classroom or lecture hall. Look for the increasing proliferation of online
communities that hold people over time drawing them back over and over by
blending new nontraditional learning events into a constantly evolving and
engaging community.
7. Realization vs. Implementation
The early days of e-learning were flush with
the excitement of selecting and implementing e-learning technologies, tools,
and content. In this post-wow phase there is a growing realization that
e-learning success does not equal technology installation. E-learnings'
promise is transformative and hinges as much on addressing human factors and
change management as technology implementation. As organizations move forward
with their e-learning initiative they are looking for suppliers to ban
marketing hype and help with strategies that result in the full realization of
e-learning's potential.
8. E-Learning Performance Support
Formal learning in the form of classes,
courses, or other structured events make up approximately thirty percent of
our learning experience. The remaining seventy percent of learning is
informal. Informal learning needs are encountered in the context of working on
the job. E-learning performance support embeds e-learning opportunities into
work practices and processes providing just-in-time, just-what-I need
learning, that is immediately applied. I look for e-learning to be
increasingly focused on performance support rather than courses.
9. Synchronous E-learning
In my view this is the best new e-learning
technology area. Synchronous learning tools offer voice over IP, one or two
way video, application sharing, and instant messaging capabilities among many
features. While use of this technology for traditional lectures or PowerPoint
presentations is widespread I look for new pedagogical models to emerge that
emphasize collaboration and interaction over one way communication. I am
particularly excited by the potential to use television, film, and reality TV
camera practises in video use for e-learning.
10. Business & Individual ROI
In these times of fiscal restraint there is
increasing pressure on e-learning to show a Return on Investment (ROI). The
cost-saving efficiencies of Learning Management Systems are essential but not
sufficient. Companies want e-learning deployment to show outcomes in terms of
increased employee productivity or increased company revenue. A great deal of
energy has gone into ensuring that e-learning meets standards. We need to put
even more energy into ensuring e-learning meets educational objectives. I
increasingly expect individuals to be looking for their own individual ROI for
time spent engaged in e-learning. Toward that end I expect e-learning content
to become more intellectually challenging and engaging.
As evidenced at Online Learning 2002 Canada is
uniquely positioned as a source of e-learning innovation and talent. For the
full potential of this position to be realized we must move from fragmented
regional economic clusters to a more national approach.
Driving this need are international and
national e-learning RFP's and contract opportunities. Many of these are too big
for any one company to go after on their own. Intra and inter-provincial company
teaming to integrate solutions and collaborate is the way to go. Now is the time
to make this move. The next eighteen months are critical.
Steps in this direction were taken at Online
Learning 2002 where, at a roundtable dinner with all three provinces, it was
agreed to work at pulling together a joint strategic plan. I volunteered to
coordinate this effort and welcome input from all concerned.
Paul
Stacey, is an e-learning specialist in corporate and higher education. A
frequent e-learning speaker and workshop leader Paul works in Simon Fraser
University's eLearning Innovation Centre (eLINC). Paul is interested in the use
of e-learning to support lifelong learning and the development of e-learning as
an economic sector locally, nationally, and internationally. Contact:
Paul Stacey
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