News story

Getting it right, not getting away with it - in the e-learning industry

Learning NewsBrightwave Group

BrightWave is producing an article for its customers about how style and subject matter have become more important than 'learning' in many e-learning programmes. The article is being made available on an exclusive basis to the media; publications with an interest in publishing it are invited to contact BrightWave.

Article synopsis

Subject Matter
- Getting it right, not getting away with it - in the e-learning industry.
- Are we (buyers and suppliers) confusing style and subject matter for good e-learning?

Intended Audience
- Buyers and suppliers of e-learning
- Training professionals

Audience interest will be:
- Are providers of e-learning pulling the wool over buyers' eyes?
- Are providers focusing on subject matter and style (the easy, visible bits) and not bothering with the form or process of learning (because it's hard to measure and hard to get right)?
- Subject is topical as many e-learning vendors are experiencing difficulties now and buyers seem unwilling to spend - e-learning has not yet achieved expectations.

Article will cover
- Because it's hard to measure results of learning (in terms of performance and ROI) form has been ignored at the expense of style and content.
- There are increasing suspicions (in business) that e-learning doesn't work, despite the gloss and gadgetry.
- E-learning has exposed this by raising the stakes: the fact is that it needs bigger budgets/upfront investments (corporate training in the past has received the same budget year-on-year, nicely dispersed into small pieces) and so it has come under the microscope.
- The most effective providers of e-learning are moving well beyond gimmickry and technology for its own sake
- The best of them provide flexible, customised tools that can be adapted according to the needs of and in collaboration with their clients. They are first and foremost skilled trainers and educators, who are able to exploit the real advantages offered by e-learning to do things better and more effectively than was hitherto possible.
- The providers that will succeed in the long run are those that work on getting it right not just getting away with it.
- Likely length will be 2,000 words.

Author Biography
Charles Gould has spent ten years in e-learning and multimedia. After a career with Epic Plc, as an instructional designer and later as producer, he spent two years with BT as a content manager in their Internet and Multimedia Services Division; responsible for online learning alliances and developing an early learning management system. Before founding BrightWave, Charles was a principal consultant with PricewaterhouseCooppers, working at a senior level with a number of large organisations designing and implementing enterprise-wide e-learning strategies.

Charles has managed numerous e-learning projects that have covered system training, product training, sales training and language teaching for call centres, banks, pharmaceutical companies, manufacturing companies and government departments.

Charles is currently managing director of BrightWave, a leading provider of custom e-learning programmes.