News story

Top level talks for telecomms' e-learning specialists

LondonLearning NewsMPS Interactive Systems

Tata Interactive Systems (TIS), the global e-learning pioneer, and telecom giants ntl played host to their colleagues in the telecom industry at a forum to discuss 'making e-learning relevant to business'. The forum was held - by invitation of TIS - at ntl's headquarters in Hampshire last week (7th June).

Delegates from companies including BT, Telewest, Vodafone, O2 and Equant as well as ntl, heard case studies from Vodafone and the Netherlands-based international consultancy Scientafix. They also networked with their peers and discussed best practice approaches to the use, monitoring and measurement of e-learning within their organisations.

"This is the first in a series of highly focused, one day 'discussion and discovery' events that spring from the Tata Learning Forum (TLF) - which involved a specially invited audience of the top e-learning practitioners in the UK and Europe and was held in London in February," explained Manoj Kutty, TIS's worldwide president of sales and marketing.

According to TIS's Pankaj Jathar: "This event was designed to bring together people - particularly those from the telecommunications sector - to discuss issues and challenges common to companies in the industry, such as making e-learning relevant to business, how to align e-learning better with business goals et al. The aim was to explore and define best practices within e-learning and help organisations maximise the effectiveness of e-learning."

"The event offered some valuable insights," commented Dave Perring, head of blended learning at ntl.

Sean Ramgoolam, the e-learning project director of Vodafone, added: "It was both an enjoyable and instructive experience."

Key topics discussed by the delegates at the 'mini learning forum' included:

- E-learning's role as a tactical or a strategic tool in meeting a business' objectives.

- The effective measurement of e-learning's contribution to improving a business' 'bottom line'.

- The effective management of the flow of e-learning materials to meet business needs.

- The use of e-learning to meet the need for unstructured, informal learning within an organisation as well as meeting its structured, formal learning needs.

- Justifying using e-learning in terms of savings in the cost of learning materials development or justifying e-learning purely in terms of improvement in the business' bottom line.

"These events offer a wealth of vital information for any professional whose job involves commissioning and deploying e-learning materials throughout their organisation," explained TIS consultant Suman Nambiar. "We plan to hold several more of these events in partnership with our clients throughout the rest of the year, leading up to the next TLF in February 2006.

"TIS is happy to facilitate this information exchange - attendance at which is by invitation only. For further details of these events, please contact TIS on 020 7235 8281 or email [email protected]"

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