e Learning Quality -- Are We Missing the Boat?

In the recent past, I have been exploring e-Learning Quality. A lot has been talked about on the topic. Yet I see a large gap that needs to be bridged. Or rather a perspective correction. 

The one thing that I have observed is that most articles and papers talk of it from the Pedagogy, Design & Development, Delivery and Technology & Infrastructure point of view. Discussions mostly go around the demystification of storyboards, choice of Authoring tools, LCMS & LMS, SCORM or AICC, etc. This in my view is a micro view of the real e-Learning arena, both in the Corporate and the Education K-12, Higher Education) sectors. But, what about the macro view? 

Most commonly as expected issues like Accreditation, Education Policy, Quality Assurance & Control, e-Portfolios, Learning Portals, etc grace the many topics. While these are essential for better and effective e-Learning dissemination; the opinion I hold is to view it all from a point of the real mechanics the Operators need to go through to bring about the real value addition e-Learning should bring to the Learners. 

Although some worthy attempts have been made, but the acceptance of these in the mainstream are not quite visible. One such attempt was the e-Leaning Maturity Model (eMM). The Victoria University of Wellignton initiative is now talking of the version2 of eMM. Interestingly the effort itself has matured. Tony Bates in his blog mentions and talks of e-Learning Quality much from a similar perspective. Even Clark Quinn in his article 'Quality is a Subtle Distinction' makes an intriguing point that the folly many Instructional Designers make is to go by what the SME has indicated. With these and many more varied pointers at e-Learning Quality advocates and practitioners of e-Learning must now work at a global Quality Management System that focuses on transforming the turf. 


I am not advocating a shift of thinking from the micro aspects to the macro views. In fact, the emphasis is on developing a framework that is concretely inclusive. 

Mindset for e-Learning

Jay Cross is credited for coining the word e-Learning. In his foreword to the book 'The Handbook of Blended Learning' he makes a case as to why the corporates are still a hard sell for e-learning in their training departments.

"Corporationns seek self-reliant workers they can trust to do the right thing without supervision. Every manager wants self-starters on her team. Yet when it comes to learning, many workers wait for others to tell them what to do. Why don't they take matters into their own hands? I think it's a vestige of schooling.

Several hundred years ago, cumpulsory schools were set up as a seperate reality. Students were seedlings, while schools were greenhouses to protect them from outside elements. The mission of schools was transmitting values and teaching a body of knowledge. The noise of the real world might taint the righteousness and clarity of the lessons.

Many of us equate learning with schooling. That is why we think of learning as something a person does in isolation and that its ideal delivery takes place in the classroom or the library, cloistered from the outside. Group work is by and large discouraged (it's called "cheating"). Authorities choose the curriculum. Self-direction is viewed as rebillion.

As a consequence Senior managers equate learning and schooling; they remember school as an inefficient way to learn. They are not willing to pay for it."

The premise to bring forth this point is to highlight the stickiness many e-Learning business development operators struggle with. Invariably it is observed that business development executives start comparing the school (read as: classroom) and the move from this classical setting of learning to a more technology based platform of e-learning. What Jay Cross says makes sense. Because such a comparision is a sudden death trap for the executives vouching to bring business. Most times this is frustrating. 

As rightly pointed by Cross, its learning that needs to be highlighted and not the departure of school or classroom to the technology enabled delivery patform. Essentially its the mindset of the decision makers that is botlleneck. Typically in a corporate setting managers like to have onboard team members who are self-starters and for this to happen in the fast paced business environments access and availability of learning in the 'e' delivery format makes business sense.

Quickly getting things done

Much of the challenge today is in getting things done quickly. With the inclusion of technology in our lives although many aspects of work and life have been eased, yet the global population is still striving at productivity.

With zillions of productivity themized software and applications for your desktop, laptop, mobile the struggle is still on. What could be the reason? To me its more to do with what we want get done.

In my observation we end up taking up tasks that are too demanding, labourious, time consuming and at best having a lot of dependencies. Be it the prodution of courses that I do for a living or be it simply having a social life and netwroking. In real, we have without realizing increased the volume of things that we wish to get done without realizing that the burden of deadlines that we set on them is generally unrealistic.

Some of this is also because we have lost or at best overlooked the ability to view the world the and its dynamics the way it should be. In an environment when we are talking of social networking and collaboration we are failing to see the real meaning of these words and absorbing less and less of the concept behind them.

I found this good video on the YouTube on time and how we are oriented to it and the way it primarily determines how we function.


What is important to learn from the video is how we get to focus on things that we undertake. Close friends and well wishers tell me all the time that I canstart something but lose out on it cause I fail to finish it. Its true in a way not only for me but for several people. One main reason is the shifting sand of priority that we attach to our daily tasks. What was high priority yesterday is not a priority today but something else is. And we shift our focus and attention. And merely add to to factors of our ever growing list of stress factors.

What should we do? We can make use of the PCF tool. Its a simple way of categorizing the tasks that we have in our kitty to manage them more effectively and likewise make ourselves more productive and have that stress move away from our system.

PCF is short for Past (tasks), Current (tasks) and Future (tasks). Typically its suggested that the sum of future tasks should be 70% of the total task list. In other words, total PCF task should stand in the ratio of 30:70. How to calculate this? Its simple really.

Here is a sample:

Total Tasks = 10
Past Tasks = 1
Current = 2
Future Tasks = 7

Formula = Sum of (past tasks + current tasks) : (Total Future Tasks)

The idea is to have ZERO past tasks; and only future and current tasks.

As a closing thought TOYOTA uses this very effectively.

Rapid LCMS.....(is there anything like that?)

I must confess, its been a hectic week. Sleepless nights and driving to office drowzy and working through for 8-9 hours...Yes! It was worth the pain. And of course the effort.

The fructification of that frenzy is what I call RAPID LCMS. A combine of Rapid e-Learning Development Initiative and an LCMS that must support not only the existing dbase of Learning Objects but also work, manage and build upon the library of assests and Learning Objects needed for and by the Rapid e-Learning efforts.

I must say that my experience in the e-learning field has been limited to Instructional Design. But moving  project management followed by quality and now into systems design, policy making & innovation is less a transition and more a departure from the world of core e-learning. And this is happening Rapid(ly) at the benefit of L(earning) C(urve) M(anaged) S(ense making). In short Rapid LCMS.

Rapid e-learning has been around for some time now. LCMSs have been an offshoot of Content Management Systems redesigned and upgraded for Learning material/content. The uncertainty of the matter however, is the point where to start. That precisely gives me the idea that one needs to in fact map it all. And that brings the Instructional Designer's skills here. And of course Project Management skills into play if this effort is taken as a project.

More than heading straight to documenting the specifications and requirements, I feel that putting the concept is more appropriate and build-up fromt here. The concept paper will help me expand and come up with a Work Document, which will act as a solid foundation to the effort.

The initial presentation that I made to the executive office can form the basis of the concept paper. The timelines are short and task(s) challenging, humungous, tiring. Will get going till the next post.

Benefits of Learning Objects

Here is a quick run on the benefits of Learning Objects. However, I am not working on their reusability. I still remain stuck to the question, if the learning objects can be reusable in the higher education set up.

CISCO writes about the learning object benefits and to me the list that they have created is comprehensive. Adopting a learning object strategy vary based on your development process, authoring and delivery tools, and integration with existing content management, knowledge management, and learning management systems. Even so, there are a number of potential benefits for authors, learners, and organizations.

For Authors

For authors, a learning object strategy accomplishes the following:

• Supports the design of many learning approaches, including receptive, directive, guided discovery, and exploratory

• Ensures, through the use of object-specific templates, that design and development of learning products are consistent across the organization

• Provides a consistent design structure early in the development process, maximizing resource allocation while minimizing development risks

• Provides guidelines for authors, improving their ability to write effective and efficient performance-based training, assessments, and resources

• Enables detailed searches that allow authors to find, reuse, and repurpose any object or media

• Allows authors to combine old and new objects to build new solutions to meet the needs of their learners

• Supports both reuse and repurposing from the smallest media element up to larger course structures and learning contexts

• Enables application of delivery formats and styles to the learning objects as they are “published” for delivery (also known as single-source development), saving time and resources when authors are developing and maintaining learning products

• Supports a broad range of delivery types, including instructor-led training (ILT), self-paced e-learning training, performance-support tools, virtual classrooms, personal digital assistants (PDAs), or blended delivery solutions

For Learners

For learners, a learning object strategy accomplishes the following:

• Provides a mechanism for learners to self-assess their skills and knowledge in order to receive a prescribed course of action for future learning

• Supports the acquisition of new skills and knowledge through education, experience, or exposure

• Supports multiple delivery types, media types, and presentation styles to fit a learner’s needs, preferences, and work environment

• Enables, through the use of detailed metadata about each object, custom learning paths to be tailored to the knowledge and skills that individual learners need for their job

• Enables learners to search on job-specific objects and efficiently access the right amount of knowledge as it is needed

• Delivers a consistent learning experience with each deliverable using learning objects, including job aids, classroom training materials, elearning, and blended delivery formats

• Supports multiple learning approaches, ranging from passive, receptive training to discovery and problem-solution based training


For Organizations

For organizations, a learning object strategy accomplishes the following:

• Reduces the costs, when the strategy is implemented correctly, in each phase of the development process by using a standardized structure and format

• Scales the development model by allowing the use of many development partners through the publication of a standard and related tools for learning object development (LOD)

• Increases the speed to successful performance and competency by employees by using a database of existing learning objects to build new solutions quickly

• Decreases development and maintenance time to support both exams and courses by using a common database of learning objects

• Allows the rapid creation of certification materials by leveraging granular, focused learning objectives that support both the certification exams and learning objects

• Personalizes learning approaches and delivery types, resulting in improved learner satisfaction and enhanced transfer of knowledge and skills

• Aligns content found in learning content management systems with knowledge management systems across the enterprise

Reusing the Learning Objects in e-Universities

One of the most common and often heard discussion in the e-Learning circles is about the 'reusability' of learning objects. What is very essential to understand in this debate/discussion is the real and achievable end that we'd like to reach. The talks, though start with a lot of enthusiasm, mostly reach a dead-end at a specific topic -- how to reuse?

CISCO has done a lot of work that they have shared with the community at large that gives a wonderful primer on the subject. However, their writings, research and recommendations are centered at learning objects that are developed either for corporate training purposes and/or commercial purposes. Contrary to this, my primary concern is the development of learning objects for use in Higher Education Institutions set ups like e-Universities (that deliver their education offerings over the Internet).




Addressing the following questions is an essential first step to gain clarity and direction.

1. How to reuse the existing learning objects or how to make the existing learning objects reusable?
   
2. Are there special Instructional Design considerations to be made to have (readily) reusable learning objects in an e-University? What are they?



3. Does the pedagogical approach impact the learning objects?



4. Can Connectivism (proposed learning theory for digital age) be the answer to distance learning/blended learning system in Higher Education Institutions?

One of the strong points for my argument is that the concept of learning objects and their reuse is of less utility while in the university level education. Taking an example of a program that is offered in a university would give us more insight. typically, a program that a learner selects comprises of several courses that are core and some electives. Further still, let us assume that the learner has enrolled for a program -- Bachelors in Quality Management. Within this program the learner would be required to take courses like:

• Quality Management Systems


• Fundamentals of TQM (Total Quality Management)


• Quality Assurance

When we breakdown each course from an Instructional Design view point, we'd arrive at a handful of learning objects for each. Reusability of each individual learning object is something that needs to be addressed now. How and where do we reuse the learning object remains a challenge. Except while we are revising the course ware on lapse of a certain time period or when the information contained in the learning object appears to be redundant. Beyond this, where is the reuse of the learning is something that needs critical thinking and answers need to be explored and methods need to be devised to make any sense of the whole talk that circumambulates the Reusable Learning Object debate.