elearning in irish organisations cipd ireland 2003 david o’donnell dublin, november 24 th 2003
TRANSCRIPT
eLearning in Irish Organisations
CIPD Ireland 2003
David O’DonnellDublin, November 24th 2003
Background Information
•eLearning in Ireland: CIPD 2003
•CIPD Study on eLearning in the UK in 2002
– Design by David Ashton and Johnny Sung at CLMS, Leicester University; Mike Cannell at CIPD London
•with Tom Garavan at UL, Mike McDonnell
– We surveyed in Ireland in 2003
Conceptual Debate
• eLearning as Revolution– Chambers, 1999– Sloman– Vendors
• eLearning as Evolution– Reynolds and colleagues (CIPD, 2002)– Ourselves (CIPD Ireland, 2003)
Revolution
John Chambers, Cisco Systems CEO, in his keynote speech to the 1999 Comdex Trade Show in Las Vegas suggested that:
• “The biggest growth in the Internet, and the area that will prove to be one of the biggest agents of change, will be in eLearning”
Not Yet……..!
Evolution
“eLearning is an evolutionary, as distinct from revolutionary, phenomenon. It is at the early stage in its development—in many cases it can provide, if in part, learning
effective and cost and time efficient solutions to employee and personal development situations—and, in combination with tried and tested traditional methodologies, termed
Blended-Learning, it is probably most useful”(CIPD Ireland, 2003).
eLearning is no different from traditional training methods in terms of its purpose, which is learning, but is more so in terms of requisite infrastructure, design, mode of delivery, and communicative potential.
Evolution
eLearning Research
CIPD member Perceptions
eLearning materials
Training areas?Which employees?
Usage
Size; Sector; Nationality of
Ownership;Type; Status
Time; Money
INFORMATION OVERLOAD
•© David O’Donnell, 2000
Key Findings – Ireland I
• 44 per cent of responding organisations use eLearning in some shape or form
• There is significant variation by organisation size, sector, nationality of ownership, type and status
• Size matters; eLearning usage and scope all increase with organisation size
• The electronics, chemicals and public sectors are leading users
• 40 per cent of “private” organisations in Ireland make some use of eLearning;
• Irish state and semi-state organisations are significant users of eLearning (>60%)
Key Findings – Ireland II
• US subsidiaries (~ 60%) are higher users than Irish owned organisations (~40%) • Almost 10 per cent spend more 25 per cent of the training budget on eLearning; amost one third spend between 10
and 25 per cent, with just over 40 per cent of those using eLearning spending less than 10 per cent of their budgets on it;
• Almost one fifth use eLearning “a lot”, with about two fifths using it “some” or “a little” respectively. Large organisations are much more likely to use eLearning “some” or a “a lot” and US organisations (34%) are much more likely than Irish owned organisations (14%) to report using eLearning “a lot”
Key Findings – Ireland III
• ~66% rate the Internet as a method of training and development to be reasonably effective; but notably….• they continue to make much greater use of Traditional Methods, and to rank these far higher in terms of
effectiveness • There is recognition of the emerging effectiveness of Blended-Learning • 50% produce eLearning materials specific to the organisation—almost 75% of US-owned, almost 50% of
Irish-owned and approximately 66% of Irish state/semi-state produce in-house;
Key Findings – Ireland IV
eLearning is used most for IT (86%) and technical skills (64%) training and much less so for “soft” skills training. IT staff top the list (almost two thirds) followed by technical, clerical/administrative and professional staff. Managerial personnel are in the next rank, and it is rarely used for manual employees;
Over eighty per cent believe that eLearning demands a new attitude to learning by learners;
• Almost two thirds of respondents believe that eLearning demands an entirely new skill set for training professionals
Key Findings – Ireland V
• Only one tenth (10%) of Irish CIPD members view eLearning as “ the most important development in training in a lifetime”
• …..—a pragmatic recognition, in our view, of the Evolutionary, as distinct from Revolutionary, nature of the emergence of the eLearning phenomenon.
• Further, Irish findings are broadly in line with the UK CIPD study in 2002, and with a comprehensive EU study on eBusiness published this March (see Report)
New Role: Training
Co-operation & Networking
Quality Content & Services
Infrastructure& equipment
Training at all levels
Conclusion
• eLearning is not a stand-alone phenomenon—it is both a consequence and a reflection of the increasing penetration of information and communications technology (ICT) into business, society and everyday life.
• It is driven by considerations of cost, time, technological innovation, globalisation and employee/learner demand for qualifications-based training.
• Adopting eLearning demands the development of further professional skills by training and development specialists and of new attitudes to learning by learners.
