Overall the survey reveals that employees across Europe are highly motivated to develop their skills in the current economic climate - so much so that 76% are willing to give up their free time to undertake training and 53% are even prepared to part fund it. The survey looks at what motivates employees to learn, how the majority of employees are initiating their own training in the workplace and how e-learning and blended learning as well as emerging learning tools like podcasts, wikis, blogs, forums and webinars are more popular than ever.  

Key findings include:

• Training in Europe is employee-driven with most employees willing to make personal sacrifices to undertake it( in both time and finance), while 25% still do not receive training
• Training is seen as key to a pay rise in the current economic climate – 65% of employees are most motivated to develop their skills by the potential to increase their salary.
• UK managers the most involved in the training of their teams yet only 17% of managers across Europe are following-up on training initiatives afterwards.
• UK and Spain continue to lead the way with e-learning and blended learning with 53% and 41% of UK employees using these tools respectively.
• The use of podcasts, wikis, blogs, forums and webinars are more popular than ever with the UK leading the way with many of these tools with around a third of more of UK employees having used them in the workplace.

You can see the full results here.

3 observations:

• Recent reports from Capita highlight that inadequate L&D departments are holding back recovery with 50% of business leaders from some of the UK's largest organisations doubting L&D's ability to support their upturn strategy. However the Cegos research shows that there is a real hunger within individuals that matches the hunger of business itself (see the CBI report on business over the next 10 years). Surely this is a significant wake up call!!
  
• Our own research on learning innovation in business confirms many of the findings in the Cegos report -in our last benchmark podcasting tools, webinars were all rapidly growing ( something that appears to be continuting in our current benchmark programme) - highlighting that innovative L&D departments are starting to use tools that will allow them to respond more rapidly to changing business demand
  
• Whilst the UK and spain are leading the way with e-learning and blended learning - there is still a way to go (CIPD's research shows 85% of UK businesses now use e-learning but only 12% think it effective) and in our own benchmarks still less than 40% actively train their trainers on how to blend.

We really welcome this research by Cegos - another wake up call for L&D to become more responsive to both staff and business!

The benchmark is now considered the most comprehensive, independent and authoritative review on the use of Learning Technologies in the workplace in the UK. The 2010 benchmark represents a unique industry collaboration reflected by endorsements from 15 organisations to ensure that this review meets employer needs across all sectors. See below.

All those responsible for implementing learning technologies in the workplace and who are under pressure to accelerate their impact are invited to get involved during the coming months.

If you are responsible for implementing learning technologies in your workplace (and have not already received a personal invitation to participate) then click here to take part for free today(or click here to find out more).

Laura Overton, Managing Director of Towards Maturity says ‘In 2010 organisations are looking to technology to help deliver efficiencies and improve quality of learning. By investing 40 minutes in this impartial review, participants in the benchmark will be provided with individualised feedback that will help them accelerate change in 2010 and improve the impact of their investment’.

To date over 800 organisations from the private, public and not for profit sectors have participated in this research resulting in a compelling evidence base showing how to improve the impact of learning technologies in the workplace. All new participants in the 2010 review will have the opportunity to benchmark their own progress against established practice and receive a personalised report with practical advice ( value £200) for free. You can follow benchmark progress on Twitter via #TMB10.

Industry endorsements for 2010 Learning Technology Benchmark

Increased national interest in skills means that L&D professionals need to continually innovate to improve business performance. BILD is pleased to continue to  support the Towards Maturity Learning Technology benchmark in 2010 because this powerful research tool provides a unique opportunity for our members to adapt to changing business  by providing them with an opportunity to  reflect  and  benchmark  against effective practices.’ Jack Wills. Chair The British Institute for Learning and Development (BILD) www.thebild.org.uk
‘Adapting to and embracing new technologies for learning is key to moving business and the communities they work in forwards.   When technology matches business needs with learning as a solution, it widens access to learning and better enables more employees to contribute to improving business performance, enriches their own lives and increases engagement with wider society. The TM 2010 Benchmark is an impressive tool for measuring impact and benchmarking companies’ behaviours and encouraging learning from the experience of others.  It is fully supported by Business in the Community and aligns strongly with our own annual benchmarking tool – the Corporate Responsibility (CR) Index. ‘ Sarah Gibb, National Campaign Manager, Business Action on Skills www.bitc.org.uk
'The work of Towards Maturity is vital in helping organisations understand the emergence and maturation of trends in workplace learning, particularly so they can benefit from the experiences of others and ensure they don’t fall behind in the fast-paced knowledge economy”  Jane Hart, CEO, Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies (C4LPT) www.c4lpt.co.uk
‘CLC is pleased to support the 2010 benchmark as we have found that the Towards Maturity research highlights the important issues that the charity sector is facing in implementing learning technologies. The personalised benchmark reports have also provided our members with practical advice and guidance that has helped us to change, innovate and collaborate in order to improve performance’ Martin Baker, The Charity Learning consortium www.charitylearning.org
‘Insightful and up-to-date data on trends and emerging practice is the lifeblood of any learning & development manager. Without solid data and intelligent analysis it’s almost impossible to steer the best path to support our organisations and workers in their quest for the highest quality performance. The Towards Maturity learning technology benchmark is a vital resource for anyone trying to provide top-quality learning and development services.’ Charles Jennings, Duntroon Associates. www.duntroon.com
www.elearnity.com
'E.learning age is pleased to support the Towards Maturity 2010 Benchmark. It is very important work, especially in identifying emerging trends and changing practices in workplace learning and development. This authoritative study fits in with the objectives that we have in organising the E-Learning Awards as it is vital the e-learning community shares what is happening, especially at a time when every organisation is under pressure to deliver great value in all areas, including technology-based learning. We would encourage as many as possible to the take part.' Peter Williams, Editor, E.learning age www.elearningage.co.uk
''The eLearning Network is a keen supporter of the Towards Maturity learning technology benchmark, which does so much to spread good practice and to highlight the issues that need addressing if e-learning is to achieve its full potential'' Clive Shepherd, Chair, eLearning Network www.elearningnetwork.org
‘ Our passion at the institute is to raise professionalism within the learning and development industry and have long believed that measuring impact and benchmarking are critical to innovation that leads to improved performance. Towards Maturity share our passion and over the last 6 years have developed their renowned learning technology benchmark  at the coalface of the industry in order to provide practical insights necessary to drive our profession forward. As a result the IITT is pleased to support the 2010 benchmark and would recommend as many as possible get involved’ – Colin Steed CEO IITT www.iitt.org.uk
‘I would encourage anyone who is serious about using learning technologies to transform workplace learning to take part in the Towards Maturity 2010 Benchmark. To date over 800 organisations have participated resulting in a trusted & established research base proven to help  organisations save time in building innovative learning that delivers results’ Donald H Taylor, Chairman Learning & Skills Group. www.learningtechnologies.co.uk/learning-and-skills-group
‘‘With mounting financial pressure and accountability facing public sector organisations, many of Learning Pool’s customers are finding that now is the time to use tools such as benchmarking and return on investment analysis to better make the case for adopting learning technologies. We recommend the TM 2010 benchmark because it provides organisations with an opportunity to not only review their own activity but draw out practical lessons from the best practices of others in both public and private sector’. Mary McKenna, Learning Pool Director www.learningpool.com
www.informatology.com
‘TJ’s L&D 2020 research project clearly indicates that technology is an increasingly important element in how people learn at work, but its uptake and level of success is still variable. Many organisations are already using technology in sophisticated ways to deliver real business benefit, while others are just beginning to dip their toes into the water. The TM benchmark survey is a vital part of measuring progress and disseminating best practice to support individuals and organisations in embracing technology fully until it becomes just another part of the company infrastructure.’ Debbie Carter, Director of Research, Training Journal www.trainingjournal.com
“With technology moving so fast, learning and development professionals need to adapt their thinking if they don’t want to be left behind. The Towards Maturity 2010 Benchmark will help us understand just where we are in terms of embracing (or not) all the great tools available to enrich the learning experience.” Verity Gough, editor, TrainingZone.co.uk www.trainingZone.co.uk
“We are delighted to be supporting the ongoing research that Towards Maturity has been undertaking over the past six years. It's vital for the industry to be able to take stock of learning approaches and ensure they are relevant to the current market - particularly at such a time when budgets and time are under more pressure than ever. With an inevitable increase in reliance on using technology for learning, it is crucial that consideration is given to the outcomes and effectiveness of its use. The results of this year's survey are sure to provide invaluable help to L&D practitioners to not only facilitate this, but also evaluate and their current activities and embrace the potential technology has to offer.” Alison Church, Senior Conference & Marketing Manager, World of Learning Conference & Exhibition www.learningevents.com
“As most learning is happening on the job there is a potential goldmine in uncovering new ways of leveraging technology to facilitate and support these learning processes. ELIG fully endorses the TM2010 Benchmark - it will provide us with additional evidence that will help to shape solutions geared towards enhancing knowledge work and shaping innovative learning solutions.” Richard Straub, Secretary General, European Learning Industry Group. www.elig.org/

If you are responsible for implementing learning technologies in your workplace (and have not already received a personal invitation to participate) then click here to take part for free today! 

Quick update 30th July:

400+ organisations have got involved so far creating a great basis for comparison across the private and public sector. 70% of those who have been through the 2010 benchmark say that just participating provided new ideas for improving the results of their e-learning services ( and that is before receiving their personalised report to compare best practice - due early September). Here's some of the feedback from participants since we launched at the L&S group event in June:

• Excellent survey - well worth doing since it points out how much work I have yet to do.
• Thanks a lot for a very meaningful survey! I has awakened lots of thoughts in my mind!
• Great study with thought provoking questions, our Industry needs this level of analysis and insight so that we can grow together and build a robust industry for our future.
• Thank you. Great idea guys, this survey has challenged my thinking & thoughts around Learning Technologies
• Really interesting questions - very thought provoking - thank you
• I believe this is the best survey I have spent my time on (even though it was a long one). The questions were well thought through and I could for once relate them to my organisation that I support

 Don't miss out, click here to take part.

A unique industry collaboration

The 2010 benchmark represents a unique industry collaboration reflected by endorsements from 15 organisations that represent employer needs from all sectors  and Towards Maturity has worked with these organisations to ensure currency and relevance. Find out what The Institute of IT training, the British Institute of learning and Development, Training Journal, TrainingZone , Charles Jennings, Jane Hart, David Wilson and many others are encouraging you to take part. It has also had tremendous interest outside of the UK via organisations such as ELNET in Australia.

Nigel Paine, one of the UK's L&D thought leaders who also contributed to the benchmark thinking, succinctly sums up what the industry is saying 'Everyone wants to know where they stand. Most are keen to learn from what others have done. Combine those two ideas with a dash of user friendliness and you have the TM 2010 benchmark. There is nothing like it and nothing works better'.

Who should take part? The benchmark is aimed at those responsible for implementing learning technologies at work who are under pressure to deliver more with less.

If you want to

• Increase e-learning adoption and effectiveness
• Accelerate change
• Improve business engagement
• Deliver better results and improve efficiency
• Receive independent, personalised feedback & practical advice?

Why get involved?

To date over 800 organisations from the private, public and not for profit sectors have participated in Towards Maturity's independent benchmark, established in 2004 to identify how to improve the impact of learning technologies at work.

Following completion of the benchmark ( a self-assessment excercise that should take about 40 minutes), you will receive a copy of the final research findings (due November 2010) and your own personalised benchmark report (value £200) that:

• Highlights your strengths and weaknesses
• Compares your activity against benchmarks established over the past 6 years that are proven to improve impact and take up
• Directs you to examples of great practice and free resources to help you on your learning technology journey.

What have past participants said about the TM Benchmark process?

ʻWe are modernising the way that we think about learning in the council and technology is a critical element. Taking part in the TM Benchmark gave us a chance to reflect on our strategy and imlementation plans. The personalised report helped us refine our approach and provided practical ideas that really increased engagement and saved us time.ʼ Wendy Henry, Snr L&D Officer, Lincolnshire CC

“The personalised benchmark report we received has provided a framework for learning technology strategy and implementation that I keep coming back to – in essence it has helped me to define my objectives, highlighting areas where we can further develop a culture of learning within the RNLI.” John LeRossignol, Learning Resources Manager at RNLI

Click here for more testimonies.

Why wait?

Get yourself a cup of coffee, and invest 40 minutes in this review uniquely developed to help you deliver 'more for less'  in 2010!

This  year, there were some new flavours for the report – for one the title has changed – shifting from  ‘Learning and Development’ survey to ‘Learning and Talent’ – reflecting the increased appettite for talent management activity gripping the industry . We also see  a new international perspective – important in this global economy. Of course the report highlighted some interesting information but  given that the 2010 survey was changing, trying to reflect the times, it really missed a trick in bringing some  issues to light.

Some of the things that I found particularly interesting were as follows:

On L&D practice generally :

• The most effective learning and talent development practices are in-house development programmes (56%) and coaching by line managers (51%). Both practices are on the increase since last year. 
• The main changes in organisations’ L&D departments over the last year included the department becoming more business-focused (38%), reducing external suppliers and a move to in-house provision (31%).
• The proportion of employers undertaking talent management activities has increased from 36% to 59%.  It confirms other studies on the issues of economic pressure  with funds for learning decreasing for over 50% and 20% seeing cuts in staff.

On the use of e-learning

• Unsurprisingly  we saw that E-learning is the practice that has increased the most this year,  with 62% of organisations saying they use it more than in 2009.
• Unfortunately , for the first time, CIPD did not  have an overall figure of e-learning usage in this report for the first time. However that did not stop me from asking! The helpful CIPD press office told me that in addition to 62% of participants increasing their e-learning usage, 20% used the same amount and 3% were using less highlighting that 85% of their sample are now using e-learning ( up from 74% last year).
• In answer to the question ‘Which of the following learning and talent development practices do you believe are the most effective?’- e-learning moved from 7%  last year to 12 % - small shift but something happening!

The glaring ommissions!

CIPD’s own objectives are clear  -  ‘One of the aims of the CIPD Learning and Talent Development survey is to track changes in workplace learning, as well as identify anticipated trends for the next five years.’

Significant findings of other research in the role of L&D and the way that it supports business (including Training Journal’s L&D2020 project   and TM’s own longitudinal benchmarks)  highlight a number of additional  trends that are simply not referenced at all. The most glaring is the transformational use of technology in learning!

Technology in learning - is it just about 'e-learning' or is it transforming other L&D practices?

Other studies have shown that new technologies in learning are being used to open up new opportunities for L&D to better support business needs.  However, the word technology appeared once in this study  (large organisations include training technology within  their training budgets apparently!)
Apart from that,the role of technology in learning was not referenced outside the term e-learning at all. 

As in previous CIPD surveys the narrow implication that e-learning is only an online self pace, boring course was carefully emphasised. For example both the case studies referencing e-learning were at pains to highligth the negatives of this media - ‘the use of e-learning, even for course preparation, was less useful than the classroom method’.  ‘We had tried to use e-learning as a precondition to attending training but many staff commented that they did not have time to complete or properly consider the package due to pressures of work and so rushed the package at the last minute.’

 Of course these are common complaints and objections about general e-learning programmes ( particularly compliance) programmes and I have to completely agree that these rarely meet the mark ( which is why I was amused that this media has increased by 5 points in ‘ the most effective learning media’ question since last year!)  But where are all the other trends and good practices for using media in learning highlighted?

In the last 2 years alone, Towards Maturity site have added  over 50 employer stories  to our site bringing the total up to nearly 100 examples of businesses who are using technology to transform their own in house development programmes (see). This years  CIPD survey shows that in house programmes are on the increase and are deemed to be the most successful L&D practice but you would never guess that technology had anything to do with this. The silence of this report on this issue is deafening!

You might argue that the massive surge in technology tools such as rapid application development tools and virtual classroom for in house use  mean that technology is now so common place that CIPD do not have to highlight it’s role in L&D practices – if that is the case why still single out the e-learning course as a separate item?

Social learning

Lets take another trend that most other research is highlighting at the moment - the  role of continuous informal social learning for staff .  I did  a search on the words informal ,social  and media and found no mention of them in this context and yet their potential for contribution to organisational development as a whole is significant.

The words social and media came up  once in this document but only as sectors in participant profiles – a bit ironic given that the biggest media company we have in the UK is the BBC and they are at the forefront of social media in learning and development!  However the study did highlight that those who thought that internal knowledge sharing activies were one of the most effective practices increased from 14% to 16% over the last year.

That said, this CIPD research does help to identify is the new roles required of L&D moving forward to engage business and manage change. This report clearly states that ‘It will be particularly important for professionals to ensure that their L&TD activities are even more closely aligned with business strategy and to be able to assess the return on investment generated.’  However there is a way to go. 

The majority of L&D staff are spend their time  delivering courses or managing learning (46%) and whilst activities linked to change management are increasing only 13% spend any time discussing implementation or building relationship with other management.  Other research programmes have shown that business demands are causing a shift in the skills sets needed by L&D staff – improved liaison with management, change management, designing new types of learning intervention, harnessing technology to harness learning and knowledge are critical moving foward and yet the CIPD survey shows that we are a long way off and whilst it tackles the skills needs of the businesses that L&D serve, it neglects to talk about the skills needs of the profession itself.

What I love about the CIPD 's work

What I love about the CIPD research is it’s reputation, reach  and longitudinal comparisons. In addition, the CIPD’s own CPD programmes to support L&D staff increasingly harnessing technology so that L&D professionals are experiencing what it means to be connected by technology to experts, mentors, each other as they build skills – there is no better way of encouraging effective use of learning technologies than by experiencing it for themselves. In many  of their programmes, thanks to creative leadership, this is modelled well.

But...

What I hate about this study in particular is the missed opportunity – it aims to support the profession by highlighting and preparing for all anticipated trends and yet fails to include great swathes of practices that involve technology and are starting to take the profession by storm.  All I can say is watch this space – it is time to fill the gap!

Failures in the Public Sector have, in general, been well documented and the Megatrends report documents these very well; together with a list of recommendations to decrease the chance of failure. The private sector is less well documented so we set out to find out a little more. We asked some of the UK and US leaders and experts in the field of e-learning to tell us about their experiences.

Undoubtedly the IT element causes difficulties and issues but perhaps less so than mainstream IT data projects. As early as 1990 the British Computer Society becomes concerned about the failure rate of mainstream IT projects with 30% to 40% of IT projects delivering no real benefit. We cannot quantify the failure rate in e-learning but we can qualify the reasons.

The new Towards Maturity Briefing paper can be downloaded below and outlines 33 reasons why e-learning projects fail, these break down into 6 warning Zones that need to be avoided!

Warning Zone 1 -  No Defined Business Purpose

Learning and therefore e-learning are low down the priority list in many organisations, those that believe in the survival of the fittest, those that hire and fire, those that prefer the status-quo and those that choose not to challenge staff. In these organisations e-learning projects are not endorsed or driven by top management, they do not have measurable targets, they are not aligned to specific business needs or they are ad-hoc initiatives of the training or IT function. Publically funded work-based e-learning fails for the same reasons and therefore must have strong employer support.

Warning Zone 2 - Lack of Hybrid Skills for Learning Professionals

There are three and skill sets and knowledge areas that e-learning projects teams must include to be successful:

• Technology and IT related skills;
  
• Learning and Development knowledge and skills; and
  
• Business knowledge and skills.
  

Ideally the Project Manager will grasp these three skill sets; can manage experts in each topic area and make correct decisions within the three areas. The evidence we have uncovered indicates that people who can fulfil this requirement are in short supply.

Warning Zone 3 - Poor Project Management and Planning

e-Learning initiatives fail because those in charge lack basic project management experience. There is a lack of stakeholder management, no planning for scalability from pilot to roll out, and inadequate risk analysis and management. Typical nonsense situations are where projects set out to compete with the very vested interests that they require co-operation from (typically traditional trainers), projects with no well-defined targets, un-trained administrative support and key senior stakeholders are ignored.

Warning Zone 4 - Poor Stakeholder Management

Poor stakeholder management, although a feature of poor project management, is serious enough to warrant a heading in its own right.  Trainers have a key part to play in making a success of e-learning and for many their appreciation of e-learning is wholly negative. As a group they are vital to success and therefore require special support, influence and communication. The term blended learning implies that technology is not an end in itself. Traditional classroom delivery may be part of the blend. What is certain is that traditional trainers will have a part to play but perhaps in new roles. The successful e-learning project brings trainers into the project turning them form detractors to advocates.

Top management also are vital to success. The Driving Business Benefit report (Page 28) made this clear. Where top managers are directly involved organisations have a greater probability of deriving maximum business benefit.

Warning Zone 5 - Failure to understand the Learner’s environment

Perhaps commercial suppliers may be forgiven for understanding what it is like to learn on the shop floor, in a call centre, on the road, in the factory, on the building site, with a manager who ignores personal development or in a culture that offers no support for learning. In-house trainers could not be forgiven for the same ignorance but projects still fail because e-learning is too rigid, is not interruptible, patronises, or cannot be easily updated as business requirements change.

Warning Zone 6 - Failure to demonstrate value

Even when e-learning is successful those responsible find it difficult to quantify because they fail to collect information to report success. The Towards Maturity Evidence for Change initiative  reports many projects which do have the measures and are able to report success. The anecdotal comment we have collected still highlights lack of measurement as a reason for failure even when a project has been successful.

What can be done about it?

1. learn from other projects (both successes and failures;
2. audit their own and their organisation’s capabilities; and
3. challenge their sponsor (or funding agency) as to why e-learning is required

Reading the research report on reasons for failure will start the learning process and the Towards Maturity benchmark report will assist in the auditing process.

Learning and Development departments are missing a trick by not demonstrating the value of their technology enabled solutions

London, March 12 2010 –Learning technologies are delivering critical business benefits to support organisations as they  come out of recession but managers are failing to recognise their value. The latest report from Towards Maturity, the UK’s leading independent workplace e-learning research team,  investigates the impact of learning technologies in the workplace with 200 private and public sector organisations.

The Towards Maturity Impact Indicator initial findings were announced at Learning Technologies 2010 and highlighted the extent to which the effective use of learning technologies helps hard pressed learning and development  departments to not only improve efficiency but contribute to much needed business agility.

At a time where organisations are all looking to deliver more for less, this study set out to investigate 3 main ‘impact indicators’ that would have potential value for an organisation.

• Efficiency -This indicator looks at the basics – impact on cost, volumes delivered and time savings.
• Business agility – This indicator looked at the ability of learning to help organisations respond productively to change, it considered time to competency; the ability of L&D to respond to business need; and overall business responsiveness to change. 
• Management perception of Value - We were interested in how we manage management perception of value and considered what do we measure and what do we report on?

Key findings

Efficiency savings reported by participants:

• Average cost savings of 11% ( 7 different learning technology types were compared)
• Average time savings of 28% (or 36% if you include travel time)
• Average increase in volume of learning delivered - 47%
• Only 29% of organisations measure basic cost comparisons between technology enabled learning vs. classroom. However those that do consistently report improved efficiency benefits. Those that estimate benefits typically are underestimating their impact.

Busines Agility benefits:

• 69% of 153 participants reported that time for staff to reach and prove competency in their jobs was faster with 12% able to comment that staff were reaching time to competency in less than half of the time as a direct result of implementing learning technologies.
• 82% of participants believe that they can deliver learning interventions faster with 26% able to deliver learning in less than half the time than before – an important factor when organisations need to adapt quickly to survive.
• 59% reported improvements in ability to implement changes in products and process and 52% said that it improved their ability to roll out new IT systems faster.

Management perception of learning technology value:

• 80% of L&D staff interviewed believe that management thinks learning is more convenient
• 55% believe that managers think learning technologies adds additional business value but don't know how
• over 50% of participants do not know the impact they are making to important business measures for their own organisations ( eg revenue, productivity gains, customer service levels), even fewer report back to managers.

How to use these findings

This Impact Indicator report was developed to help businesses build their business case - it provides independently researched facts and figures which will have different implications for different organisations who are looking to engage managment and learners. We hope that you will find the research useful.

For specific examples of how organisations are actually implementing learning technologies to achieve these results go to our Evidence for Change programme.

To find out more about the Towards Maturity Impact Indicator click here - www.towardsmaturity.org/indicator

'We need a robust evidence base to support change'

Following consultation with a wide range of experts in learning and development over the last year, Becta committed to support organisations by developing a robust evidence base of efficiency gains that can be achieved by using technology effectively in the workplace.

Organisations are under increasing pressure to up-skill employees faster and improve business agility but with fewer resources than ever before. In addition, business priorities are constantly changing, further increasing the pressure on hard stretched learning and development professionals.

Research shows that many organisations are looking beyond the traditional use of technology to deliver compliance training and considering how learning technologies can be used to redefine how learning can support business priorities. However, many remain sceptical about the benefits.

If technology is used appropriately in learning, can it help organisations to survive, become more agile and efficient and thrive as we come through the recession? Some would say yes but, until now, good evidence of its impact has been scattered and difficult to come by.

The absence of independent facts and figures means that many who want to consider new approaches to meeting business needs are at risk of making decisions without a firm foundation on which to build their business case. As a result, many implementations are driven by technology rather than business need, resulting in poor engagement, a bad experience and a lost opportunity.

Consolidating the evidence

This publication sets out to bring together recent evidence of the efficiencies brought about by the use of technology to support learning and development in the workplace.

The aims of this work, conducted in support of Becta's Next Generation Learning in the workplace are:

• to consolidate evidence of the impact of learning technologies to inspire those looking to support changing business needs
• to provide independent value propositions to help those looking to demonstrate value in order to engage their organisation more fully

The study identified where learning technologies were adding business value and reports findings in 8 themes:

1. Time Saving
2. Productivity Gains
3. Staff Benefit
4. Business Impact
5. Tangible quality improvement for learning
6. Impact of Social Learning
7. Green Issues
8. Cost Savings

The links to all 50 case studies are included in the appendix for those who want to dig deeper!

The report was prepared by an independent research team, led by Towards Maturity Enterprises and involving the Institute of Work Based Learning together with a number of respected industry analysts who reviewed over 180 articles and reports and 48 case studies in a search for tangible evidence of workplace success.

 You can download the report below (please log in) or visit Becta directly.

But how much of that is realling influencing the way that leanring and development is delivered on the ground?

This is a question that we review biannually via the Towards Maturity UK learning technology benchmarks - what's actually being used, what are the barriers , what's delivering results and why? So we were interested to see how our findings in the UK compared with those from the US.

What's old is new again -  ASTD Jan 2010

The Alison Rossett and James Marshal ( from the American Society of Training and Development) published research conducted last year with  900+ organisations to look at how e-learning is actually being used in L&D. We were pleased to see that their definition of e-Learning was as broad as ours and they investigated the extent to which technology in its widest sense was being used to support the learning process. They identified 26 scenarios in which learning could be e-nabled and then asked the participants the frequency of their adoption - a slightly different approach to our benchmarks (& one that we really liked) but close enough for us to make some interesting comparisons*:

How does our current use of technology compare?

The ASTD study found that 'e-Learning is mostly about measuring and delivering through familiar instructional strategies such as tutorials and scenarios'  and that the most frequent e-learning activity was the testing of skills and knowledge.

They also found that mobile learning and the opportunity for learners to collaborate ( either via discussion boards or via new social media) was rare.

Most of these findings mirrored ours (gathered from organisations in the UK 8 months earlier - See Driving Business Benefits for details) where we found that 80%+ of all our participants were using electronic based learning content and surveys/assessments and these have become the staple over the last few years. However very few  UK companies were using mobile learning (in fact this had dropped from 21% to 7%).

In the UK, we did see that the use of virtual classroom  as having grown considerably ( in use by 45% of the sample & plans for futher growth)  and over 25% of UK participants were offering e-tutor support. and 40% were offering online collaboration between learners -  however, both of these practices were amongst the least frequently used practices in the US study.

What about our future plans?

Like ours, the US study showed that participants were planning a really wide range of e-enabled learning activities for the future - not one stands out more than the other. 

In the UK, we found that mobile learning had the highest growth prediction for  and this was in the top 4 aspriations in the US.  Other shared aspirations included more measurement of learning and an increase in learner collaboration and sharing.

How do our barriers compare?

The UK benchmark was taken at the start of the recession, the US survey in the middle of it - perhaps that might account for the the fact that 'lack of financial resources' was the number 1 barrier in the US (at the time it was the 4th barrier for UK practitioners). Staff reluctance was the number 1 constraint in the UK and featured twice in various forms in the US top 5 - we face the same challenges around managing change around the globe!

The ASTD authors were surprised that the lack supporting ICT infrastructure & staff IT skills did not feature more highly as a barrier. Infrastructure was one of the most significant barriers for the UK when we did our benchmark in 2007 and had dropped to 5th by our 2009 study. In the UK the lack of ICT skills had also dropped as a barrier and was only cited by 22% of our sample.

The lack of L&D skills to implement and manage new ways of learning was amongst the UKs top 3 and didn't appear in the US study - maybe it wasn't asked or maybe their skills are much higher - we would love to know!

Our conclusions

Josh Bersin reported on some of his recent UK findings looking at the training market at Learning Technologies 2010 this year and commented that the US is twice as likely to deliver learning through online methods (this study was conducted with Training Zone and you can read more here), with an implication that we might be one step behind our US counterparts.

A the time, several of us wondered if this story was a true reflection of what was happening in the UK vs the US.

One of the concerns with the Bersin results was that the question about learning delivery was embedded within a wider survey around training trends and didn't dig deep into how the technologies were actually being adopted. By necessity, he could only look at what was being used rather than how it was being used.By comparing the ASTD results with our own benchmarks (both of which dig into the how) we can shine a little more light on the matter.

Traditional e-learning content and assessment is much more likely to be the core e-learning offering at present in the US and the UK. We agree (with Bersin) that more US companies probably use these methods than UK counterparts given the geography of the country and the concerns around proving that they have delivered consistent compliance training. (The fact that the ASTD authors commented on the lawyers as a factor in their thinking also highlights the legal importance of proving compliance as a driver over there.)

However on the big discussion topics of the day ( mobile, social learning etc) it doesn't look as though the US are as far ahead as some might have us believe.  In fact, our application of technology to support collaboration, mentoring and delivery of programmes using virtual classroom may be more embedded over here.

The big 'trend spotters and gurus' are right to highlight where technology can support learning and performance next. It is important that we keep our eye on these opportunities and current economic restrictions may even accellerate our innovation.

However on both sides of the atlantic it is clear that neither are necesarily 'leading the race' we are all making steady progress with our e-learning journeys  - one step at a time- and the more we can learn from each other the better!

For more information on ASTD in the UK and to join the UK network please e-mail neville@thelearningsanctuary.co.uk

* we appreciate that not all of the participants in the ASTD survey are necessarily from the US, in the same way that not all participants in our benchmark are from the UK but given the geographical base of the 2 organisations, we felt is safe to make these comparisons!

The journal has been created to address the paucity of research publication avenues looking at workplace and organisational e-learning issues and this first issue.

The first issue addresses the theme of "Current issues and future directions in workplace e-learning: Mapping the research landscape", All 14 articles in this ediction are freely available any member of the general public who registers for a free account on the journal's Web site.

We are very pleased that the Toward's Maturity's benchmark work on e-learning maturity in the workplace was accepted, following a nerve wracking blind review process! You can download the Towards Maturity article that was published in the journal below.

 There is a wealth of material in this first edition from those we know well in Europe ( such as Richard Straub and Martyn Sloman) and from further afielid. The articles provide very useful insights into a  important areas such as executive evaluation of e-learning and it's use in enaging small business as well as the learning developments acompanying the rapid collaborative changes that we are seeing in business at the moment.

 The full list of refereed articles included in the first edition are:

• Knowledge work in a connected world: is workplace learning the next big thing? 
• Learning and technology – what have we learnt? 
• Whose context is it anyway? Workplace e-learning as a synthesis of designer- and learner-generated contexts
• Heutagogy and e-learning in the workplace: some challenges and opportunities
• Connectivism: a theory for learning in a world of growing complexity
• Exploring corporate e-learning research: what are the opportunities?
• Enhancing the experience of e-learning among working students: a systematic review with thematic analysis
• The use of e-learning in the workplace: a systematic literature review 
• E-learning maturity in the workplace – the benefits and practices 
• Optimising work-based e-learning in small and medium-sized enterprises: contemporary challenges
• The Learn@Work Socrates-Minerva Research Project 2005–2007: what did it do and what has happened with it since?
• Workers researching the workplace using a work-based learning framework: towards an agenda for improving supervisory Practice 
• How do executives evaluate e-learning? A grounded theory study

We'd recommend that you take advantage of the fact that the first edition is free and take a closer look!

Towards Maturity has conducted comprehensive benchmark reviews with 700 organisations over the past 5 years to uncover effective e-learning practice that delivers results to both organisations and individuals.  The benchmark has been widely used by private and public sector and has proven critical for organisations looking at learning technology to help them deliver more for less in this economic climate.

n the 30th of September Towards Maturity,in partnership with the Charity Learning Consortium ,announced that they would adapt this benchmark review for the third Sector in order to provide a free opportunity for organisations to review their progress and compare their own e-learning implementation strategies with others from both within the Sector and beyond.

The resulting survey  turned out to be the biggest survey of learning technologies in the voluntary sector ever undertaken with more than 80 charities – representing more than 50,000 staff and volunteers - taking part. It revealed some interesting findings:

Learning technologies are helping charities to deliver more for less:
The top four benefits of adopting learning technologies are: improving flexibility of learning; improving access to learning; cutting costs and increasing reach – important to organisations often relying on part time staff spread countrywide.
 
Moving forward, they are expecting even more from their investment:
Over 2/3 of participants are looking for their investment in learning technologies to help increase staff retention; to improve training quality; to increase the number of qualified staff; to enhance the induction process; to reduce time spent learning; and to improve administration efficiency.

There is tremendous enthusiasm to adopt new approaches to learning:
72% say their internal learning teams are willing to embrace change.

More than 60% are looking to increase their allocation of budget in this area:
With the emphasis behind investment being more about improving learning delivery and its impact, rather than just finding a ‘cheaper option’.

You can read the full press release here ( released 16th March 2010).

The final report is free to download below (although you are requested to register to the Towards Maturity site first)

Towards Maturity Impact indicator looks at how learning technologies help L&D departments influence both the efficiency of their offering and bottom line results in the workplace.

Those responsible for implementing learning technologies in organisations were invited to take part in an online survey during October and November 2009.

The full findings were launched at Learning Technologies on 27th January 2010 and the reports can be downloaded below.

The full report was released on March 12th - for high level report findings click here.

About the Towards Maturity Impact indicator

Actual facts and figures on bottom line benefits are notoriously hard to get from a wide sample and we are seeking those out separately.   Our aim with this survey is to gather a wider sample of estimates and perceptions to help create an evidence base that will support organisations new to technology with data that will help their business case. It provides a benchmark for others who have already invested.

We were interested in all learning technologies that support the total process of learning in the workplace.

Key findings to support organisations who are looking to build their business case include:

Efficiency savings reported by participants:

• Average cost savings of 11% ( 7 different learning technology types were compared)
• Average time savings of 28% (or 36% if you include travel time)
• Average increase in volume of learning delivered - 47%
• Only 29% of organisations measure basic cost comparisons between technology enabled learning vs. classroom. However those that do consistently report improved efficiency benefits. Those that estimate benefits typically are underestimating their impactd

Busines Agility benefits:

• 69% of 153 participants reported that time for staff to reach and prove competency in their jobs was faster with 12% able to comment that staff were reaching time to competency in less than half of the time as a direct result of implementing learning technologies.
• 82% of participants believe that they can deliver learning interventions faster with 26% able to deliver learning in less than half the time than before – an important factor when organisations need to adapt quickly to survive.
• 59% reported improvements in ability to implement changes in products and process and 52% said that it improved their ability to roll out new IT systems faster.

Many L&D departments are missing a trick:

• Only 29% of organisations measure basic cost comparisons between technology enabled learning vs. classroom. However those that do consistently report improved efficiency benefits. Those that estimate benefits typically are underestimating their impact.
• Over 50% of organisations do not understand the impact they are making on the significant business drivers behind their learning investment.

The Towards Maturity Impact Indicator is part of Evidence for Change  - a programme to provide a single place for evidence that will support learning and development professionals who are looking to build their own business case for change.

We would like to thank our strategic partners - BILD, e-Learning Network, Learning Technologies, e-Learning age magazine and colleagues from our Community of Excellence for their support in distributing the survey.

We would also like to thank Abdi for their support of this important survey - they have a depth of experience unique in the UK, in impact measurement and ROI within work based learning and development, teaching staff the tools they need to effectively plan, measure and evaluate all business activity.(You can find out more at www.abdi.eu.com).

However whilst many talk about the opportunity, clear factual evidence about the benefits to both business and individuals is hard to come by.  We have a number of great case studies across this site but when you are looking for hard and fast facts to support your business case for change, you may need to access the evidence at your fingertips.

Supporting the wider community

The focus of the research plan for Towards Maturity CIC since September 09 has been developed in response to the feedback of wider community experts working with us to help inform Becta's Next Generation Learning initiative.

The expert view is that there already exists a wide body of evidence of success. However organisations need to be able to access a more consolidated evidence base so that those new to technology can have the confidence to invest and have a basis on which they can build their business case. 

As the lead Ambassador within Next Generation Learning in the workplace, we wanted to do our bit to help bring this evidence together.

Building the evidence base

Towards Maturity plan to investigate the cost efficiencies and value added benefits from the implementation of learning technologies in the workplace in 2 ways –

• Consolidating the current evidence base to provide a source of verified facts and figures about bottom line business benefits and efficiencies gained through the adoption of learning technologies.
• To launch a new online impact indicator to measure the broader the perception of value amongst employers who have already invested in learning technologies.

We also will be supporting Becta's own work in this area.

Consolidating the Evidence Base

Our aim is to provide a single place for evidence (both ours and others) that will support learning and development professionals who are looking to build their own business case for change.

All of the outputs of this project, including detailed case studies and ongoing research can be found by clicking on the Evidence for Change tag on this site.

Supporting Research:

• The Towards Maturity Impact Indicator - value identified from 200 organisations looking at efficiency ( cost, time and volume) and business agility ( responsiveness, time to competency and businss impact).
• Becta's Delivering Results report - 8 key business improvement themes identified by analysis of 48 case studies from the workplace.

We will also work with partners such as e-Learning age magazine and Learning Technologies to share our findings and to support their work in this area.

Get involved

We will be constantly adding new case studies and stories to our Evidence for Change Programme. We know that many of you have measured the success of your learning technology implementations and/or are aware of research that has helped you build the business case and we would really welcome it if you could get in touch with us via this site.

We have already started to gather some great stories and would love to hear and share yours as part of this programme.

Last updated March 31 2010

Background
In 2006, Energy and Utility skills (EU Skills) completed research into the skills need in their sector.  Some initial research on productivity proved that the output per employee in the power, gas and water industries is five times more productive than the UK economic average and more productive than the comparable US counterparts.  Following this research EU Skills secured European Social Funding to undertake additional research into productivity and skills.  The research was completed within the Wales and West Utilities business, specifically their gas distribution business. The research was conducted by Roy Leach who carried out the work on behalf of EU Skills. (Roy can be contacted at roy.leach@businessnavigators.co.uk if you want to more about the research).  

Why some individuals are more productive than others
The research found that although many hundreds of individuals doing similar jobs have virtually identical technical skills their individual levels of performance and productivity varied significantly.  What differentiates high performers were is personal management competence, individual personal leadership, behavioural and emotional competences.  Although technical competency gets individuals to the basic level of performance in this industry the winners excel in their management and emotional skills.  The full report, available on the EU Skills web site makes fascinating reading and provides clear business justification for soft skills training in similar work areas. 
Organisations that plan to learn from this research and take steps to improve non-technical skills across their workforce need to understand that there is no “quick fix”.  The report clearly states there is no ‘simple panacea’ to achieve and sustain significant improvements in performance, practice and productivity.  What is needed is for the whole organisation to adopt the culture, norms, processes and systems of an organisation that encourages non-technical skill development.  Needless to say technical skills have to be the pre-requisite prior to soft skills development.

Findings from the research pilot
Wales and West Utilities are a widespread organisation covering most of Wales and the southwest of England with a turnover of £284 million and 2,000 directly and indirectly employed people.  This is a major business with some geographic management challenges; much of the workforce works remotely.  The study defined and measured productivity and compared this with the technical, personal management and behavioural and personal leadership of employees in the company.

The basic method of measuring productivity was to multiply the target time of work tasks as a percentage of the total hours worked.  This gave a productivity percentage for individuals. The organisation invested in both productivity measurement and soft skills development in a pilot group.  All the 17 managers in the pilot group improved productivity within their team areas, from 44% to the goal of 60%.  This study into productivity improvement concluded that whilst technical skills and competences are fundamentally important to enable the work to be of the right quality and safe, it is not the technical skills that differentiate the above-average performers. 

Development Areas

The differentiation comes from:
1. Personal management skills; the generic personal management competences, i.e. the ability to plan for high performance; personal organisational skills to organise themselves and others; monitoring personal performance throughout the task; reviewing the continuous improvement in performance and finding time to reflect.

2. Emotional and behavioural competences, e.g. self-awareness, self-management, team working and collaboration.

Above average performers demonstrate that they have robust competences and that the soft skills described above are the most important differentiator for high performers and high productivity.

How to put lessons learnt into practice
The report lists three key phases and 20 best practice steps that can be used to improve productivity.  These provide a useful methodology as to how other organisations can take advantage of this research.

Briefly the phases are those of planning and leadership, implementation and review.

Planning and Leadership 
Senior executives need to participate visibly and proactively.  They must ‘walk the talk’; do what they say you would do.  Align all actions to the strategic objectives of the organisation, have the right people involved and be clear about the skills and competency development programme required.  Measure what needs to be done.  Be clear about the development needs of both individuals and the organisation.

Implementation 
Set goals for perfection but recognise that pragmatic steps along the way are needed.  In the case of Wales and West utilities they set a performance measure of 60%.  Individuals need to know what they need to understand, what they need to do, how they can contribute and when.  A whole organisational culture of learning and development is required, particularly for the soft skills improvements needed.  A key issue with all forms of learning implementation is to encourage the active use of new competences back in the workplace.  This was encouraged by performance monitoring reporting a 13-week rolling average.  This type of change is needed throughout the organisation at all levels including the support functions such as IT and HR.

Review 
Reviewing progress throughout a change initiative ensures that management focus remains on the critically important as well as on the day-to-day urgent delivery of performance.  It assists managers to differentiate the urgent from the important and to act accordingly.

Relevance of Technology

Although this study is based on traditional training delivery the Chartered Management Institute commissioned a study on the use of blended learning for management skills. Read a summary of the main findings here and an update of the research in a Towards Maturity article Online Learning and leadership development - CMI research October 2007.

Conclusion
The report describes these steps in much greater detail and emphasises the necessity for full commitment from the leadership of organisations.  What is clear is that an investment in the soft skills of self-management and emotional stability deliver improved productivity and financial performance.

The research included an assessment of return on investment and over the six-month period of change estimated that the pilot team delivered in excess of £500K in ‘bottom line’ savings.  The conclusion is that investment in skills development is self-financing with a payback of less than a year. The lesson from both the CMI and Coke-Cola is that this can be on-line.

 However, lack of skill of learning and development professionals is one of the top barriers cited in achieving the best from these tools.

How do you skills currently compare?  Onlignment are conducting a survey for trainers and others who are using, or who plan to use these tools to tutor or coach as part of their learning strategy. It's designed to take only a couple of minutes to complete and participants and Towards Maturity readers will be the first to be notified of the findings.

To take part, click here.

To  out more about Web conferencing click here

Delivering 'more for less' has been the message from the Masie Centre 'barometer findings' and recent research published on the Towards Maturity site from Cegos told us something about current attitudes to learning.

Now LMMatters, in conjunction with Training Zone, recently undertook some research to get an insight into training budgets, usage of e-Learning and what impact the current downturn in economy has had on e-Learning strategy. The results provide further evidence of what all the recent research is telling us - the need to embrace and harness learning technologies. Some of the key findings from this latest survey are as follows:

• The majority of respondents stated that their training budget has been significantly reduced as a result of the downturn in economy.
• 43.9% of respondents stated that the economic downturn has had no impact on the use of e-Learning as part of their Training and Development programmes.
• 47% of respondents who have seen their budget significantly reduced have increased the use of e-Learning.
• The most popular driving factor behind the respondents’ continued/increased use of eLearning was TIME – the business has less time for traditional training methods.
• This was closely followed by FINANCIAL and the need to get more out of allocated budgets.
• Interestingly, 42.9% of respondents that have seen an increased use of e-Learning due the economic downturn, indicated the main factor behind the increase was FINANCIAL.

Thanks to LMMatters and Training Zone for agreeing to share this survey through Towards Maturity, and you can download the full survey below.

In March 09, Cegos commissioned an independent study among 2355 employees and 485 HR and training directors from companies employing over 500 staff in the UK, France Germany and Spain to compare attitudes of HR directors and training managers and employees towards different training techniques.

Phone interviews were conducted among the HR and employee sample randomly selected to incorporate individuals from most industry sectors. 24.8% of the 2,355 employees were from the UK (584 approx) and 25.4% of the 485 HR & Training Managers were from the UK (123 approx).

Key findings include:

• Employees are keener than HR and the training function to embrace innovative training practices and new technologies. Learners want more e-learning, blended learning and collaborative tools (eg blogs, wikis etc) whilst HR professionals want more face to face learning.  Interesting to note that 41% of the sample of learners were over 35 years.
• Larger companies are more likely to use e-learning than blended (58% of companies with over 1000 staff use e-learning and 49% use blended. Smaller companies are more likely to use blended than e-learning alone. The approaches are working - 89% of staff believe that blended learning is living up to their expectations and 82% of staff believe e-learning is living up to expectations.
• Factors that make e-learning more effective for employees include simulations/ work based scenarios (88%), self assessment (82%); help from a tutor or peer (72%) wth podcasts and e-learning on mobile phones less popular (47%, 38%).
• Factors that contribute to e-learning quality for employers include, at the top of the list, realism of work based scenarios, credibility and experience of professional/expert reports, interactivity and use of video. Ease of use and navigation were less important.
• The UK and Spain continue to lead the way with e-learning – 47% of UK employees take part in e-learning compared with an average of 40% across the board.
• Professional skills development continues to come a poor second to technical training. The UK also fares poorly in  the amount of sales training it provides.
• Training budgets appear to be stable across Europe and most  organisations remain optimistic about their training budgets.

''There is clearly a gap between what the training function is planning and what users actually want from their learning experience. Today’s learners seem to be more willing to embrace new ways of learning than HR and training practitioners. The end-user needs to be at the heart of all training initiatives to ensure employees are engaged and training is optimised. It’s up to HR and training functions to better reflect these needs,” said Francis Marshall, Managing Director of CegosUK.

Thank you to Cegos UK for agreeing to share this report with Towards Maturity readers - you can download the report here (login required) and find out more about Cegos at www.cegos.com.

 It was conducted on behalf of UfI/Learndirect by Howard Hills Associates and HI Europe

L&D spend in Q4 08 

In Driving Business Benefits, we looked at spending expectations of participants over a 3 month period.

For data collected in October and November we saw that 25% of participants expected to see a decrease in training budget (and 25% expected an increase). When we repeated the question in December 08,  we found that 40% of participating organisations expected their overall training budget to decrease (and 15% expected it to increase.)

However we also saw that the overall expectation of e-learning spend as a proportion of training budgets was much more positive with 50% of respondents expecting the proportion of their budget spent on e-learning to increase and only 12% expecting it to decrease.(December data)

L&D spend in Q4 09 

However we are in volatile times so it is interesting to compares the UK findings to research from the Masie Centre released this week from their first survey of learning resources and spending taken in late March 09.  Their data is based on 532 organisations around the world and highlights that

• 12% of overall budgets have increased, 25% has stayed the same and 61% have decreased
• The spend on external services is decreasing (in 60% of organisations)
• Volume of face to face courses has decreased (in 50% of organisations)
• Volume of virtual webinars, e-learning courses has increased ( in 51% of organisations)
• Employee travel time for learning has decreased in 79% of organisations

Interestingly they also found that in the last 3 months, 45% of organisations have done more with less and 30% have delivered the same but with fewer resources. In Q4 last year, 56% of our respondents in the UK believed that the credit crunch was an opportunity to do more with what they had.

77% of the organisations in the Masie Centre survey were from the US but their findings mirror the trends of the UK identified a few months earlier and highlights the global concerns and opportunities within Learning and Development today.

To find out more about the Masie Centre Barometer study go to http://www.masie.com/barometer

Significant growth was also predicted in these areas (in both cases usage was expected to double). And for good reasons.  We found that those who agreed that they used highly interactive methods, such as games, in their e-learning solutions were also more likely to report increased business benefits from their investments.

Games and simulations are more likely to be found in the more mature users of learning technologies. The research highlighted that established users are much more likely to focus on interactivity than those who are sporadic users. The established are 4 times as likely to consistently use video, audio, images and animation as well as text and 15 times as likely to use highly interactive methods such as games in their solutions.

So games, virtual worlds and complex simulations can really add value but where can organisations go to get started?

Research from JISC

Prepared for the JISC e-Learning Programme by Professor Sara de Freitas at the Serious Games Institute, JISC have published 2 reports that look at this overall issue in some depth.

For employers they provide an in-depth understanding of the overall subject that help in formulating strategy and engaging with the provider community:

Report 1 - Learning in Immersive worlds: A review of game-based learning

This report has been produced to inform practitioners who are considering using games and simulations in their practice. Towards this end, the work includes a review of the literature and a series of case studies from practice to illustrate the range of uses of games and to synthesise key issues and themes arising from learning in immersive worlds.

There are many valuable insights in the report from which Sara draws these key conclusions:

• Games need to be embedded into practice to ensure effective learning.
• More research is needed to provide empirical evidence for how game-based learning can be used most effectively.
• More effective supporting materials are needed to support practitioners wishing to use game-based learning approaches.
• New developments including the serious games movement are informing the development of games for learning.
• Great potential and need for trainers and practitioners to become involved with games development for learning.
• Need for more opportunities for staff development to support those wishing to adopt game-based learning.
• Potential for learners to become more empowered with game-based learning.
   

Click here for details

Report 2 - Serious Virtual Worlds: A scoping study

This report provides a scoping study of the use of serious virtual worlds to support learning and training, including a review of the field and case study examples. It also provides valuable resources such as a typology and a list of virtual worlds.The report draws the following conclusions:

• The field is large in scale although there’s a relatively small number that have relevance for learning and education.
• Social worlds, training worlds and corporate worlds have the most relevance for education and training however the use of multiplayer role play games may have real educational potential in the longer run.
• We are at the beginning of real applications for mirror worlds in the area of education and research.
• The case studies show a diversity of ways of using virtual worlds, including mentoring, constructing learning activities, exploratory trails and quests, role plays and rehearsals of skills, but the potential uses of serious virtual worlds extend beyond these.
• Virtual worlds are beginning to offer a new infrastructure for supporting a range of cross-disciplinary collaborative research and learning opportunities.
• Learning communities supported in virtual worlds may have implications for pedagogic models employed, the contexts of learning, the different ways that learning contexts are represented and change learning profiles.
• While the use of immersive world applications is clearly maturing in areas such as business and health training, there are still significant challenges that remain such as a need for common standards and the validation of assessment and evaluation techniques.
• A debate between developers, educators and designers is needed to ensure that these challenges are met positively, and to ensure quality in all areas of academic and educational practice.

 Click here for details

Interested in more background?

It's also worth revisiting:

• Games in the military
• Conference overview from Serious Worlds
• Simulation in the classroom
• Games to help improve customer service:

This review is the 3rd in a longitudinal research series looking at trends ( see also  2005, 2007)  in the use of learning technologies in the business environment.  The work is supported by Becta as part of the  Next Generation Learning @ Work campaign.

It represents one of the most detailed studies to date into the ways that learning technologies are used in the business environment. The report highlights how organisations use and benefit from different types of e-learning, identifies critical success factors for e-learning success, and considers future trends.

The research included more than 300 organisations across both private and public sectors

Research aims:

1. To provide a snapshot of UK e-learning activity in the workplace at the end of a tumultuous year for employers.
2. To provide a benchmark for the activities that directly influence success.
3. To provide those new to learning technologies evidence to support their business case and inform their implementation planning.
4. To provide providers and policy makers with increasing awareness of business needs in this area

Definitions

For the purpose of this study we define the term e-learning and /or learning technologies as: “the use of any technology across the learning process, including skills diagnostics, learning delivery, support, management (of  earners and content), informal and formal learning”.

Driving Business Benefits FULL report:

Chapter 1 - Introduction

This review investigates the experiences of those investing in learning technologies at work - what are organisations doing? Why are some more successful than others and what contributes to their success?

Chapter 2 - Building the Business case

This chapter reviews the evidence that will help organisations build better business cases for learning technologies in 2009 by examining the drivers behind investment and the actual benefits that are being delivered. It also provides a benchmark for e-learning investment.T

Chapter 3  - Trends in technologies and services

This chapter investigates the trends in the way that learning technologies are being used in the workplace. It considers how technology is used to support learners through the learning process and back at work.

Chapter 4 - Implementation

This chapter examines the ways that organisations are implementing learning technologies – what programmes are supported? Who is the audience? Where is learning offered? How is technology being used to support informal learning? 

Chapter 5 - Barriers to success

This chapter reviews the top barriers to successful implementation and how they are changing over time.

Chapter 6 - Improving the Impact

This chapter analyses the habits of the highly successful implementations and reviews the specific actions that can be taken to help overcome obstacles and encourage engagement.

Driving Business Benefits Annex: Sector Perspectives

Provides a comparison of drivers, benefits, barriers, technologies, skills programmes and implementation strengths for the following sectors:

Education
1. Public services
2. Health
3. Finance
4. IT and Telecoms
5. Professional and technical
6. Service activities

The Research Summary, full report, sector perspectives, methodology and detailed slides from the launch presentation can be downloaded here.

If you have any questions or comments , do contact us via the suggestion or ask the expert box below.

If you would like to benchmark your own implementation against these results , do contact us at elearning@towardsmaturity.org.

All research downloads are free but you will need to be a registered user of this site - while you are logging on - don't forget to update your profile to help us provide you with a list of relevant resources and case studies  to help you on your e-learning journey( also available to you for free under My profile at the top of the home page)

If you want to find out what is happening as the research findings unfold then follow us on Twitter

Most young men get a huge dose of military expertise through computer games. A typical male teenager will have played up to several hundred hours of military games, flown aircraft, often using the real instrumentation, become familiar with real weapons, and in the case of many millions, played the role of sniper, infantryman, commander, even trained to become a soldier through America’s Army. Yet, the military have problems with recruitment. All credit to the military for reflecting upon their current training methods and searching for ways in which it can be changed, even transformed.

Timely report

At this point the use of serious games in the military is gathering pace, and as gaming technology has become cheaper, faster and more sophisticated, it was felt that an objective look at the application on games in learning in the military was timely.

It’s not often that you get a well-researched report on an innovative approach to learning in a specific sector but Caspian Learning were commissioned by the military to do just this on games in military learning ( A Report on Serious Games in Defence Education). It’s a fascinating read for anyone interested in the use of new technology in learning.

The researchers went into military establishments to capture and assess evidence for games in learning and interviewed a range of academic and training professionals, as well as learners. They also sat in a range of training lessons and exercises to observe existing practice. This was followed by a programme of desk research to uncover a range of interesting case studies. Finally, they used this data to compile a useful taxonomy for games in learning along with concrete recommendations for future applications.

What’s in a name?

Serious games is a controversial term in itself but it was important to clear the decks and understand the difference between play, games, computer games, serious games, virtual worlds and immersive learning simulations. It is also important to understand the general role of play and games in society. In answering the question, ‘What underlies our fascination with game playing?’ the literature dealing with this cultural analysis was summarized.

Evidence and Case studies

Building on the established and evidence-based domains of simulation, modeling and wargaming, the report opens with a review of key literature supporting the use of games in education and training. A range of case studies was then presented, both military and non-military to show the full extent of useful applications. These include the officer training using Battlefield II, a Military Police application and America’s Army.

Taxonomy of immersive learning simulations

A useful taxonomy of terms and definitions was established to enable those involved in training and education to understand the different types of games technology in existence, their merits and appropriate use cases.Although the paper addresses a single vertical market, the taxonomy is of general interest. Here's a list of the categories in the taxonomy:

• Egocentric performance sims
  Single player game, where the player takes on the role of a single character in a 3D space. Caspian's own sims fit this category.
• Branching story sims
  Single player games, in 2D or 3D, in which the 'story' advances on the basis of the user's selections from the options available.
• Real-time strategy sims
  Simulation in which the user takes an over-arching strategic role, rather than one of a particular character. The user has control over a range of resources and must respond to an evolving scenario in real-time.
• Exocentric sims
  The player has an angled overhead view of a 3D world and has control of characters and objects within the world, typically with a point and click interface. The action unfolds in real-time.
• Construction and management simulation games
  The player must build, manage or expand an entity or project, such as a town, country or enterprise, with limited resources. Classic example is SimCity.
• Episodic sims
  Like real-time strategy sims, but turn-based. Typically the user has as much time as they wish to make their decisions. Once submitted, the user's input is then processed according to a model and the scenario modified accordingly. An example would be a classic business game.
• Virtual worlds
  Real-time, multi-player 3D environments in which the user takes on a specific role, represented on screen by an avatar. Obvious example is Second Life, but also includes proprietary systems such as Forterra.
• Device-based sims
  Here the user has highly-realistic control over a device such as an aeroplane or a vehicle.

Learning landscape

The report then focuses on an analysis of the applicability of this type of technology to the military landscape and provides some conclusions on the barriers and opportunities for exploitation across all services.
The report also highlights some of the cultural, system and process barriers to adoption evident within the military, which may limit speed of take-up of these technologies and approaches. The report identifies issues that include military stigmas associated with key words such as “games” and “failure” and a consistent learner focus on hierarchical promotion and thus avoidance of anything that could affect the pace of promotion.
Benefits
First, it has found many compelling reasons and a growing evidence bank that justify a “learning through games strategy” within this landscape, including:

• learner demographics
• learner motivation
• competition
• enriched subject matter
• opportunities for safe failure
• opportunities for enhanced skills practice
• retention and recruitment
• familiarity with simulations.

Both within the military and beyond, the evidence bank is becoming powerfully persuasive, with Return on Investment (ROI) measures in specific case studies showing: reduced training costs, reduced training time, increased learner engagement, better learning outcomes.

Barriers

An existing and expanding body of case studies, researched arguments and well thought through intuitions are pointing towards embracing this approach. However, the report also reveals a number of barriers that may exist in the military context and that should be considered when looking at many forms of online learning, but which are specifically appropriate to the use of immersive learning simulations. These barriers are both cultural and structural. Some of these issues are specific to the military and include:

• Command and control, hierarchical culture
• Terminology issues (games vs immersive learning simulations)
• Fear of failure, within hierarchy and among peers
• Strong culture of didactic, instructor-led learning
• Linear training and promotion pipeline with no side-feeds
• Generation gap in awareness and skills
• Policies that focus on management of teaching, not learners
• Privatisation leads to commissioning of old instructor model
• Subject Matter Experts (SME) block change as they don’t want to give up power

Therefore whilst the synergy between technology and landscape is strong, the likely benefits far-reaching and the desire inherent, the need for collation of evidence and strong leadership to overcome some ingrained cultural barriers is just as evident.

The report describes the significant benefits to be gained by utilizing games within education and training, not the least of which is improved learner motivation. Some of the principal demographics and traits of the learners surveyed by the report, such as age, technology use patterns, engagement with sport, competitiveness of learners and desire for practical hands on learning, offer a powerful argument for the use of games based learning technologies. 

Recommendations

Ultimately, the report us designed to lead to more informed and robust decision making on where and how to utilise a ’learning through games’ strategy to deliver enhanced learning benefits. The report concludes by suggesting some ideal use cases and ways forward and provides some decision making support for those considering a “learning through games” approach within the military.

For more information on games in learning try these online blogs and resources from the authors of the report.

Chris Brannigan
http://thinkingworlds.wordpress.com/

Graeme Duncan
http://www.caspianlearning.co.uk/

Donald Clark
http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/

The survey gathered views from employees from the private sector (from organisations employing in excess of 500 people). A total of 6,100 employees were surveyed, broken down as follows:
• US – 2,000
• UK – 2,000
• Rest of Europe – 2,100

The survey provides the views of both managers and non managers across a range of job functions including IT, marketing, customer services, finance , HR and others.

This survey looks at the employee perspective on

• Does your organization provide the training that is essential for you to do your job effectively?
• Does your organization provide the training that is essential for you to develop professionally and progress in your career?
• Do you think it is essential for your organization to allocate specific time for learning and development during working hours?
• How essential do you think it is to be given the opportunity to put into practice what you have learned as soon as possible afterwards?

The report also looks at the top 10 tasks undertaken without proper training by US, UK and European managers and non-managers, the importance of managerial support and views on essential learning options ( blended learning, informal learning, formal learning).

We strongly recommend this review for anyone working with global organisations as it provides facinating insights to learner perspectives which may help with effective adoption.

Reproduced with kind permission of Skillsoft UK

One year on, the research was repeated with an online survey of over 1000 members of the CMI together with a number of in depth interviews. It shows what a difference a year can make!

 the new report - Learning at work: e-learning evolution or revolution? (October 2008) - reviews the latest trends and blends in management and leadership development. It takes a look at what blended learning really can offer to busy managers beyond supplementing traditional face to face learning. The report explores the growth in new media such as facebook, youtube and social networking in supporting managers preferred learning mode - learning by experience.

If you are involved in developing management skills in your organisation , we strongly recommend that you take a look at this research whcih can be downloaded for free at:

How to introduce Blended learning to your organisation 

Here are 8 examples from this research (published with permission from CMI) to help organisations introduce blended learning incrementally:

1. Put assessment online. One of the simplest places to start is to move a test
or assessment online. For example, a traditional instructor-led course can still be
retained, but a multiple-choice test could be moved online. This will allow training
departments to automate scoring and make it easier to track and report scores.

2. Follow up with a community of practice. Create discussion forums for learners to
access during and after training. This can enable learners to stay in touch with fellow
classmates and to ask questions, share insights and post resources. A ‘threaded
discussion’ can benefit employee and employer – collating and enhancing individual
knowledge and understanding, as well as providing a tool to review and build upon
infrastructures, training courses and delivery methods.

3. Make reference materials available. Provide links to reference materials for
learners to use after any training or learning programme. These links can enable
learners to explore topics in greater depth and reduce reliance on traditional forms of
information that can become outdated in months.

4. Deliver preparatory online learning. Organisations can introduce preparatory
work that must be completed before attendance at a face-to-face or other format of
course is permitted. Online preparatory work can save costs such as those as printing
and sending materials, as well as providing the facility for employers to track progress
and learning to ensure that attendees show up prepared.

5. Provide online office hours. Online office hours can be used to supplement the
learning process. This can provide a human touch for employees (learners) who can
get help from a real person to answer questions, help individuals devise strategies for
learning in a self-paced mode, or even to provide moral support.

6. Use mentoring/coaching as a tool. Online or face-to-face coaching can be used
as a way to ‘extend the classroom experience’. Arguably, learners have a need for
someone to correspond and interact with after any class or training to help with
problems they encounter in the field. A mentor or coach can help address this, and
questions arising thereof can also be used to improve face-to-face classes.

7. Access experts. As a follow up to face-to-face classes or other modes of learning
delivery, a live virtual classroom programme including aspects such as application
sharing, white boards and document-sharing with related ‘experts’ can stimulate
further learning and help problem-solving.

8. Maximise communications and messaging. Using e-mail based communication
during and after learning events can be a powerful tool towards encouraging a
community of practice. It also has simpler practical benefits such as sending learners
attachments with new information, pointing individuals to additional resources and
suggesting more advanced training and development.

These 8 tips are reproduced with kind permission from CMI

The project was funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee and they partnered with the Association for Learning Technology and the Higher Education Academy to commission case studies over a range of disciplines including business, health and humanities.. They also allowed the participants to study each other’s work collectively and the results of this analysis provides insights into the drivers behind change and the benefits to teaching staff and learners.

Evidence of success from HE

The most common types of evidence cited included exam results, internal and external evaluation, student feedback, system logs, budgets and anecdotal evidence. Defining tangible benefit ‘taxed’ the practitioners but by working together the evidence built iteratively and groups of higher level benefits began to be defined:

• Cost Savings/Resource Efficiency
• Recruitment and Retention
• Skills and Employment
• Student Achievement

Other benefits such as addressing special needs, widening participation and social justice were also highlighted. It is worth taking a look at the full report and case studies but some of the examples that caught my eye were those that work equally well in the world of work:

Cost efficiency and improvement process, 

 The University of Nottingham Medical School wanted to improve the efficiency of assessment but also needed to create more realistic high quality assessment questions including high resolution slides and radiographs – these are particularly expensive to reproduce in paper and technology provided immediate savings in print costs, robustness of assessment. Their use of technology allowed improvements that reduced cost and the time savings were not insignificant either – a cohort of students that ook 10 hours to mark originally was reduced to around 2 seconds!

Delivering to volumes

Increased student numbers in dispersed locations also provide opportunity for technology benefits. The ‘Virtual farm’ of the University of Edinburgh Veterinary School allowed them to maximise the assets of their teaching farms and make them available to increasing numbers of students who couldn’t reach the farms.

Due to growth in numbers on medical degrees, Newcastle University had resource issues in supporting students on placements as they moved further away from campus. Technology allowed them to deliver a ‘regional medical school’ so that learners could access all the resources and pastoral support they needed for their class. High rates of student satisfaction were an additional benefit.  Ensuring that learners are equipped to be ‘fit for purpose’ is a need within education and also in business. The use of blogs and e-portfolio in programmes helps students to develop reflective skills needed in ongoing continued professional development. Newcastle university also worked with employer stakeholders to create an outcome based programme and by using e-portfolio technology they encourage reflection on practice which is a key skill required for practitioners to maange their own continuing professional development.

Providing transferable employment skills

The use of learning technology to ensure that learners have  transferable employment skills was also common.  The University of Bradford developed the concept of ‘simulated patient’. They harnessing e-learning content, enriched with podcast and film clips and links to associated resources around real world case studies to expose students to decision processes and problem solving. Glamorgan Business School created an immersive 3D simulation game to provide experience of how large and small businesses operate, preparing students for employment in the way that only a professional placement could do.

Student retention and achievement is also a significant benefit. The studies in this report evidenced that those taking advantage of e- assessment have seen an average increase in the mean marks of students of around 10% from those who are not.

Managing learning and connecting learners

 The use of technology to manage off site learning and to manage professional development is adding value in the performance of students – in one case ‘allowing them to be miles ahead of full term students in terms of  development’. The Hull MA in Legislative studies online  has seen improved student performance over the on campus version of the course, allowing them to recruit students of higher academic levels who are able to fit learning with their own work experience. 

Whilst many education establishments use e-portfolio tools to achieve connection with remote learners and reflection on practice, businesses are increasingly looking at social software tools to achieve similar outcomes –whatever the technology , the benefits for those juggling work family and learning look clear.

In summary

I am a strong believer that there are lessons to be learned from the way that different sectors approach common problems. This report from JISC and its partners is a great example. Whilst written primarily by and for academic audiences, it shares some great insights on how employers and businesses can develop different approaches to blended learning and offers an approach to help us review our successes demonstrate value. 

Go to www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/case-studies/tangible for full report and links to case studies.

So we were fascinated to hear about learndirect Business's survey with 1950 employees in June this year where 57% of employees were enaging with activities out of work that their employers could use but are not currently doing so.

Harnessing hidden skills benefits both employers and employees.  For instance, if all their untapped skills were used at work, employees said they would feel more motivated (45 per cent); more empowered at work (32 per cent); and would stay at their present company for a longer period of time (e.g. reduce staff turnover levels) (26 per cent).  Tapping into hidden skills would also directly impact the business with 45 per cent of employees claiming it would increase efficiency, whilst over a third (37 per cent) of high level managerial employees believe increased productivity would be the main benefit. 

Employees claimed the top five hidden skills gained through activities outside work include:
1. IT skills (36 per cent) – knowing how to create a blog or build a website
2. Writing skills (28 per cent) - good at crosswords or have written letters or articles to the local paper that have been published
3. Numeracy skills (27 per cent) - good at sudoku
4. Creativity skills (26 per cent) - writing poems in their spare time or have an interest in photography
5. Sales and marketing or e-commerce skills (23 per cent) - regularly buying and selling online, i.e. eBay or Amazon

However, it seems the UK’s hidden skills are going to waste as 59 per cent of employers have never even discussed their hidden skills with their employees. This figure rises to 67 per cent in large organisations (250+ employees) and 74 per cent amongst semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers.  Similarly, over four out of five employees (82 per cent) said they don’t choose to hide these skills on purpose - their employers simply don’t ask about relevant skills that could benefit their business.  When asked who they would turn to if they wanted to discuss their hidden skills over a fifth (22 per cent) said they wouldn’t tell anyone.

Kirstie Donnelly, Director of Products and Marketing, learndirect Business, said: “By harnessing the hidden skills of potential superhero employees, bosses can transform not only their business but also maximise their employees’ full potential.

“Effective training is the key to unlocking hidden skills and ensuring employees meet the day to day business objectives.  For example, an employee may run a football team or do voluntary work for a  charity. These activities will have given them presentation or organisational skills that can be used to inspire or motivate clients and colleagues.  These skills can be refined via a learndirect Business course in presentation, management or leadership skills.”

“We're calling on both employers and employees to talk to each other about hidden skills and realise this hidden potential,” explained Kirstie. “Not only does it make good business sense but it also motivates and empowers employees.”

Facts and figures from the research:

 

 Whilst some of the technology trends are no longer current ( although they make interesting reading - highlighting the advent of techniques such as rapid application development) the practical checklists and case studies are still as valid today as they were in 2004.

The following chapters still contain information of particular relevance today:

Chapter 2 - Creating firm foundations . This chapter looks at business alignment, creating the business case, grabbing attention and overcoming obstacles.

Chapter 3 - Understanding learners. This chapter looks at ensuring learner relevance, understanding motivation and the importance of choice.

Chapter 4 - Manager influence and engagement. THis looks at the role and perception of managment in e-learning.

Chapter 5 - Holistic Learning . This looking at e-learning as part of the whole and covers learner support and making the most of blended learning

Chapter 7 - Winning hearts and minds. This looks at communication strategies for launching and sustaining interest, listening, managing change, brand, the role of e-learning champions and embracing culture.

The original research was conducted by Laura Overton Associates ,published with Bizmedia and is reproduced here with kind permission.

It is available to download but you will need to be a registered user of this site.

These standards are an important consideration for anyone building a future proof e-learning systems but they are also a  big business opportunity for those involved in developing them further. We are keen to find out if there is a ‘silent majority’ who are taking the bare minimum that the standards offer just to get by because either

• it is all they need at the moment or
• they do not have the time/resources to do any more or
• they don’t what else is possible

We think it is time to canvass those involved in e-learning to see what kind of effect or influence the standards are having on the average Learning & Development departments around the UK and are conducting a brief survey  as a means of testing this theory.

We are keen to know the feedback from Towards Maturity readers to some of the questions below and  will look to share our findings over the coming months.

So what do we need to know?

Please copy and paste the following questions and send us an email with  your response at this address: info2@feenix.co.uk by the 15th of August.

1. What is your role (in e-learning terms)?

a) Buyer of e-learning (bespoke or off the shelf)
b) Instructional Designer
c) Developer/programmer in a sophisticated tool e.g. Flash
d) Author of e-learning using the rapid tools
e) LMS administrator
e) something else – please specify

2. How do you use the e-learning standards?

a) Just specify AICC/SCORM to ensure content launches and tracks through the LMS
b) Only ever track a few things like: status (complete, incomplete, not started), assessment score and time taken.
c) Create the content to do the tracking and book marking rather than using the Learning Management System

3. Please give your views on the standards i.e. do you find they limit creativity, are useful for interoperability, are confusing or are over simplified or anything else you might think.

Please don’t let the questions limit your responses but feel free to explain your experiences in more detail.

Also do complete our minipoll - How useful have the e-learning standards been to your implementation?

• For the first time, over 50% of respondents report that they are using e-learning
• 97%  agree that 'e-learning demands a new attitude from the learner'
• 95% agree that 'e-learning is effective when combined with other forms of learning'
• e-learning is offered to 60% of staff but only taken up by 30%
• Only 8% say e-learning is an effective learning intervention (64% say that it is fairly effective)
• e-learning is pretty near the bottom when it comes to participants perception of the most effective learning medium

Full details can be downloaded from the CIPD web site

Clive Shepherd has also posted some additional observations on his blog 'CIPD gives e-learning a mixed report'

For specific highlights around e-learning take a look at CIPD's e-learning Progress and Reports document which was revised in April 2008 with data from the main survey.

The results highlight that benefits of investment in learning technologies are not guarenteed - Towards Maturity research by e-skills UK highlights that more mature implementations are more likely to achieve takeup and deliver results.

The fact that more are investing in this area makes it even more important for us to dig deeper through research and by sharing good practice, to understand how they can be best implemented for the benefit of the learner and of their organisation.

 This is the question that has been considered by the  Megatrends in e-learning project  for the past 2 years as they have considered what has worked and what hasn't in the provision of large scale regional or national projects across Europe. Projects included Distance education institutions, Universities colleges and consortia and corporate education providers.

This website contains the project's feedback in 3 main papers:

• Megaproviders of e-learning in Europe
• e-learning initiatives that did not reach targetted goals
• Megatrend recommendations- analysis of the first 2 papers that gave rise to 34 recommendations for long term and sustainable success.

The analysis of failed implementations is a rarity - the project looks at  examples which represented investments of over 150m euros but all of which failed. The following are 7 of the 34 recommendations resulting from their study in failed implementations that highlight the need for an effective  combination of common sense and business sense!

1. Realize that hard-nosed market research is essential for the success of any e-learning
   initiative
2. Plan carefully for and control carefully the revenue and expenses. Seeding funding
   dries up quickly
3. Choice of courses and their accreditation is crucial
4. Define precisely the relationships of your initiative to existing providers and define
   precisely the institutional model you will adopt
5. Plan carefully to manage both educational and business activities
6. Avoid top-down political and boardroom initiatives
7. Avoid consortia of institutions that compete with each other and the consortium. 

The Megatrends in e-learning project part of the Leonado da Vinci programme. It ran from October 05 to Sept 07 and was co-ordinated out of Norway by the Norsk Kunnskaps-Institutt and supported by partners across Europe.

Fully exploiting technology is the single most important step the UK can take to improve productivity across the economy, according to research released today by e-skills UK. The results could generate an additional £35 billion for the UK economy over the next decade, but only if we take urgent action to improve our skills base, drive the business adoption of technology – particularly among smaller firms – and foster technology-related innovation.

The research 'IT & Telecoms Insights 2008' provides a unique view of the key trends, opportunities and challenges facing the UK over the next ten years, and their implications for skills. The findings are being presented to employers and John Denham, MP, the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills at an event on 28th January which marks the start of a nationwide consultation on priorities for action.

Karen Price, CEO of e-skills UK said:

"The research evidence is unequivocal: in today's increasingly fast moving global business environment, IT & Telecoms provides the engine of future growth and the key to increasing productivity and competitiveness.  Half of Europe's productivity gains in recent years can be attributed to investments in IT. IT & Telecoms already contributes £51.9 billion to the UK economy every year - 5% of the total UK economy – and provides jobs for one in twenty of the UK’s workforce.

"Technology enables UK businesses to secure new markets, improve productivity and performance and attract high value-added business and investment to the UK. To safeguard the long term success of the UK we must maintain the strength of our thriving IT & Telecoms sector and world leading IT-enabled sectors such as financial services and biotechnology. We cannot achieve this without widespread investment in skills."

Paul Coby, CIO, British Airways and Chair of the e-skills UK CIO Board, said:

"We have great intellectual capital in our IT & Telecoms companies.  Our universities are among the world leaders in mathematics, computer science, physics and economics. UK companies have IT departments that lead the world in solving business problems by the smart use of technology. Our lead in these areas will disappear fast unless we radically improve our business and technology skills training at all levels."

The research reveals that employment in the IT & Telecoms industry is forecast to grow at up to five times the national average. But the long term strength and success of the sector is threatened by a dramatic decline in the numbers of young people studying technology and a lack of interest in technology-related careers. For example, UK applications to IT-related degrees have fallen by 50% in the last five years. 

Nick Read, CEO, Vodafone UK said:

"An important first step is to change the perception young people have of IT & Telecoms degrees and careers.  Secondly, we need to transform technology-related education and capture in the curriculum the excitement that students already have for technologies in their daily lives such as mobile phones and the internet. Thirdly, and most importantly of all, in today's rapidly changing environment we must ensure that the UK’s workforce is encouraged and able to develop the world class skills they need at every stage of their career.  Our future depends on it."

The IT & Telecoms Insights 2008 research and consultation will underpin employer-led, strategic action plans for the four nations of the UK, to be published later this year.

Further information can be found in the IT &Telecoms Insights report 'Technology Counts', available from e-skills UK at www.e-skills.com/insights08

IT and Telecoms Insights 2008: research findings include:

• There are 1.5 million people in the IT & Telecoms workforce. Over the next five years, the UK will require more than 140,000 new IT & Telecoms professionals per year, most of them entering high level roles. 
• Around half of these will be experienced workers transferring in from other occupations. Around one in five will be direct from education.
• IT & Telecoms professionals will increasingly require a broad range of technical, business and communications skills.
• More than 77% of the UK's total workforce needs IT skills – including four million business managers and leaders who need to be able to drive IT-enabled change and the 21 million people who use IT in their every day jobs.  Over the coming years, they will require IT skills at increasingly advanced levels.
• Only 18% of the IT & Telecoms professional workforce is female, down from 22% in 2001.

The research

• highlights drivers behind e-learning and the barriers to e-learning in management development
• Looks at trends in self directed learning and the steps companies are taking to engage managment through adding resources such as articles, videos and case studies to the management development tool box.
• Future directions for e-learning in this area - including the development of richer content and more integrated blended learning approaches
• Shows how we need to capitalise on the informal learning taking place over the web in this area

Many of the findings in the field of management development are backed up by our Towards Maturity research earlier last year.

This research is free of charge and can be downloaded directly from the CMI 

Additional Case study examples:

Coca Cola - virtual leadership programme

The Towards Maturity project is interested in any case studies of organisations where they have started to use e-learning more effectively in this field.

• understand how employees currently acquire new skills
• find out what kind of e-learning material might interest businesses
• use this information to develop cost effective and suitable e-learning packages that will help small businesses improve their profitability and survival.

Based in Yorkshire, the first phase of their research looked at over 400 small businesses and their use of technology for business and learning.  The summary of their findings will be useful for all interested in engaging small businesses and addressing their skills needs.

Download

The second phase of the project involves active research with local small business champions. For further details go to www.elearn2work.org.

The Association of Learning Providers conducted a national survey into access, use and the impact of technology and elearning within government funded Work Based Learning programmes.  Some interesting findings emerged, which could suggest that the use of technology by apprentices and E2E (entry to employment) learners is having a positive impact on their learning experience.  Here are just a few of the headlines:

• Learners are more likely to stay in their learning programme if they have access to technology – improved retention rates
• The majority of learners agree that technology has allowed their learning programmes to be better tailored to their learning needs – personalised learning.
• A significant number of learners agree that using technology makes them more motivated to learn – improved achievement and retention.
• Over half of those interviewed said they would like to use technology more as part of their learning programme.
• E2E learners are even more likely to want to use technology
• Most learners believe they have sufficient access to a computer – this is significantly reduced for E2E learners.

Also some very interesting variations in the use of technology emerged regionally and across occupational sectors.

You can download the summary here or access the full report from ALP's website

The study, by online learning provider, SkillSoft, was compiled following two major pieces of research which took place towards the end of 2006 - involving an online survey of 5,360 employees plus in-depth interviews with senior HR thought-leaders from 16 global organisations (see notes to editors for detailed methodology).

One of the aims of the study was to establish whether there were any synergies between how employees preferred to learn with the training made available to them by their organisation.

The top five learner preferences were:

1. Being able to get at information as and when I need it.

2. Being in charge of my own learning pace.

3. Attending classroom courses.

4. Learning in bite-sized pieces.

5. Learning at my desktop.

These findings echo the findings of  Towards Maturity research and form useful additional evidence for learner preferences in the workplace.

Click here to download a copy of this report

 Three out of four employers who use e-learning for staff training plan to significantly increase their use of informal networks over the next three years, according to e-skills UK research into e-based learning published today.  The research was undertaken on behalf of the Skills for Business network of 25 Sector Skills Councils.

The research included more than 200 organisations across all sectors as well as 1,000 individuals.  It represents one of the most comprehensive studies to date into technology-based learning in the business environment. The study highlights how organisations use and benefit from different types of e-learning, identifies critical success factors for e-learning success, and considers future trends.

Key findings of the research include:

• Eight in ten employers said e-learning provides a uniquely accessible, flexible and cost-effective method of delivering training.
• e-learning allows organisations to respond rapidly to changing business needs with appropriate skills development, and increases morale and professional confidence among employees.

The study found that e-learning is used to support training in a wide range of skills, including communications, leadership and management, foreign language training, IT (both for technology professionals and those who use IT in their day to day jobs), health and safety and a wide range of company specific programmes. 

Laura Overton, based at e-skills UK and e-learning champion for the Skills for Business Network, said: "In today's increasingly mobile and flexible business environment, e-learning supports tailored, 'just-in-time' learning that can be accessed quickly, widely and cost-effectively by staff regardless of where they are and their hours of work." 

"The electronic delivery and support of formal training has been shown to make a significant contribution to staff productivity and motivation.  Informal learning is being used by staff to share knowledge between widely dispersed teams in a way that is not easily captured through more traditional methods."  

The study identified critical success factors for the introduction and use of e-learning, including a commitment to learning from senior management, the right IT infrastructure, effective internal management and support, and the sourcing of appropriate e-learning materials.  
The research findings are intended to help employers, training providers and policy makers better understand the ways in which e-learning can support employer skills requirements.

The research findings are published in a suite of reports, available for FREE download here:

Towards Maturity –Summary  (PDF - 1.5MB)

Towards Maturity: insights for employers and training providers (PDF - 4.7MB)

Towards Maturity: Facts and Figures (PDF - 5.03MB)

the Appendix to these reports describes the research methodology, the participant profile, the employer and learner surveys and data tables.

Towards Maturity: Appendix (PDF - 4.41MB)

Please send us your feedback and comments on the reports.

For more information on Work-Based e-Learning, go to www.TowardsMaturity.org

Posted on 06 Feb 2007

• What is the extent of use of learning technologies in the workplace?
• What is the impact/effectiveness of the use of learning technologies in the workplace? 
• What are the measures/criteria for determining the success/effectiveness of the use of learning technologies in the workplace?
• What are the factors that influence/impact the success/effectiveness of the use of learning technologies in the workplace? 
• What evidence is there that the use of learning technologies has been more successful/effective than traditional/ face-to-face learning in the workplace? 

A report on the research is available from the Learning Light website together with a database of the studies used in the report.

This report was published to present the findings of the first DTI Global Watch Mission to the USA on eLearning.

The initial specific objectives for the mission were to gain an understanding of:
• The latest research and technical innovation, in particular around the use of advanced interactive simulations and
mobile technologies (mLearning)

• Business innovations in eLearning including the use of open source (OS) software, and improved methods in demonstrating return on investment (ROI)

• New approaches in using technology for organisational learning including embedded learning and performance support

• The potential for international technologybased collaboration, including joint research and development (R&D) or production, technology licensing, distribution etc
 

In 2004 Future Lab produced a Literature review of e-assessment to take a closer look at it's increasingly important role in higher education.

The paper was subsequently updated 2007 to cover subjects such as

• Research projects and reviews
• Policy changes and development
• Market place and practitioner developers
  

You can download both the original paper and the updates at

http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/publications-reports-articles/literature-reviews/Literature-Review204.

Other sources of useful information:

• Jisc's work to raise the issues and opportunities around e-assessment can be found at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/assessment.html
• the e-assessment group - http://www.e-assessmentgroup.net/

e-assessment at work

Providers that work directly with workplace solutions include:

• BTL
• Questionmark
• Pearson Vue

All of these providers have developed a range of white papers that may be of use.

 This article was last updated Jan 2010.