The E-learning Curve at Edublogs

After a weekend of listening to The Works by Queen, I’ve been trying to find a way to squeeze one of the album’s song titles into a blog post, and by Jove, I think I’ve got it!

Now read on…

Today I’m returning to one of my occasional topics - tracking the state of the e-learning industry through the economic downturn / recession of 2008. In my first post on this topic I outlined my views on potential scenarios and described what in my view differentiated this depressed market from the post- Dot Com era. Following up on that, I presented the end-of-year financials of two of the biggest organizations in the industry, and potential difficulties they may face in 08H2.

Today, I’m investigating stakeholder sentiment (in the form of opinions from learning professionals as presented in their blogs, columns, and forums). And the question I have to ask is “Why don’t people feel that the hammer will fall (sic) on the e-learning industry this time around?”

The prevailing feeling seems to be one of optimism, and that this is in fact a time of opportunity for the industry:

Sam S. Adkins, Chief Research Officer of Ambient Insight suggests that

According to a new longitudinal study by Ambient Insight on the private investment trends in the learning technology industry, capital is flowing at the highest rate since the last recession…

• Funding in the first quarter of 2008 has reached 64% of the 2007 total and now totals more than all the investments made in the entire year of 2006
• Investment in Self-paced eLearning products designed for the corporate buying segment dominated between 1999 and 2003, but funding for these types of products has dropped dramatically in the last four years and now trails other product types
• Digital reference-ware, Collaboration-based Learning, social network-based learning (peer-generated), and learning services firms, respectively, are now attracting the largest investments
• Funding for Simulation-based Learning and Game-based Learning products, particularly virtual world platforms designed for young children, has increased significantly in 2007. This trend continues in the first quarter of 2008 and this product type is now on track to outpace investment in Self-paced eLearning

At G-Cube Solutions, Ankit Jain asserts:

…[the] growth of e-Learning is the function of two important factors. Factor Number One is the competitive cost advantage and Second Factor is the enabling qualities such as enhanced reach and learning impact.

In a ‘normal’ US economy, he predicts that

[e-learning] not only substitutes class room training but achieves better results to the learners.

Should a recession develop, he considers

Lower revenues and lower profits for US corporations certainly means cut in L&D spending. However, I have strong views that e-Learning in relative terms is likely to benefit from recessionary conditions as it is a proven cost friendly alternative to a traditional class room. … In my views the share of e-Learning hours will increase to over 40-50% from current 30% due to two factors - lowered base of number of training hours (as expected during recession) and increased share of e-Learning as such. … [the] e-Learning industry in general has a great future irrespective of US recession.

On Learning Town, Brett Andersen of The Bank of America says

With financial cutbacks come greater restrictions, such as hiring freezes, significantly lower budgets, etc. And with less money and fewer resources, training and development employees have the challenging OPPORTUNITY to be more creative, manage their expenses more wisely and, in many ways, work in ways perhaps should have been considered before the economic challenges and perhaps should be considered after the economic challenges. Though I would not want these challenges to remain with us for long, I believe strongly that there is something for each of us to learn and to develop within ourselves, our teams, our organizations and our industry.

On the same forum, David Barton of Michelin North America makes this statement:

For the first time in the 13 years that I have been working with technology enabled learning in North America, our global learning and development group is seriously exploring it’s use.

Similarly Maya Frost thinks that “In A Recession, Online Education May Be A Smart Investment.”

Why? Because when people get nervous about their job security, they start looking around at their options. Many may consider taking online courses to prepare for the worst and position themselves more strategically for the next career move.

I’ll be analysing why such a broad range of people are so bullish about the e-learning industry over the next few days.

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