Brandon Hall Research, domain analysts for the e-learning industry and providers of  information about tools, technologies, and best practices related to employee training and enterprise learning have just released a comprehensive new guide called Authoring Tool KnowledgeBase 2009: A Buyer’s Guide to 120+ of the Best E-Learning Content Development Applications.

According to their press release, "the current edition of this online, database-driven KnowledgeBase contains 10-20 page profiles of 122 content development tools" including:

• 65 products to create online courses
• 26 products to create online tests and assessments
• 20 products to create software simulations
• 23 products to help you convert your legacy content to e-learning
• 9 products to create non-software simulations
• 8 products to create instructional games

They also include two online software applications:

• A selection tool that helps you narrow your product search by filtering out the tools that don’t meet your needs
• A comparison tool to help you see how two similar products differ

I recently published an article called What’s on your e-learning bookshelf? In it, I listed my shelf of “go to” e-learning texts. I’ve re-published the picture of my shelf below, so that you can see, right there in the middle, a text called E-learning Tools and Technologies by Horton and Horton.

In the early part of this decade learning and development professionals and educators found this text to be an invaluable reference resource. If you had a requirement to understand a new training modality or learning channel in a hurry (as many of us did in five or six years ago as we faster, better, and more integrated communications networks burgeoned) the Horton and Horton text was a good place to begin to find out about it. However, as we reach the end of the decade, the tools and some of the technologies in text (I have the first edition) is looking decidedly dated; Blogger.com was still owned by Pyra Labs; podcasting is not given a look-in in any shape or form. As far as I could discern through a brief search (on Amazon, Wiley Books Online, and Google Books), the 2003 edition is still in print.

The outcome of this is that while the text is still full of good advice, useful information, and valuable insight into topics associated with e-learning design, development and delivery, many  of the products it highlights are deprecated (Authorware), redundant (GoLive), or changed beyond recognition (most products featured in the text). In my view this is where resources like the Brandon Hall KnowledgeBase come into their own. While, necessarily, the text and the information is not as rich as in the Horton and Horton book (see Figure 1 for a comparison between the layout of the two resources), it’s competitive advantage is that is delivers bang up-to-date, regularly refreshed information, and a easy-to-use selection and comparison utility to choose and compare products.

Figure 1. Side-by-side of the texts: Horton (l), Brandon Hall (r)
[Click to enlarge]

In one sense, this is the threshold between the analog and digital forms of information delivery. Putting my cultural anthropology hat on for a moment, I would characterize this as a liminal state. Liminality has been described as "the place in between" (La Shure, 2009)  infused with ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy.

For example, as a university lecturer delivering a course on learning technology do I include E-Learning Tools and Technologies on the required reading list, or the more up-to-date Authoring Tool KnowledgeBase? How do I set a question on the information in the latter source as it is in one sense, just a list and description of products and their capabilities, with none of the context provided by the former text? Which is more "academic?" Does this reflect the text’s accuracy? Is the cost ($795 annual subscription) of Brandon Hall membership justifiable for students, or people who just was occasional access to information, as opposed to about $40 for the out-of-date Horton and Horton text. How much is the information worth?

These are  difficult questions to answer satisfactorily.

I have no doubt that over time, e-texts will become integrated into the mainstream of academic, professional, and consumer activity. Online libraries like MyAthens already provide access to a range of electronically-available materials for a nominal fee to the individual user as membership to institutions, universities, and libraries.

E-readers like the Kindle, and e-book software like Lexcycle Stanza (recently purchased by Amazon) are beginning to provide the facility to view electronic versions of printed texts.

Maybe this electronic means of access will become more generalized; I use Stanza on my iPhone and it’s changing my reading habits. Perhaps the current practice of hard- and e-texts being used in concert will become firmly embedded as the most effective method of using the old and the new. As usual, people will do what works for them, and the usual rules for adoption of innovations will apply.

Yet the question remains: How out-of-date is too out-of-date?

I think that my Horton printed text still has great value, especially in the context it provides for e-elearning-related technologies; yet I can’t rely on it to provide current information about specific e-learning authoring applications. With over ten years experience in the learning and development industry, I feel competent to apply my well-developed critical faculties to find out what I need from the range of knowledge and information at my disposal. Could I make my tacit, hard-earned ability to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information available to some-one else? Probably not.

How do you use the resources at your disposal? I’d love to hear your views and about your experiences – let me know.

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References:

Brandon Hall Research. (2009). Authoring Tool KnowledgeBase 2009: A Buyer’s Guide to 120+ of the Best E-Learning Content Development Applications. [Internet] Available from: http://www.brandon-hall.com/publications/atkb/atkb.shtml Accessed 29 June 2009

Horton, W., & Horton, K. (2003). E-learning Tools and Technologies: A consumer’s guide for trainers, teachers, educators, and instructional designers. Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

La Shure, C. (2009). Liminality. [Internet] Available from: http://www.liminality.org/about/whatisliminality/ Accessed 29 June 2009

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Brandon Hall Research, providers of information about the tools, technologies, and best practices related to employee training and enterprise learning have just released a comprehensive new report called Learning Technology Products 2009: Authoring Tools, Learning Management Systems, and Learning Content Management Systems.

The number of tools and technologies for online employee training continues to grow; there are literally hundreds of content authoring tools, learning management systems, and learning content management systems currently available for training professionals to use in the operationalization of their organizations’ learning and development strategy.

To help you get a sense of what’s at hand commercially, Brandon Hall’s 526-page report provides one- to three-page profiles of more than 250 learning technology products.
And, best of all, this report available for free, gratis.

This report contains profiles of the products featured in three Brandon Hall Research KnowledgeBases:

Authoring Tool KnowledgeBase 
This online resource contains 20 to 30-page profiles of 100+ tools used to create almost any  type of online learning content, including courses, games, presentations, and tests. The Authoring Tool KnowledgeBase provides case studies and success stories that show how high-profile corporate, educational, and governmental organizations have completed their authoring tool selection processes.

Each authoring tool is profiled extensively and provides information on standards, rapid development capabilities, assessment capabilities, language and localization features, simulation capabilities, etc. – all the details you need to find extensible and flexible authoring tools to help you create superior e-learning content.

LMS KnowledgeBase
Containing 40-60 page profiles of 92 systems, the new 2009 edition of the LMS KnowledgeBase is the most comprehensive resource available to help you compare learning management systems and select the system that best meets your needs.

The depth and breadth of this research makes it a valuable resource to practitioners, CLOs, IT staff members, and other key stakeholders. The cost of the research is easily justified in that it helps you avoid costly mistakes and ensures an efficient LMS selection process.

 LCMS KnowledgeBase
A learning content management system (LCMS) can elevate your content creation to a new level. An LCMS stores your content as small bits of information that can be modified and reassembled as needed. These systems also act as single-source authoring platforms that can output content to many different formats.

This online resource contains profiles of 38 of the best systems. If you are planning to harness the power and flexibility of an LCMS, this research is the way to go about it. It can help you understand all the details that go into choosing the right LCMS for your organization.

Why’s this report free?
According to Brandon Hall, this report contains a few half- and full-page ads. Support from advertisers allows them to publish this report free of charge. In my view, this free report should become part of your resource toolkit to assist learning professionals select the appropriate technology for organizational learning initiatives.

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none of what I would consider the ‘Top 50’ e-learning blogs received a mention.

I subsequently modified my position and highlighted some of the blogs that were in (some of) the categories’ lists that I would subscribe to / reference / admire, including C4LPT, the Bamboo Project, and OLDaily – for I did not have the leisure to peruse all the lists in all the categories… so of course I omitted some other candidates that would be among the e-learning blogs I regularly read, and naturally Workplace Learning Today was among them (as I said in the title of this post– How Not to Win Friends, eh?).  

However, upon reflection I have to say that I stand by my initial (modified) position on this topic, and here’s why…

In my view, the primary issue I encountered with this year’s list of categories was that it’s not very usable for voters. As an e-learning professional, usability – the ease with which learners can assimilate content in order to achieve a particular particular learning objective – is a key factor in developing effective, easily-transferable courseware, as well as informational deliverables generally.

As a result, I found it difficult to engage with the “great wall of links” I encountered when I navigated to each category. The outcome was that I wasn’t motivated to review many of the nominated blogs: I don’t  have the time at my disposal to carefully review each nominee and weigh them against each other as carefully as I would have liked.

If, for example, a blog* is called “Seán’s Blog”, “Siobhan’s Thoughts”, or “Y(outh) Zone” it’s nigh-well impossible to decipher what topics it covers without some textual descriptors or justification for their appearance on the list – apart from “Best [what ever the category is] Blog”, of course. This isn’t enough detail (for me) to carry out an informed judgment on the relative merits or otherwise of a candidate for an EduBlogs Award.  

In the context of the EduBlogs Awards site, the development of an informationally sound content framework should have been a consideration for the authors, to enable them to create an environment conducive to the requirements of voters. At the same time, the content model must make effective use of available technologies, with the express purpose of countering the effects of cognitive overload (there is an imbalance of text to other media types).

The outcome? A lost opportunity to introduce a substantial number of blogs to a wide audience, and a whole lot of frustration at having to work hard to vote.

Just as well there’s no hanging chads online.

Tomorrow: It’s easy to be critical, but I feel that there’s no point in it unless it’s constructive criticism and supports learning.

Gary Woodill asked me to highlight my ‘Top 50’ e-learning blogs. I’m not going to do that, I’ll cover twenty of them, but I would be interested to see if you, dear reader, consider the approach I take to distributing the information to be usable and effective. 

FÓGRA: I’ll come back to Chris Argyris anon.

* The blogs depicted in this post are fictitious. Any similarity to any person’s blog living or dead is merely coincidental.

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