eLearning Communities: The Business Case - Page 2
© Karen Fullerton
As with other training and knowledge management efforts, eLearning Communities need to be planned carefully. During the initiation stage, goals and objectives must be defined and collaboration tools selected to support those goals. The organization's information technology infrastructure needs to be examined to determine if it can support these new tools. The potential membership of the community needs to be determined and mentors or facilitators identified.
During the deployment stage, members need to have a clear understanding of their goals and objectives. They also need to learn the technology, procedures, netiquette, and requirements for participation.
In the maintenance stage, active participation by members is essential and, therefore, the role of the facilitator is crucial. This person acts to introduce new members to the community, encourages participation from all members, and guides discussion when needed by summarizing topics, seeding new threads, or focusing the discussion on what is needed to meet the group's goals.
With a suitable implementation process in place, an eLearning Community can provide its members with rich and rewarding exchanges. It can provide employees with a cooperative environment that supports their learning, communication, and job performance needs. It can help to reduce the sense of isolation that can affect teleworkers or those dispersed globally.
Regardless of how much members like or appreciate their community involvement, managers may need to prove that this element of their training and knowledge management strategy leads to improved business performance. Of course, the time members spend participating in eLearning Community activities and the costs for technology or software need to be included among the factors that are used to determine the return on investment (ROI) for training efforts within the organization.
On the other side of the equation, hard to quantify but important to include in any analysis are the benefits of community participation. These can include increased motivation to learn, improved communication across the organization and the faster application of training content to on-the-job practice. Surveys or observational techniques could be used to help determine these effects. An eLearning Community can also provide the means for ongoing discourse that in the past has not been provided by traditional classroom training. According to social learning theories, the process of discussion may increase retention and transfer of learning, particularly when learners must reflect upon what they know and then articulate it to others. These improvements may be identified through a variety of measurement tools including post-training tests, observations by supervisors, and self-assessments. Additionally, potential benefits such as decreased time for deployment of new staff, shorter product development cycles, fewer product rejects, and increased employee retention are more easily quantifiable for inclusion in ROI calculations.
