Does your learning & development function have a specialist e-learning team? Should it have a specialist team, or should the responsibility for e-learning be integrated into the general learning functions? These are questions that have exercised many organisations recently, often as they go through yet another round of organisational change.

As well as ‘e-learning managers’, we have also seen many supporting specialist roles within (often) central e-learning or learning technology groups. Key roles include e-learning designers and media developers, technical architects and sometimes full-blown web developers on staff. These people grew out of initial pilots and projects, and the realisation that no one else internally had the required skills to create e-learning; typically a mix of instructional and media design skills together with technology understanding to interface with IT staff and suppliers (although the balance might seem the wrong way round sometimes!?).

But if e-learning has historically needed specialist resources, but does it need them now? Greater pressure on the L&D function to become more business aligned and deliver better value for money often seems to result in the existance of the specialist team being questioned. Many large multinationals are rationalising their L&D staffing, and in consequence their e-learning staffing too. Implementation resources are increasingly outsourced, and the responsibility for managing e-learning projects is being pushed onto general training resources who often have little real experience or understanding of e-learning. Is this a good thing, or an accident waiting to happen? Unfortunately, I think it is both.

I have no doubt that the responsibility and primary skills for e-learning should rest with the people who look after all learning. E-learning shouldn’t be a special central group because all learning needs to change and evolve. Sticking e-learning in an ivory tower (or maybe technology tower might be more appropriate) is an active barrier to this happening. E-learning should be part of the primary learning mix, not something on its own. Learning managers and trainers should have the skills and understanding to build e-learning into their solutions, and to work with enabling suppliers to deliver the results in the same way they have done for classroom training.

The trouble is that the majority of training staff don’t have these skills or understanding. They may have some exposure to e-learning, either as a trainer or as a learner, but they don’t really have a good grasp of how to build e-learning, how to manage it, or how and where to exploit it. This skill gap is becoming increasingly evident with the advent of blended or integrated learning. I guess my contention is that they will never get those skills or understanding if the responsibility for e-learning is always diverted to a separate group or function. It is critical for them to gain these skills, or they will inherently become the classroom-only specialist in a rapidly hybrid world.

But if I support the move to migrate e-learning into the mainstream L&D organisation, I am also very critical of the way this is frequently being done. If the reality is that general L&D staff don’t have the skills currently to do this properly (which they don’t), developing those skills is critical. This will not happen by magic, it is a transformation process, and it needs a conscious and sustained effort to make it happen.

I’m sorry but I don’t see that happening in many organisations, so the change will fail. Responsibility will be shifted but the reality won’t. The risk is an acceleration of bad e-learning using incompatible approaches and technologies, or even worse, the undermining of the change that has already taken place. Trainers will revert to their classroom comfort-zones and the baby (transformation of learning) will go out with the bath-water (e-learning as a specialism)!

Where does this leave our embattled e-learning team? Well for the moment, at least in most of the organisations I talk to, they are important, even if they don’t feel that way. We need their competencies and understanding, and we need their pan-organisational perspective and standards. But their role needs to change to be the change agent and not the implementor. It is they who should be driving and enabling the change process, not denying its importance. But it takes two to tango! And maybe if both partners stepped up to the dance we would make more progress!

David Wilson is managing director of eLearnity, a leading independent learning analyst and consultancy, which he founded in 1996. He can be contacted on +44 (0) 20 7917 1870 or at DavidW@elearnity.com

Related News

• Floods - returning to work and planning for the future
• Taking learning online
• Epic partners with the National School of Government to promote Human Rights understanding

Related Discussion Topics

• OnLine Induction and Learning Programme
• Software to build an A - Z Glossary
• On-line induction

Latest News

• Skills for Life target achieved two years early
• The Institute of IT Training broadens its range of training awards
• Welcome for Equality Bill
• Inspirational single dad scoops learning and training award
• Retail sector talks shop with students