Learning: education and training systems
We need to be conscious of the fact that within the ICCA definition of e-learning, we are describing it as the use of technologies within all and any learning and our scope was primarily though not exclusively learning for and at work (ie we were not focused on the use of technologies in compulsory schooling). One of the interesting outcomes of the application of technologies to learning is that it has turned the spotlight on how we evaluate learning and especially formal education and training in general. This has resulted in interesting questions being asked about the whether we generally evaluate learning provision at all, and where we do so, and outcomes and the methods we use. It has led to questioning whether these evaluation methods need revising in the light of both the integration of technologies, the changing nature of education and training provision which is partly (but only partly) influenced by the integration of technologies. At a more advanced level, it has also led to questions being asked about how we evaluate non-formal and informal learning2 whether deploying technologies or not, and whether we can use ICTs to design new means to capture (and this analyse and evaluate) informal and non formal learning.
Only in one specific respect do e-learning initiatives appear to require some specificity in evaluation relating to their technology dimension and that is in relation to the return on the capital investment as the latter can often be substantial. However, here we also see that there is a wider context: the integration of ICTs into other social and economic contexts - specifically into the workplace. In recent years, evaluation of the roll out and implementation of new ICT systems into workplaces has (especially in popular media reporting of high profile public sector investments) seen many negative reports emerging and even where no 'horror stories' are related, there is often a general perception that many such investments have been poorly designed, even more weakly implemented and represent poor value for money3. So e-learning investments also fit into this broader world of ICT investment, and many of the lessons learned from more general ICT investments also apply to e-learning initiatives. ...continue to traditional approaches to evaluation of education and training
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