In my views future growth of global e-Learning to a large extent will depend on availability and usage of rapid content development tools. Evolution of tools with capabilities of quickly converting raw content into standard compliant, dynamic and creative format will be critical to the overall growth of e-Learning industry in India and the world.
In many cases, investment in learning delivery infrastructure (LMS, VCR etc.) is triggered by strategic and people centric decisions. Most cases, such decisions are motivated by individual leaders’ inclination for the initiative on experimental basis.
At the end of the day- training is considered as cost item (rather than an investment). There is a limited budget available for achieving the organizational training and learning objectives. And it will be so in foreseeable future as well. Therefore e-Learning competes with traditional and alternatives ways to achieve T&D goals of the organization. ROI calculations are still an art rather then science, not well taken by the key decision makers.
For a corporate, purchasing a learning delivery infrastructure without having the reasonable options of cost-effective rapid content is like purchasing a car (expensive or inexpensive, doesn’t mater) which can only run on very expensive fuel. Do you think it can work!
Believing in this theory I predict that e-Learning’s growth is positively linked with rapid content trend. Having predicted this doesn’t mean that I am also predicting death of simulations and high-end learning content. Even high-end custom content will grow but only where such content adds huge value in delivering effective learning more effectively.
(Ankit Jain is Head – HR and Strategy at G-Cube)