The Arrival of The Seamless Learning

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Text / Jinzhong Yang         

The most mentioned topic on enterprise e-learning is its essence. The capacity improvement is to improve the effectiveness of the work. And thereby it contributes to the achievement of the corporate strategy. I will share key findings and key content about business learning technology. Some information is from the “Research Report on E-Learning Application of Chinese Enterprises in 2013″.The research results show that the business e-Learning application has the following trends.

1. The era of seamless learning is approaching

The learning situations, media, and devices have been changing in these ten years. We need to learn how to incorporate resources and improve learning technology. This is a necessary process to realize seamless learning. In 2013, domestic and foreign companies were very concerned about seamless learning.

 

 

2. Online learning applications which pay more attention to experience rather than technology

Is e-learning focused on “e” or “learning”? It can be drawn from years of industry practice that “learning” is still the point. Let’s take the blended learning as an example. With the development of learning technology, there are many media for learning. But how to promote learning is still the focus. The hot MOOCs in the past two years also value experience instead of technology. In 2013, some domestic enterprises began to use this one.

 

3. The development of the ecosystem

Companies used e-learning to browse online courses, online test and get training information. But as the progress of e-learning, they use it for talent development, performance management, and informal learning. Some even integrate it with the core business of other companies. We found that more and more enterprise e-learning platforms have formed an ecosystem. It combines formal learning and informal learning. E-learning is becoming a ready-to-use performance aid or work support form.

 

4. Companies pay more attention to “participation”

Enterprise information systems can be divided into two categories. One is the ERP based on information storage, finance, CRM, HR and other systems of records. And the other is the System of Engagement which focuses on collaboration and interaction. As the progress of social networks application, the participatory systems are becoming important. The training and learning management systems are integrated with social networks. The UGC (User Generated Content) is of more importance in enterprise learning resources. It all represents the significant of “Engagement”.

 

5. The first year of wisdom learning

2013 marked a new milestone in learning technology standards. After launching SCORM, the ADL (Advanced Distributed Learning) launched a new standard- Experiment API (or xAPI) on April 21, 2013. It is a three-year result of ADL. More than 60 international e-Learning service providers had adopted this standard when it released in April.

 

6. It’s the demands for enterprise e-Learning

According to the survey, the enterprise e-learning has diversified. 57% of enterprises use it for both formal learning and informal learning. This trend has increased over the past few years and has promoted in 2013. Also, 35% of enterprises focus on formal learning. Only 8% are using e-learning for informal learning. From the research of the past few years,  enterprises use e-learning for formal learning at the beginning and for informal learning later to achieve balanced development. Further analysis demonstrates that in most cases the demand will be concentrated on online learning to reduce the training cost or realize the information management to improve efficiency.

 

Some corporate focus on promoting performance management, such as online exams and job management. Informal learning is distributed across three types of applications. The first category is the communication community.  The second is knowledge management. It reflects construct knowledge base and the integration of enterprise knowledge. The third is to pass corporate culture. It reflects the development and construction of the learning portal.