Blended Learning : Piece by Piece

At our recent Symposium one of the roundtable sessions I facilitated was on blended learning and what does this look like in corporate organisations in 2013. I was interested to see if the changes in learning and technology over the last couple of years had filtered down to the solutions that organisations are developing.

The term blended learning has always struck me as strange. Apart from making me think of cocktails, the image that springs to mind is one of producing consistency and uniformity with individual elements almost losing their identity to create the finished product. The best blended solutions, in my mind, are more like jigsaws with every element being carefully designed to fit snugly next its surrounding pieces and the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

What became clear very early on in the roundtable was that it is still difficult to create a good blended solution. It takes skill and time and often both of these are in short supply. Interestingly, one of the major obstacles was still felt to be the skills in the wider learning and development teams and their reluctance to incorporate online learning (in all its formats) into the blend. Some of this was due to lack of skills / understanding and some was felt to be due to an element of self interest and the need to preserve a reliance on classroom based solutions. Some companies have recognised the lack of internal expertise and outsourced the design process, although even in this case there still needs to be an element of involvement from the internal team. Others have tackled it head on and have introduced programmes to upskill team members.

As well as resistance from within the L&D community there can also be reluctance from learners themselves and often those present experienced extremes; where people in the same job roles and section of the organisation would go from whole-heartedly embracing the blend to rejecting it. It just shows that however carefully you develop the blend, you are unlikely to please everyone! What is particularly frustrating are learners who embrace technology with open arms in their private life but reject it in a corporate setting. Clearly for some people there are very different drivers in a social context versus a work one.

In terms of the benefits of blending there were two clear camps during the debate. One side saw the reason behind blending being about improving choice and putting the learner in charge. By giving people a choice they can select the elements of the blend that work best for them and fit with their needs and context. Blending is a means to making learning more accessible, flexible and aligned to the needs of the learner. This choice relates to the depth of learning required, as well as the choice of method. The other viewpoint was that blending is meeting the needs of the learner and it is less about offering choice but more about meeting the needs of the business, with blended solutions allowing people to improve their perform quicker and more efficiently. As one attendee said “Often there is no choice to blend. With time to competence shortening dramatcically there is the need deliver learning in the most effective and efficient manner. This often necessitates a blend with a mix of face to face and online methods”. Disappointingly there was little evidence of organisations measuring the success of the blend or identifying the value of differing components.

Is there a perfect blend?

There was general acceptance across the group, in line with current thinking, that organisations should adopt a more resource driven approach rather than structured courses. This is especially true for online solutions where more and more is being delivered as short nuggets in audio, video or text format. The role of learning and development professionals is becoming more focused on the curation of resources, rather than their creation. Although interestingly the group did not raise the challenges this presents within the community to have the skillset to do this effectively. How do you choose what are the best resources? How do you align these in a meaningful manner to help create effective learning pathways?

What was perhaps surprising for a group of professionals who are used to evangelising the use of technology was the need to recognise the importance of face to face contact in the blend. This though did not have to be classroom based and many participants discussed the importance that coaching and mentoring has in blended solutions. The role of technology is an enabler. What is really vital is to embed the behaviours to make blended learning successful. Learners must feel comfortable learning independently and the learning team has an important role in supporting them.

So what were the main things I would take away from the discussion?
• Blending is something that is well established in major organisations but many still find it difficult and the perfect blend probably doesn’t exist so don’t waste time trying to find it.

• Successful blended learning is an art not a science – context is important to understand whether your solution will be successful. Think carefully about the culture and the skills of the learners to engage with your blend. Don’t rush the process and think carefully about why you are including components and what /whose needs they are meeting.

• Successful solutions are about every component adding value. Focus on the outputs and remember to meet the business drivers for the blend – don’t blend for the sake of it!

Clearly there is now much more than ever, the opportunity to include technology elements in the blend and organisations are starting to grasp the opportunities that this offers. I’m certain as emerging approaches such as mobile learning becomes more embedded in organisations this will become a standard part of the mix. These opportunities though come with their own challenges and learning teams have to think through more clearly their role in creating successful blends and how they measure the value that these deliver, especially as more and more will involve informal learning methods.

Elearnity Symposium 2013 Highlights

The 14th May saw our annual Symposium and as promised, it was a genuinely fascinating and insightful day. We began this year (after a coffee and croissant, of course) with some interesting figures based on a survey carried out with attendees prior to the event.

The following list highlights the top priorities for learning teams in the next 12 months  

• Improve informal and mobile capabilities
• Leverage global platforms
• Continued deployment of learning and talent systems
• Enhancing talent management capabilities
• Identify more performance support opportunities

One of the most significant changes over the last year was the increasing acceptance in organisations of the role that technology can play in supporting learning and talent solutions. This is clearly good news. It is also encouraging to see that this has been backed by a continued willingness to invest despite the need in many organisations to restrain spending.

Our roundtable breakout sessions then covered a variety of topics which are voted for by attendees ahead of the event. This is great as we know we’re covering areas that are of most relevance. There’s not room to do each of them justice here so we’ve just given you some of the highlights to give you a flavour of the discussions.  We’ll be writing in-depth blogs on each so check back here every Monday for the next six weeks to delve into the detail!

Blended learning is far from old news

Having been involved in L&D for more years than I care to remember, the term ‘blended learning’ feels like it’s been around for a long time. However, with the increasing use of technology and ongoing cuts to budget and spend, it’s probably more relevant now than ever. The approach to blending though varied enormously, ranging from those organisations that were tackling it at the organisational level (had a target of 80% of learning must be done online) through to those dealing with it through their design process (banning what it calls ‘click next’ elearning!).There is also a definite shift amongst members of our Corporate Research Network to resources (such as podcasts, simulations, videos etc) instead of courses.

Whatever approach is adopted, finding a way of blending components to create coherent solutions for learners really is key. But despite the fact that the blended concept is not new and there has been much talk of creating “learning architectures” and “learning architects” many organisations are still struggling to implement it effectively. Offering a seamless experience for the learner still appears to be challenging. Whilst it’s clear there’s no magic formula to create the optimum blend, one of the main takeaways was the importance of design and planning in the process from the outset.

Learning and talent innovation

The main message that came out of the session that focused on innovation in learning and talent is that what is considered innovative is all about context. What feels groundbreaking for some is business as usual for others.  To give you a feel of the variety examples ranged from purpose built simulation that’s been created in the style of a Star Trek holodeck to app that gathers live learner feedback in face to face training sessions. Interestingly, some of the latest industry innovations such as the Tin Can API and Open Badges are not even on the horizon for many organisations at present.
Innovations in L&D aren’t just about technology though. Several attendees discussed changing processes and encouraging learners to input ideas around L&D’s approach as their way of innovating.

Mobile: myth or reality?

Having been the subject of a lot of hype for the last couple of years, it seems mobile learning is now becoming a reality, but only for a small proportion of organisations. One or two in attendance are blazing a trail providing mobile learning that is now accessed by their learners everywhere, from their train journey into work, to sitting in the hairdressers after work.  But the majority of organisations are still overwhelmed by the technology choices which make it hard for them to choose a mobile strategy and implement it decisively. So whilst progress is being made, adoption on the whole is still relatively low.

360 degree view

With nine representatives of learning and talent providers present, the attendees had a unique opportunity to discuss with Managing Directors and CEOs how they saw the world of learning and talent changing. 

This unique formula enables buyers and practitioners to get the inside story from the vendors and their plans for ongoing development and improvement of their solutions as well as discussing key trends generally. Conversely vendors have the opportunity to hear, firsthand, the challenges being faced by major organisations. The discussions ranged from “How do companies maximize the value of adoption of existing solutions?” through to “What does the learning and talent landscape look like in 3-5 years?” The insights gained from these sessions were useful for those on both sides of the fence and we’ll be breaking some of these down in future posts so we can discuss them in more depth.

We covered so much ground throughout the day that it’s impossible to do it justice in one short review. We’re already summarising each individual session so we can provide more in-depth insights into the trends, topics and challenges discussed. You can find those here over the coming weeks and we would welcome your thoughts so we can explore the future of learning and talent together.

Real Insights ... from the horse's mouth!?

Tomorrow sees us hold our annual Symposium in London. We’re delighted to be joined by so many members of our Corporate Research Network, including organisations such as Aviva, BT, Lloyds Banking Group, Shell and Vodafone.

Hosting roundtable style events is something we’ve been doing for over 10 years now, as they’re a fantastic format for stimulating insight and debate. The Elearnity team is lucky enough to get to a lot of industry events, and it’s always interesting to hear thought leaders tell us what the next big trend is. But nothing really beats listening to those who are walking the walk and implementing learning and talent solutions in the real world. Understanding the challenges they face everyday gives us a unique edge in our research and advisory services. Most importantly though, by sharing it in a trusted environment with their peers, other organisations can learn from what’s working – and what’s not.

Ahead of this year’s event, we ran a survey which found that integrating talent, performance, and development workflows is now becoming more of a reality in major organisations. For many respondents, there is a clear focus on the delivery of global solutions through the use of one common platform. Whilst one common platform was had often been deployed, many attendees highlighted the need to embed its use and the importance of simplifying the experience for end users, often by integrating processes.   Although the learning and talent infrastructure does play a central role many respondents were also looking to the future and delivering solutions to multiple devices was seen as a critical focus area for many during the next 12 months as was moving towards more resources than online courses.  The familiar challenges of engaging stakeholders to use online technology, as well as broadening the scope of solutions, were also still viewed as important.

One of the most significant changes over the last year was the increasing corporate acceptance in the role technology can play in supporting learning and talent solutions and a continued willingness to invest despite the need in many organisation to restrain spending.

It’s encouraging to see corporate organisations continuing to significantly investing in learning and talent solutions.  Even though innovations such as mobile access will play a significant role in the future for many organisations, maximizing the value from existing solutions is clearly still an important area of focus.  For many organisations 2013 is a year of transition with learning and talent professionals being given the opportunity to reinvent online learning and talent solutions and demonstrate the value they can add to their business by integrating processes to create an improved user experience.

Themes to be covered in the corporate roundtables this year include:

• Using technology to support workplace learning and performance support
• The metrics that matter when measuring learning and talent
• The realities of corporate mobile learning
• Blended learning in corporate organisations in 2013
• The future of learning and talent systems
• Corporate learning and talent innovations that make a difference

So watch out for a follow-up blog series detailing the findings within each of these subject areas and useful mind maps from each session. 

As well as discussions amongst members of our Corporate Research Network, the Symposium also provides a unique approach for corporate delegates to interact and get insights from the supply-side via a rapid fire series of joint corporate/vendor roundtable sessions. Vendor participants this year are:

Assima, Cornerstone OnDemand, Epic, Kallidus, Kenexa, NetDimensions, Saba, SumTotal Systems and Unicorn Training.

Our aim is to give everyone has the opportunity to discuss their own unique challenges, putting trends and technology adoption into the context of their organisation. It’s always fascinating to see what emerges from the roundtables and gain a clearer perspective of the reality of learning and talent solutions in major organisations. The one thing we can always guarantee is it won’t be boring!

Watch out for live Twitter coverage tomorrow from Kate Graham, David Wilson and the rest of the Elearnity team; check back here for a full summary of the day and the start of our dedicated follow-up series. Click here for more details on our Corporate Research Network and Vendor Programmes, and for information of future Corporate Roundtables.

1/3rd of Corporates - FAIL - to get a Positive Impact from their LMS!

With two weeks to go until it closes - Our Customer Satisfaction Survey is throwing up some interesting results.

Initial data is pointing to the fact that at least one third of organisations are failing to make a positive impact with their Learning Management Systems.

Business impact is clearly a a critical measure of success for any system. And it is concerning that, so far, our research is highlighting how low satisfaction levels can be with  some LMS deployments - especially as others appear to be getting it right.

As we dig deeper into the responses, I expect we'll find some interesting correlations between different suppliers  -  both positive and negative.  Until now there has't been a way for users to share the realities of working with different learning solutions.  So, with a couple of weeks left until the survey closes, there is still time for customers to have their say and bring some much needed transparency to the European Learning Technology market.
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Importantly - only corporate participants who complete the survey will be provided with free access to the Summary Report when  released later in the year.

The research remains open for until 03 May 2013 and can be accessed via our website.

You've got to be in it, to get it!  So - get involved!

The Survey can be reach through the following link:  http://delivr.com/2cput


David

"I can't get No (European) Satisfaction" ?

Who provides the best customer satisfaction for Learning Technology in Europe?

You would think that it's a relatively easy question to answer, but unfortunately it isn't. 


You can, with the right conversations, build an anecdotal view.  And true lots of vendors conduct "private" surveys and there are sporadic "global surveys".  

But, as we know from the debacle over Apple's Maps - the real issue is how well an application operates in your region.  Service delivery and solutions capabilities often vary - considerably - from region to region. And, in reality, most of the Customer Surveys you can access for Learning Technology are heavily focused on a North American view.

So, whilst the suppliers typically hoard any customer feedback, never to be seen in public, what is there that enables you, the European learning technology buyer, to understand who provides the best customer satisfaction; in an objective sense, both in terms of solutions and service?

Until now there hasn't really been anything.

And that is why Elearnity are launching an independent survey of customer satisfaction  for Learning Technology focused predominantly on the experience of European customers.  

Why are we doing this? 

Put simply - To help provide much needed transparency to how European customers rate their learning technology - with the goal of helping all providers raise standards.   

Nothing ever changed by the voice of the customer being stifled or hidden.  

If you want to help suppliers improve standards - have your say. 

 If you want to have your voice heard, do it in our independent survey.  

Simply follow the attached link and start to share your views.

http://delivr.com/2cput

An initial Summary Report is planned to be released in Q2 2013.  

All corporate customers who complete the survey will be sent a copy of the Summary Report.

The Learning Technologies 2013 Head Bang!!

Earlier this week we once again found ourselves at the Learning Technogies conference in Olympia. We’ve presented many times at the conference and are always delighted to go along as it is a great opportunity to share our thoughts and also hear from the attendees their view on what is happening in corporate learning. 

Image courtesy of @learnpatch

This year though, when David was invited to talk in the conference, we were determined to do things a little differently, instead of  just doing yet another presentation.  All too often at learning and development events, we talk about the need to shake things up, u!se technology and do things differently...whilst sticking to the tried and tested  PowerPoint slide deck. Not so this year!

David initially had the idea of an ‘ask the analyst’ session. Our day job revolves around us providing independent objective analysis and insight on the learning and talent market. We live and breathe this stuff every day. We know from our research and from many previous conversations at Learning Technologies and similar events, that many people find it difficult to get the best out of their learning systems and struggle to achieve the outcomes they want.

So we wanted to do a Q&A style session, that was a given. But then we started to think about how to make things as dynamic as possible, and involve people who could not attend the event but who would be  following the event’s back channel .

The obvious answer was to use Twitter. Rather than us posing the questions, we would ask attendees and others interested to pose them via Twitter and then pick interesting questions live during the session.  So we set up Tweet Wall using Tweet Wally  and our own hashtag #LT13headbang. We asked the audience what bugs them about their learning systems and got some great responses!

After a short intro from us, the room broke off into groups to come up with some questions for us. Tweets also started coming in from people following on the back channel too. Some were more comments and airings of frustration. Others were specific to individual organisations. Here are some examples ...

There’s no consistent experience for the learner ...and no integrated data to help planners, managers, designers etc

At times appear to have been designed with developers thinking i.e. without sophistication of useable workflow

Amount of clicks it takes to get to the learning!

 

Best in show?

There were a number of questions around which vendor/system is the best.

There’s not a straightforward answer to this and it’s something we try and address in our Vendor Perspectives (http://delivr.com/1m541) as requirements will differ across different organisations. With all learning systems, it is vital to understand the context of their use, before narrowing down options. We’re not being evasive,  just transparent.

There are some factors that are always important to consider: total cost of ownership, ease of delivery, solution capability(aligned to your needs)  and the customer/user experience. Always try to evaluate a potential solution based on these criteria.

There was some great input from the audience too such as ‘A lot of the experience of these systems come from what data youput in iand how you use it’ and ‘Think about the vendors like a partner! You'll be stuck with them for a long time so better like working with them!’ as well as ‘Ask for evidence of the vendor’s claims’. It’s definitely just not as straightforward as picking a ‘best of breed’ solution and hoping for the best!

 

Technology trends

We discussed how a number of years ago, customisation of learning systems was commonplace. But over the years, customer organisations have realised this is a) potentially expensive and b) limiting in terms of tying themselves into one particular vendor. 

With the rise of the Cloud based solutions  (Over 75% of new learning system deployment  are now Cloud based ),configuration is king and customisation is becoming a thing of the past.  The level of flexibility in deploying the system is just another factor to consider when evaluating which system is right for you.  But Cloud is not a magic wand . Updates from multi-tenant Cloud providers are made en masse which doesn’t always suit everyone. Cloud and SaaS give you automatic innovation, but you have to manage that innovation too. That’s an overhead that not everyone understands.

One question which brought a smile to our face was when someone  asked ‘Are LMS’s a little bit 90s?’ In terms of trends, there has been some kick back against the LMS in recent years, and in some ways the expected demise of the LMS has been rather overplayed. Organisations might not like their LMS, but many of their business drivers are making the LMS more important not less. More compliance, more focus on cost efficiency, more focus on strategic capability and integrated talent. None of these factors is reducing the need for the LMS and our research shows that large corporate organisations still value the data and functionality they provide .

The flip side though is that in most cases, LMS’s are not what you might call a thing of beauty! Most companies have multiple LMS’s and the user experience is not consistent or good. They also only manage some parts of the learning in an organisation – and not even all of the formal learning. This has to change and LMS’s have to be better.

The vast majority of our corporate research network members  are trying to improve how they use their LMS and it is clear that there still significant steps to be made to make learning systems more user friendly and simpler to use. The recent acquisitions in the market of LMS vendors by much larger HR systems players has only reinforced the importance of learning management systems and further cemented their inclusion as part of a wider HR systems  architecture.

 

E-learning and 70:20:10?

One question was on how much of the 70:20:10 model should be provided by e-learning.

Whilst the 70:20:10 definitely model has merits (see our previous blog post below) , it’s perhaps not very helpful to break down how much of it should specifically be e-learning. Online learning solutions could be used to support all elements of the model. It all depends on what is right for your organisation, culturally as well as technically .

Of course, the new Tin Can API is going to be an interesting development in terms of its impact on learning management systems and the increased flexibility it will provide in tracking more informal learning activities. With the new standard due out in April, it will be interesting to see the real impact.

 

What Next?

As we didn’t get to answer all the questions on the day, we’re going to tackle some on the blog over the coming weeks to provide some more indepth commentary . Other questions included ‘What do you do when your LMS vendor gets acquired?’ and ‘What five LMS features consistently deliver the most value to the learner?’ and ‘Where does a social learning platform fit within an LMS?’. Plus several cropped up around mobile learning

We’re also launching some research during February to find out how satisfied you are with your learning solutions and providers . We want to hear the good, the bad and the ugly! So keep your eyes peeled for that.

Thanks to everyone who came along to our session and those who participated from afar. It was fun to do something different and we hope you enjoyed it too.

DAVID

LPI Learning Live 2012 - Is Mobile Learning finally here?

Following on from my presentation at the Learning and Performance Institute "Learning Live" event last week, I wanted to provide a summary of my thoughts and provide access to the presentation.

Is it time to get Mobile?

There is little doubt that our view of computing and what it means to be connected has changed dramatically over the past 5 years.  The increased availability of wi-fi along with higher mobile network data speed and the rise of the smart-phone and tablet pcs, have and will continue to shape and change our expectations, of what and how we use computers.

So, what has changed in step with these developments in the corporate learning world?

In so many ways, very, very little.

Corporates are generally slow to adopt technologies, (except where the leadership team want the latest gadget) and Learning and Performance development teams are typically slow to innovate content delivery, or how they facilitate Learning overall.  In the case of Mobile Learning,  innovations are frequently led more by content providers and solution vendors, rather than a broadened view of the entire learning process, and the opportunities that “mobile learning” can bring to the table. 

Elearnity are never advocates of rushing to adopt new "tech", just for the sake of it, and in the case of mobile learning there is a lot of hype and not necessarily a lot of substance…  And the combination of hype and substance is just the just the time when you should be most cautious about adopting new technologies and new approaches.  

But, equally there are distinct trends and real shifts in consumer behaviour that will change our expectations about how we interact with media, and these will certainly impact learning and performance management over the next 5 years.

For some, however, there may be some timely opportunities in much shorter time-frames, that smartphone and tablet based learning may deliver.  And those opportunities can be very different from the traditional e-learning of the past…(if it's right to chose to use them).

So, how do you start to identify mobile learning opportunities? 

It many ways, it’s a simple audience review that will help highlight the potential.  Whether mobile learning  is right for your organisation, or an audience within your organisation, will probably be driven by a combination of factors.

1.  Is there a mobile device?   For most, the first item on the checklist will be the availability of device.  If it’s not there already, very few have pockets deep enough to furnish audiences with the required hardware.  And even when they do, it may not be used as intended.  So, does the device already live within your IT estate?  For many the answer will be no.  But, already this picture is being made all the more interesting by trends in BYOD - or Bring Your Own Device- where employees are using their own tablets and smartphones in a work context.
2. Is there an tangible opportunity to raise business performance with that audience?    And does the improvement really matter to the business?
3.   Are the audience operating remotely or off-site?  
4.  Can they / do they need to be supported just in time? Or need remote or off site support?

If you have 4 Yes’s to those questions, then you probably have a tangible need, that would be worthwhile  validating with your key stakeholders.

So, what sort of support for learning can mobile provide?

Broadly speaking, there are three areas that mobile has the potential to contribute to.

• Content
• Process 
• Collaboration.  

For content, the subject is much bigger than what appears to have dominated the discussions to date – Formal Learning.  Whilst Formal e-learning is certainly a slice of the future, it is by no means the only, or potentially most important part, of the Mobile Learning equation.  The learners of the future will expect that any content will be accessible on any device, in their multiscreen world, as they step from tablet, to PC, to Smartphone - depending on their situation.  In this world the standard e-learning course of the past will need to do more than flex its screen size, and reliably handle interactivity, to be effective across platforms. 

A road less trodden is the whole arena of workplace learning, and here mobile has the opportunity to re-define some of our expectations, about what mobile learning really is. Let’s think about coaching, mentoring, social performance management, gathering feedback, performance support.  Mobile enabled devices with their ability to be present, at the point of recognition, or the point of need, add immediacy to developing performance in ways that traditional views of learning simply can’t deliver.  When we think about agility, supporting workflow and making a difference..  the mobility of mobile can be a real differentiator… for the right roles, with the right business imperatives.  

Equally interesting is the impact on process and the power of collaboration. 

Many of the transactions we have in the Learning, Performance and Talent world are easily enabled via mobile devices, and most of the platform providers have created mobile ready approvals, feedback, assessment, and other elements of the Talent Development and talent management workflow enabled for mobile.  

The use case scenarios around on-the-job assessment and manager evaluations is a simple area to consider.  Gone is the paper process, and learning programmes can be tailored by an analysis of on the job performance automatically - speeding up the process of developing performance.  

Collaboration via mobile devices is also potentially a high impact area.  There is a real precedent for this, from for example Microsoft SBN and the social behaviour of consumers through mobile devices.  Here, the inherent focus on connecting shouldn’t be under-estimated. Especially for expert communities of practice, where it is married with a compelling context, video, innovation projects. 

So, is mobile learning finally here?

For me the ability for organisations to use Mobile Learning is here,and it has been here for some time.  The more interesting question is ...  Has it made an arrival?  In my view no.  Mobile is still far from  mainstream and to me that’s because we are still slavishly following models that value learning delivery over learning facilitation, and instructional design over Learning and Performance design.  

But ultimately, it’s also because the corporate reality for most employees is that the PC is still dominant, and that smartphones and tablets have still to reach the corporate masses.  If these change significantly then Mobile Learning will be here and be much more recognised as a critical part of the learning mix.  But, until then, it potentially is an under-used and under-rated option - dominated by a discussion about content delivery rather than diagnostics, process facilitation and collaboration.

If you'd like to download a free copy of our analyst presentation please use the following URL.

http://delivr.com/1js04

Follow-on to Moodle Paper - Comments from Totara

Had some great feedback from the community about the corporate Moodle paper.

The following comment/response to our Moodle paper was submitted by Richard Wyles on Kineo's LinkedIn group ... thought it was worth adding here, together with my response ...

Richard Wyles • Thank-you for a timely and interesting read. I thought I'd add comment or two in my position as CEO of Totara, and also someone who has been heavily involved in various Moodle R&D efforts over the past 8 years, including the Moodle Networks and early scalability efforts cited in the paper that led to OU's successful adoption. In many ways the Totara distribution feels like a similar project to others I've led in that all of these initiatives have been designed to address recognised needs. The Totara distribution came was born from the collective experiences the founding partners had with customising Moodle to work in a corporate context. The gaps in functionality were obvious to us, and that repeating similar customisations for each corporate wanting to take the plunge, was wasteful of both their and our resources. It was also obvious that Moodle’s roadmap was focused quite rightly on the educational space. I first floated the idea of a corporate distribution of Moodle in a keynote speech as early as the first Canadian Moodlemoot in Edmonton in 2006.

I prefer to use the term distribution over hybrid as the latter might suggest to some that we've taken two disparate things and joined them. We haven't - we've extended Moodle's feature-set and through the depth of understanding we have within the Kineo Catalyst, and Totara development teams, we've been careful to develop the new functionality in a modular, "pluggable" way that adheres to Moodle's coding styles and standards. From my viewpoint this represents a significant investment into the broader Moodle community, from longtime Moodle contributors and solution vendors, to ensure that it meets the needs of a different market space. I sometimes think of Totara as simply Moodle's "Business Edition" although of course that is an unofficial moniker.

We agree with Elearnity that the LMS marketplace suffers from a "perception of poor user interfaces,overly complex workflows, and high costs for licensing, support and maintenance." We're also of the view that, given the inherent difference between an academic educational model and corporate training learning, then it is unsurprising that ‘out of the box’ Moodle is not widely used in corporate contexts. Our mission is to address those functionality gaps, offer much greater flexibility through the GPL, and offer an alternative that dramatically lowers the costs of ownership - in short a better product at a better price, and with built-in flexibility to go further.

It is early days, like the reports says, but within not much more than a year of launching we have over 150 clients supporting this move, 12 of whom have up to 50,000 users and 3 with up to 250,000 users. We need to get further case studies written up!

Thanks again for an interesting report.

Richard Wyles
CEO - Totara Learning Solutions 

... and my response ...

 

David Wilson • Thanks Richard for your comments. Very constructive and I think reinforcing some of the key points we were trying to make in our report.

Our research into Moodle in the corporate environment was started a few years ago, and part of it obviously pre-dates the existence of Totara (and some other corporate-focused Moodle variants). We see Totara as specifically trying to bridge the functional gaps to fit into corporate learning models and environments, and we will continue to track your progress with interest.

The main point here is that Moodle gets frequently described as a) an LMS, and b) a suitable corporate solution, without any real understanding of the context of these things. The reality is there are real questions with both parts of this.

Moodle has started to become extensively adopted in corporates, but not as a true LMS, more as an e-learning portal. It is also often used tactically for specific programmes rather than as the global enterprise-wide solution for all learning programmes.

That's fine, but organisations need to understand the difference. It's also interesting that (at least from our research to date), Moodle is rarely used inside corporates as a true VLE either - i.e. to support collaborative asynchronous blended learning programmes.

The second point of suitability is not just a functional issue, but also one of service, deployment and support. Suitability is actually more about the types of service partners supporting corporate customers, and their scope/capability to offer trans-national or global services and enterprise-class solution infrastructure and SLAs.

Overall, we want to help to make corporate buyers more aware of the realities of Moodle today, and to positively influence their approach to Moodle as an opportunity. We also want to continue to encourage and challenge the supply-side of the equation too; to help improve the value for corporates and decrease their risk.

Best regards,
David

Moodle: The Corporate Reality Uncovered

The popularity of Moodle as an academic learning platform is now migrating into the corporate market too. But, built originally for an academic audience and learning model, what’s the reality of Moodle’s usage and suitability for corporate learning?


Here's an Extract from our Corporate Moodle Report Summary:

Moodle’s Origins 

Historically, Moodle has been primarily used within the academic community as a virtual learning environment or VLE, a software system designed to support teaching and learning in an educational setting. Virtual Learning Environments such as Moodle are designed to deliver a programme of learning and its associated activities over a period of elapsed time, with one or more facilitators/tutors interacting with students, and with focussed interaction between students. Whilst a VLE does provide some management functionality and some content functionality, its primary role is to support the delivery of learning, through a structured educational programme, resources and collaborative activities. 

Moodle’s Place in the Market Today? 

There is no doubt that there is significant interest in the potential to use Moodle for corporate learning, but our  research shows that corporate usage of Moodle today is quite limited, and there are still very few public domain large-scale corporate Moodle case studies. Unlike the academic community, few corporate organisations have yet adopted Moodle as a strategic learning technology platform. And if they have, Moodle is typically just one component of a more traditional learning technology infrastructure (alongside a learning management system and other virtual learning/elearning tools).
From our research, the most common role of Moodle within corporate organisations today is as a tactical, low- cost elearning launch platform where an organisation does not have a suitable LMS already. Some organisations have used it on a more extensive scale but even then it is for a distinct audience or to meet a specific need. 

Despite Moodle’s success in the academic market, where it has become established as a common platform to  manage the delivery of educational programmes with facilitating tutors, there is limited evidence of corporates  using Moodle to deliver a blended approach.   This should probably not be a surprise, as a real commitment to blended delivery is often lacking in corporate training, irrespective of the available delivery platforms. 

For the sake of clarity, here the word “corporate”, doesn’t mean quangos or small to medium companies, but is used to describe large private sector companies with enterprise scale operations. 
The use of Moodle as a collaborative learning platform or conventional VLE within a corporate environment is also limited, with few good reference examples. In this guise, Moodle is being used for collaborative activities and tutor facilitation, but not generally to manage the overall blended programme. Whilst this type of usage  is growing, it will be slow relative to Moodle’s overall growth, as corporates slowly shift to blended and virtual learning as a mainstream approach. 

The Future of Moodle

There is strong evidence that Moodle can provide a tactical elearning launch platform, and interest in using Moodle as a broader lightweight LMS solution is growing. But currently, Moodle, unless significantly modified, lacks the functionality to manage this effectively in a corporate training/learning context.  Nothing illustrates this more than the decision to develop Totara and the other commercial distributions of Moodle.  In almost all corporate deployments, Moodle has been heavily customised by partners and independent vendors, and even now, the enhanced functionality that’s needed is part of vendor modules, rather than core Moodle code.

Learn More
To learn more about Corporate Moodle, you can access our latest free research report.  This provides 40 pages of insight into the Moodle supply chain, the challenges involved for end user organisations when implementing it as a solution, the functionality profile and the development of Corporate focussed Moodle distributions:


Insights into Corporate Moodle


http://delivr.com/1hs98

The impact of talent management acquisitions on corporate HR strategy

We’re releasing a new Insights Report today which reveals the impact on corporate customers and competing vendors of the recent billion dollar acquisitions of talent management providers SuccessFactors and Taleo, by SAP and Oracle.

The report analyses the immediate aftermath of these and other acquisitions in the talent systems market. It explores the underlying trends and drivers behind the acquisitions, the broader effects that consolidation is likely to have on the talent management market, and the impact on corporate customers and their HR systems strategy.

Rather than just discussing the SAP and Oracle acquisitions in isolation, we feel it’s important to understand what’s driving these big market changes, and most critically, what they mean for corporate customers. But these big questions haven’t really been discussed in-depth until now. The report highlights that the market changes are as much driven by the potential opportunities of Cloud computing, as they are by the importance of talent management itself. Corporate HR, talent management and learning and development teams still remain uncertain about the impact of these changes on their strategy and day to day operations, as well as their scope of choice when making purchasing or upgrade decisions.

At one of our recent roundtable events, a number of large European corporates expressed confusion and real concern about the future of the HR and talent systems market. We know that many corporates have abandoned their original vision of a single all-encompassing ERP/HRMS in favour of a best-of-breed approach for talent management, learning, and recruitment. Most attendees had reservations about the role of the ERP vendors in the talent market, and the potentially negative impact on innovation and user experience.

Historically these decisions were made at a specialist talent level within HR. But there has been a definite shift towards hybrid learning and talent platforms. However, most European corporates are still a long way from having a unified view of their talent processes. There is also little doubt that the market consolidation is already impacting corporate strategy and choices.

You can download a free copy of the report here: http://delivr.com/1gwwy