More learning is being done online. This trend is making a big impact in technical training where, according to Cisco Systems (www.cisco.com), only half of all technology training will be delivered by classroom instructors by the year 2003.
Technology training is not the only area involved. About 200 companies, mostly based in the US, provide online learning, computer or Web-based training, virtual classrooms, digital collaboration or technology-assisted distance-learning.
Many have repositioned themselves as providers of electronic learning (or "e-learning") to take on the rapidly-expanding market reported by the Massie Center (www.massie.com), a New York learning and technology thinktank. Among them are Irishlinked companies like EMG, ESmart (www.esmart.ie), Smartforce (www.smartforce.com) and WBT (www.wbtsystems.com).
In this competitive environment, e-learning has moved far beyond simply delivering text over the Web. It includes tutoring systems that use artificial intelligence and voice-recognition to improve the learning environment. Email, chat rooms, mailing lists and video conferencing are also used to provide tutorial and social support for individual learners, similar to that available in a classroom. By 2002 Motorola University (www.mu.motorola.com) - the best-known corporate university - plans to deliver 30 to 40 per cent of its training through e-learning. In the belief that education is an employee responsibility as well as a right, Motorola is developing an e-learning product to enable employees to constantly renew their knowledge and skills.
The core of the system is a "knowledge bank" where training is broken down into five-minute learning chunks. These can be customised to match individual learning needs by course designers or individuals who access them through Web browsers. As learners use the system, it becomes an electronic tutor, registering the skills they have and those they need.
E-learning now represents 70 per cent of Dell's educational output. Though a number of classrooms are still used for training and orientation, Dell University exists only on the company intranet. A major goal is to make learning such a common part of an employee's daily work experience that it becomes invisible.
Encouraged by its experience of using e-learning for employees, Dell has signed an agreement with Dublin-based Smartforce to launch an online university for its customers. It is intended to provide training for Dell PC owners and Dell Website visitors. Dell customers can receive three courses from Educate U, as it is known, free.
Apart from these corporate initiatives, many courses are available for individuals on the Internet. EdSurf (www.edsurf.net) offers over 200 computer training tutorials with free demos, 10 free trial courses and a guide to online learning. Elsewhere, Learn2 (www.learn2.com) offers courses across the areas of arts and crafts, business, family, food and drink, health, home and garden, sports and technology.
There is a widespread suspicion that online learning is much more popular with employers than with the employees who actually take the courses. This popularity has more to do with saving money than with the quality of learning, according to the cynics.
However, a recent International Data Corporation (www.IDC.com) survey found the opposite. According to the survey, most of those who had tried e-learning liked it, and it was companies themselves which doubted its effectiveness and saw the lack of human interaction as a drawback.
These reservations seem unlikely to hold back the development of more and more online learning courses. In a skills-hungry world, sophisticated online training offers too many advantages in cost and convenience to be held back for long.