[Updated June 2008]

Introduction

Any organisation considering an e-learning project must at some point get to grips with the capabilities
and constraints of its I.T. systems and network capabilities.

The aim is to make the learning available across the organisation's network, using either the public internet, the organisation's own network (often an intranet), or a combination of these.

At the same time, there is the opportunity to manage the training via a flow of information from the learners back to a central location - learning management systems allow a supervisor or trainer to see exactly what training has been undertaken by which staff, and what learning outcomes have been achieved

A paradox of the I.T. revolution is that many business people now have in their homes broadband internet connectivity that provides an excellent platform for e-learning delivery. However when they get to the office, they will find very similar computer hardware that is subject to a number of restrictions that can make e-learning deployment quite problematical.

All internet users are familiar with the web browser - most commonly Microsoft Internet Explorer,
or perhaps one of its competitors such as Mozilla Firefox.

The display and animation capabilities of the standard web browser are rather limited.
So more sophisticated e-learning products will require the use of a browser plug-in - an auxiliary program that provides extra functionality. One widely-used plug-in is Abobe's Flash.

In a domestic situation, plug-ins are no problem. They are available free of charge from the developer, and they can be installed over the internet in a few moments.

However from the organisation's point of view, plug-ins are often seen as a security risk. The plug-is seen as a potential Trojan Horse that can be exploited by hackers to bypass the organisation's defences and cause damage and/or steal information.

The organisational response may therefore be to ban the use of all plug-ins, or to take a very conservative policy about their use. For example, some companies will allow the Flash plug-in, but only version 4 or 5 (the current version being version 9.) Furthermore to enforce these policies, all user computers are locked down so as to prevent installation of any unauthorised software components.

If your organisation has a restrictive plug-in policy, all is not lost! You may consider the following strategies:

Does suitable off-the-shelf courseware exist that does not use prohibited plug-ins?

Or can existing courseware be reprogrammed to a lower production standard that does not require plug-ins at all? (Clearly this latter option will be relatively expensive; but if the student numbers are sufficient, the cost may be acceptable.)

Is the courseware available in a non-internet format, e.g. on a CD-ROM, which can be run even
on a locked-down computer, provided that it has a CD-ROM disk drive?

Assuming that the plug-in issue has been resolved satisfactorily, we can now turn to the other elements
of the system, the network and the server that will be hosting the materials.

For organisations which provide their staff with access to the public internet, the simplest solution is to use the vendor's own servers, or the servers of an e-learning facilities provider.

There may be a firewall policy, whereby only trusted third-party servers can be accessed from inside the organisation. In such cases, the external provider will need to go through an accreditation or certification process before access can be granted.

The other option is for the organisation to host the materials on their own servers. The most common reason for doing this is because they are using a Learning Management System to manage a range of learning materials. However many Learning Management Systems now allow the integration of materials stored on other servers.

This is a large topic, which I will return to in more detail in a later article.

There are hundreds of Learning Management System products - some well-known names are
Saba, Docent and WBT Systems, but there are many others.

As their name suggests, they provide the means of allowing the students in the organisation to access courseware materials. Typically they provide a wide range of reports on courseware usage, and some of them integrate with personnel and finance systems, so that managers can assign students to courses and allocate the costs of doing this to budgets or cost centres.

The goal of the courseware industry is inter-operability - ideally, any piece of compliant learning material should integrate seamlessly with any Learning Management product. To achieve this goal, there are various standards, of which the best-known are SCORM and AICC.

Vendors often make claims - in perfectly good faith - that their products are compliant with various levels of these standards. However the standards themselves are complex, and many parts of them are open to multiple interpretations.

For those who are used to inter-operability in other contexts - for example putting your bank card into an ATM 'hole in the wall' in a foreign city or using your mobile phone on holiday - it has to be said that in spite of the efforts of developers and standards bodies, all is far from perfect in the world of e-learning. Our own attempts at integration of our courseware with a number of well-regarded products have led us to the conclusion that things rarely work 'out of the box', and that a certain amount of trial and error is needed.

If your organisation already has a Learning Management product, then you will probably want new courseware to operate with it. However the acquisition of a Learning Management product is far from a trivial matter, both in terms of expense and organisational effort. So if you do not already have one, you should think carefully before going down this route. Many courseware products, including our own, come with integrated learning management facilities that are more than adequate for most purposes.

Roger Kreitman
Principal Consultant