Learning 101

Brook Manville

Chief learning officer and customer evangelist
Saba Software Inc.
Redwood Shores, California

An important missing piece of the e-learning puzzle is the need to link training to performance and learning to standard business results. Making such links will mean figuring out where knowledge, learning, and training have the greatest impact. Learning in the future, therefore, will be directly linked to individual jobs and to overall business strategies.

Now, I'm not saying that reading books about philosophy or studying languages aren't valuable things to do. But the world of training has centered on enrichment learning and professional development for too long. Competitiveness demands that the tide now shift in the other direction. Performance-driven learning is going to make up a bigger and bigger piece of the pie.

As a result, the metrics of success in learning will be linked to traditional financial and performance measures. Varieties of learning that don't translate into customer satisfaction, profitability, growth, or employee retention will fall away. Measures that tell you about the health of your business will be what matter -- and smart companies will make those measurements early in the learning process. Those companies will be able to judge the long-term impact of learning from the outset, and they will quickly change what isn't working.

Brook Manville (bmanville@saba.com) was trained as a historian, and he taught at the university level before he entered the business world. Before joining Saba Software Inc., he was a partner in McKinsey & Co.'s organizational practice. Saba, which provides e-learning infrastructure to companies worldwide, sponsors an online magazine, LiNE Zine (www.linezine.com).

Glenn R. Jones

Founder
Jones International University
Englewood, Colorado

Learning shouldn't be limited to a campus or a classroom anymore. If you have two children and a job, you're just not going to make it to a college classroom three nights a week. And then there's the issue of cost. If you don't have the money to go to a traditional college, does that mean that you shouldn't receive an education? Of course not. You should have a shot at the good life, just like anybody else.

The Internet has brought democracy to education. A bachelor's degree or a master's degree is now available to anybody, anywhere, regardless of a person's position in life. Thanks to the Internet, education is accessible without regard to place: You can work toward a bachelor's degree while serving your country on a submarine. And it's accessible without regard to time: You can take courses after your shift ends, even if that's at 2 AM.

What's the biggest obstacle to online learning? It isn't technology. Companies are spending billions of dollars globally to build an online-learning infrastructure that includes undersea cables. And competition among providers is driving prices down. The real bottleneck is cultural. What needs to be overcome is not bandwidth or Internet access, but resistance to the idea of online learning.

The accreditation of Jones International University, in March 1999, was a shot heard around the world. Nobody anticipated that a totally online university could become accredited. That event has put real pressure on traditional institutions to move into the Third Wave.

Do I foresee the demise of brick-and-mortar universities? No. But the efficiency and the effectiveness of online learning will lead both universities and companies to incorporate large elements of e-learning into their educational programs. That's inevitable.

Glenn R. Jones founded Jones International University (www.jonesinternational.edu) in 1993. JIU is an Internet-based university whose enrollment encompasses more than 2,000 students from 44 countries. It offers several degrees, including an MBA. JIU is the first fully online university to receive national accreditation -- a process that took four years.