Marc Wienrich – Educational Design, Berlin ist4balt Workshop “Towards a Knowledge Society“ April 7th, 2006 – Riga Communication and resource challenges in e- Learning projects

Slide 2 Many organisations have introduced a Learning Management System Exemplary standard functionalities of major LMS suppliers Integration with HR system Assessment Blended learning support Skills management Task management resource management Communication: forums, chat, Competency management

Slide 3 Resource Challenge: Content Development Authoring tool or Learning Content Management System Advantages and Disadvantages of each solution Authoring tool relatively low prices for investment simple and easy to operate flexible design of content and courses LCMS Similar to LMS, learning materials are administered and generated centrally allows for a controlled process to generate learning materials

Slide 4 LMS + Authoring Tool / LMS + LCMS LMS LCMS Content Developement Content Deployment Content Import / Dynamic Delivery LMS Authoring tool

Slide 5 Who develops the courses? Are resources sufficient to train your own technology experts Are the regular employees required to assume this additional role

Slide 6 The Problem of Costs The following factors influence the quality of available materials: high costs for a course content development varying by subject: rapid change of knowledge

Slide 7 “On the fly” transformation of existing materials Existing content is simply made available through downloading Knowledge by links; a link performing as content The knowledge basis has been becoming increasingly unmanageable for the simple learner Due to very user-friendly technology, organisations choose the simple and cost-saving alternative of merely transforming existing materials Result

Slide 8 Systematic Project Management eLearning projects as hybrids of education projects and and IT projects Relevant information needs to be filtered The filtering per se may not be conceded to the technology itself

Slide 9 Systematic Project Management Investment into the general concept of each course Less is more Successful cooperation of the inter-disciplinary teams

Slide 10 Knowledge and Course Design Restructure “information” into “knowledge” as interdisciplinary process Potentials within eLearning courses as unique, permanently reproductive knowledge Cooperation between technology experts and subject matter experts

Slide 11 Thanks for your attention!