QUESTION: How do success factors for e-learning differ from success factors for classroom training?

Here are a few thoughts, by no means comprehensive. Essentially, there's no difference in success measures, and most of the core critical success factors, such as appropriate content and learning design, are also the same. The purpose of any learning intervention is to achieve the learning objectives, and success is measured against those objectives. But (assuming content and design are good) environmental and process factors also play into the achievement of the learning objectives.

In the classroom, the issues of lighting, comfort, acoustics, group size, trainer competence, and learner preparedness are critical to the success of the event. Even availability of water and the speed of food service during the breaks are relevant. Controllable physical factors don't exist in e-learning--but other unique factors do.

In e-learning, some crucial success factors are technological. It's clear that no matter how good the course is, if the e-learner can't access it, it's a disaster. So ensuring that the course requires no more than the available bandwidth, processing power, sound cards, audio and video plug-ins, browser generations, and local and network security settings is critical to success. Many people build high-tech courses and then try to dictate that learners upgrade to the required technology specifications. It's better to first know your target learning environment and then build courses that will run in it.

Other key success factors in e-learning involve learning models and learner engagement. E-learning models cover a wide spectrum, from fully live synchronous video-conferencing to completely machine-driven solo learning, with varying degrees of synchronous and asynchronous involvement in the middle. Finding the right learning model for the course and target audience is critical. This is simply the online equivalent of structuring a classroom course around learning modes that mix lectures, exercises, discussions, role-plays, group sessions, tests, and so forth. Get the design right, and you'll engage learners. Get it wrong, and you'll alienate them.

The difference in e-learning is that there are more opportunities for learners to communicate than in a traditional classroom, and you have more opportunities to empower them to learn in their preferred styles. A physical classroom is relatively controllable by the instructor--you can impose a schedule, adjust the AC, call for quiet. But unless e-learners participate in only live video-conferencing delivered from a dedicated facility, they have to manage their own environment and find their own time, place, and pace to learn. So another success factor is flexibility. Letting them learn "anytime, anywhere," from home as well as from their office, 24x7, is vital to success, as is letting them download material to work on when they can't get online.

That leads into another factor that differs in e-learning: learner motivation. An e-learner must be more motivated and committed than a classroom learner, willing to take responsibility for his or her own progress rather than be pulled along by the rest of the class. That's hard for many people if they're not particularly motivated to learn. Managing that incentive in e-learning is significantly more critical to success than it is in classroom learning.

As for the instructor, in the traditional classroom, his or her abilities as either subject matter expert (SME) or facilitator are crucial. Online courses that include mentors are no different, but those mentors often require a different skill set from their classroom counterparts. Online mentors typically have to be SMEs, because their knowledge and experience are open to constant probing from each and every learner. They must be sincerely nurturing and interested in forming one-on-one working relationships that may last weeks or months. They have to be able to micro-manage their time and be diligently service-driven. And they must be able to touch-type!

Finally, the total service context in which learning is delivered is different. Getting your entire registration, payment, management, technical support, and customer service environment running smoothly in real-time is essential to the success of the overall e-learning experience. Those factors in a classroom mode are typically handled in a slow-response offline environment, or don't exist at all.

Published: November 2001