e-Learning is considered by many practitioners in learning and development departments in companies to be a somewhat new arrival in the course of careers that involved a heavy amount of traditional learning in corporate classrooms. e-Learning, the technology darling, introduced in response to an influx of corporate Intranet development, decreased training budgets, and the need to reach more learners with fewer training department resources. From this vantage point, e-Learning is in many ways a solution set for the problems of inefficient or expensive training strategies overdue for modernization at the speed of internal change.

However, e-Learning is closely related to distance education, which has roots in the previous two centuries; the web-based format is just one new technology in a field that has utilized a long line of “new” technologies. Performance Technology experts agree that it is a common mistake to allow technology to drive learning and development solutions. Practitioners are urged to think instead about systems and the frameworks first, and research is still emerging in the realm of e-Learning as it relates to instructional design and pedagogical approaches.

Divided Camps in the Field
The truth is, there seems to be a great divide in the field of distance education, and by extension, e-Learning, between academia and practitioner camps. Academia seems to reside in the institutions of higher education, while practitioners are rooted deeply in business. There is also a group that straddles both camps, the scholar practitioners, who serve as university faculty and consultants to businesses and organizations.

Practitioners versus Academics versus Scholar-Practitioners
Research is produced by all camps. The practitioner camp includes researchers in the field, such as Brandon Hall, Michael Allen, Elliott Masie, and Marc Rosenberg . The academic camp includes amongst its luminaries Michael G. Moore, Borje Holmberg, Terry Anderson, Curtis J. Bonk, G. Kearsley, Farhad Saba, and Gunawardena, to name a few. What emerges from the research is not a difference in outcomes so much as perhaps a different perspective on how to generalize it, or integrate it with foundational research. The practitioners seem focused on what’s applicable and meaningful right now, to today’s human performance needs, while academics tend to bring a longer-term view, considering what was learned before and how what we know now is impacted by that knowledge and perspective. Enter the scholar-practitioner camp, a group of prolific publishers and action-researchers who inform the decision-makers in business of the how and when and what regarding learning in the workplace. They speak the language of the decision-makers and are in a prime position to share a wider perspective of the field.

Distance Education in the Business Sector, now and in the future
Distance education today (called e-Learning in the business environment, emphasis on the e) is all about productivity gains. According to Rosenberg (2001), the most important contribution of e-Learning is its ability to create and distribute information to directly support performance. The Commission on Technology and Adult Learning makes a case for e-Learning by focusing on its role in more efficiently getting workers what they need to get “up to speed on new products and processes” (2001, p. 4).

But, for distance education to take its place fully at the table in the business environment, it first and foremost needs to speak the language of those who are already focused so heavily on the technologies and gained efficiencies. The business environment is interested mainly in two things—profit and results. According to the Commission (2001), e-Learning will find its future in the realization of just-in-time learning that delivers the miniscule pieces of information that a worker needs at the exact point it is needed. But what business and workers will lack with this approach is perspective.

More and more, I’m asked by clients to leave off the advanced organizers and historical context in course solutions. One client wanted to know why learners didn’t beginning receiving the how-to’s until topic 2. There is no room, it seems. for history, for a broader sense of understanding. Even in the knowledge age, companies suffer from a lack of organizational memory. If they can’t remember who they are, it’s no wonder they suffer from the lack of a desire to know what is known. The future of e-Learning in the business sector seems to be knowledge management, the ability to search for and deliver up anything that was ever known by anyone who knew it at the organization. The frightening reality is that without a paradigm that values a sense of history, foundations, and theory, you end up with a database full of information for which no one searches, or when they find it, skip to chapter 3, where they’ll find the good stuff.

What this all means for practitioners in the corporate departments making their forays into e-Learning is that the onus of responsibility falls to those of us creating and proposing the learning approaches to our internal and external clients. It is simply not enough to create templates that convert traditional courses into online text with pictures, and call that learning, emphasis on electronic. Nor is it the creation of nifty audience-specific portals that serve as performance support tools. There is a place for these, yes, but what we often miss is a pedagogical foundation for the overall e-Learning strategies we help to foster. There’s a whole lot of development going on, supplemented by great gulps of best practices from conferences, vendors, and training journals. We need to drink more deeply from the wells of a vast collection of learning and cognitive theory, think hard about how we’re developing environments and policies that support the e-Learning strategies and purposes, and put into place real solution sets. Our foundational basis and precedent is largely set by our predecessors in the field of academic distance education theory and research. It’s time reading and discussion of these principles found a place at the corporate learning table. Practitioners and scholar-practitioners owe it to our clients to serve solutions rich in substance. Though it may take courage to offer gourmet to clients who insist on fast food.

References
Commission on Technology and Adult Learning. (2001). A vision of e-learning for America ’s workforce. [Online.] Accessed 12/17/04 : http://www.masie.com/masie/default.cfm?page=researcharticles.

Hall, B. (2004). FAQ’s about e-learning. [Online.] Accessed 12/17/04 : http://www.brandonhall.com/public/faqs2/faqs2.htm

Moore, M. G. (2003). Preface. In M. M. Moore and W. G. Anderson (Eds.), Handbook of Distance Education. (p. ix-Xii). New Jersey : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Rosenberg , M. (2001). e-learning: strategies for delivering knowledge in the digital age. McGraw-Hill.