There's a companion web site.

This is a great trend, offering resources and updates beyond the bound volume. Marc's book includes a jump list of online resources (which list Internet Time Group), a section of updates (which doesn't appear to be maintained), an eLearning Readiness Survey, the first chapter of the book, table of contents, and author bio.

McGraw-Hill's approach to this site makes good business sense. The FAQ is a sound marketing idea -- the A's lead you back to the book for answers, showing you that you need the book to learn more. The giveaways will sell Marc's book, but they also link to McGraw-Hill's entire catalog on professional training. .

According to Marc, Here are eleven benefits of e-learning:

Lower costs for learning
Enhanced business responsiveness
Consistent or customized messages, depending on the situation
Content is more timely and dependable
Learning is 24/7
Little user "ramp up" time
Employs a universal platform
Builds community
Scalability
Leverages the corporate investment in the Web
Provides and increasingly valuable customer service

This is a useful item: How can I tell if senior management supports e-learning? Perhaps a better way to approach this is to look for telltale signs of lack of support, which include:

Work is assigned to people already overloaded or who don’t have a clue.
Support or directives are given without any money.
The e-learning budget is always cut first.
Senior managers refuse to learn anything about e-learning.
The e-learning team is left to make all the decisions.
The boss refuses to tell his/her boss anything about it.
No deliverables or accountability is assigned.
Belief that going to training is either a perk or a sign of a performance problem.
Approves other initiatives that undermine e-learning.
Suggests that employee use of the Web at work is disruptive.

"Businesses need to get information -- even information that's changing -- to large numbers of people faster than ever. They need to lower the overal costs of creating a workshoce that performs faster and better than the competition, and they need to do this 24 hours a day, severn days a week for people located around the world.

The question is no longer whether organizations will implement online learning, but whether they will do it well.

An effective elearning strategy must be more than the technology itself or the content it carries. It must also focus on critcal success factors that include building a learning culture, marshalin true learship support, deploing a nurtuing business model, and sustaining the change throughout the organization.

In business, elearning is a means to an end. Generally speaking, that end is enhanced workforce performance, which in turn reflects its value -- better products and services, lower costs, a more competitive posture in the marketplace, greater innovation, improved producitivty, increased market share, etc.

posted 1/1/2001