Corporate E-learning vs. E-learning in the education sector

 

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Article: Online Learning 

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Author: Olusola David, Ayibiowu

Edition : 11

Year : 21 August, 2017

Published: Online by Creative Arts Solution Foundation

Corporate E-learning vs. E-learning in the education sector

E-learning allows both students and business executives to learn anywhere and at any time. You can learn from virtually any place with a computer or mobile device and internet connection, meaning you can study from home, on vacation or in your break. But e-learning is more than about convenience and there are fundamental differences between e-learning in the corporate sector and in education.

What happens in the corporate environment?

The role of corporate training is to ensure an employee has the knowledge and skills to undertake a specific operation to enable an organization to continue to operate. Fundamentally, corporate training is centered on knowledge transfer. For example, conferences and workshops are an essential yet expensive part of business and e-learning makes it affordable and efficient - sales people, for instance, can receive their training on new products and sales strategies online. E-learning can be translated to lower costs to deliver training in a shorter period of time, especially when employees are spread worldwide.

Corporate education however adds another dimension and depth to training by involving learners as participants in generating new knowledge that assists an organization to develop and evolve.

The main characteristics of corporate learning are:

Fast-paced: Enterprise learning is mostly "fast paced" because "time is money" in the corporate world. Training needs to be delivered in as short a time frame as possible with maximum results.

Career-related: Enterprise learning helps employees gain new skills to advance their careers inside the company. Corporate Learning Management Systems have additional modules to facilitate that process.

Benefits organization: Enterprise learning focuses mainly on pragmatic issues with immediate benefits for the organization rather than just individual benefit. Ultimately training is required for the organization to function correctly, and corporate education in order for it to evolve and develop.

Training vs. Education: Enterprise is mostly focused on training, while education is mostly about learning though "igniting curiosity" (check out this related post on ‘Learning through Curiosity’). Training usually means the act of being prepared for something, of being taught or learning a particular skill and practicing it until the required standard is reached. This has obvious practical implications for the workplace.

Return on investment: An enterprise needs to be able to calculate the ROI of its learning investment. In an educational context this ROI is difficult to calculate and usually the effects of learning take years to show.
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