By Dr. R. Srinivasan, CTO, iCMG, Bangalore

The Technological Revolution in the area of Computers and Internet has brought us to the new economy called " Digital Economy". We have always witnessed over the years that the life style, general trends in the attitude and behaviour of people and hence the day-today life have been influenced quite a bit by the newer technologies. Technology revolution has also brought in new way of looking at Business Objectives and the associated need for training and updating the knowledge of the workers. While the Business Organizations are forced to improve the knowledge of every worker, the students coming out of the colleges are expected to know state-of-the art in the respective technology areas, i.e., today college education is only a prerequisite but is not adequate enough to meet the Industry needs. In the Old Economy "skill" is seen as an important attribute whereas in the "Digital Economy" it has become imperative that one should go through "Life Long Learning" and this is where a tool like e-Learning is expected to be followed by both the practicing workers and the fresh graduates seeking jobs in the Industry.

We have witnessed that once new paradigm shift takes place lot of developers and vendors try to jump into the fray to make as much business as possible. Unfortunately the products of every one of these may not be upto the mark to fulfill the needs to meet the change of technology unless all of them follow standards. Looking at the market potential, we will be seeing a new industry involved in bringing out materials for e-Learning in different areas. In an attempt to evaluate the dynamics of the e-learning and knowledge technology market, "elearnframe" has divided the Industry into categories like Content Makers and Publishers, Tools makers, Learning Service Providers, Hubs/Portals setting up and Educational e-Tailers. In their article on "Facts, Figures and Forces Behind e-Learning" eLearnframe cautions that the most important of all these is "Content". If contents are not good, users will not go back to that package again and so the developers of e-Learning package must consider Content Development as the most important part of the anatomy of e-Learning; contents must increase the enthusiasm for knowledge and this will in turn demand for receiving fresh contents periodically. However good content will not be effective unless we have an associated infrastructure like learning platforms and knowledge management systems. The e-Learning package itself could be designed for at least three categories, viz., Internet-based, Intranet-based or stand alone system using CD's. We also need additional supporting features like Administration module, Mentor Module and the actual trainer's lounge as part of the e-Learning package. We will see more about these features and others in the next article.