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

In my article on, "Success Story of Indian Software Industry and the Lessons for Other Emerging Sectors", published in the Jan. 15th. issue of Express Computer, I had pointed out that one of the reasons for the success factor is, "Training Schemes and Policies in Human Resource Development". Specialized training in emerging technologies is an important aspect particularly for the successful development of products that are expected to be down the line next year or in the next couple of years. This is the kind of challenge every corporate in Software Development in IT faces either for developing their own products or to meet the requirements from their customers. This is true all over the world and more so for us in our country. The problem with instructor-led training is not only expensive but also the fact is that the instructor himself may need to be trained if the demand is for a newer technology; availability of such sophisticated trainers is very poor. There may be a situation that a demand from a customer comes to do a project which needs knowledge in some specific area and it calls for "just-in-time" training. Another occasion may be when some employees are transferred laterally in an organization. In fact many people had to be trained in different areas when the Y2K implementation was over. Many organizations had recruited a large no. of people for this and they had to be relocated once the Y2Kjob was over. At this juncture the organizations had to look into the options of providing customized training according to what the learner needs and also having business priorities and cost considerations in mind. This is where on-line learning becomes a handy tool.

With the proliferation of Internet and Intranet, learning through the net gets a new name "e-Learning" in conformity with e-Commerce and e-Business. Elliott Masie of The Masie Centre says that, "e-Learning is the use of network technology to design, deliver, select, administer, and extend Learning". Robert Peterson , Piper Jaffray say, "we define e-Learning companies as those that leverage various Internet and Web technologies to create, enable, deliver, and/or facilitate life long learning" . Christine Massey of Massie Centre, in her report on "Professional Developments for On-line Learning", says that the scenario and infrastructure created by Internet and Intranet has brought the concept of "bringing learning to people instead of bringing people to learning".

Training requirements in the Software Development segments arise mainly from three sources viz. customer requirements out of a new project, from the organizations future plan and business expansions and also from individual worker himself who would like to improve his skill. Whatever may be the source of this requirement, every corporate sector is now giving lot of importance to improve employees skills and allocate a good percentage of training funds. The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) estimated that in 1995, US employers spent US$ 55.3 billion on training.

Merrill Lynch in 1999 estimated a revenue of US$ 19 billion for corporate training companies and projected a growth of 10 to 15% by 2001. According to 1999 ASTD report a typical firm in USA spends approximately US$ 2 million on training per year. There are many such reports from eminent groups like Forrester Research, IDC, etc. All these point to the increased cost of instructor-lead training every year. This is true in our country also.

With very brilliant boys and girls in our IT industry, who will easily understand and grasp any new subject, on-line learning by them is not an impossible task. The biggest advantage for them is that through the net they can learn at their desk, at their pace and leisure. This is not at all possible in the broadcast mode of instructor-lead training programme, where individual needs of a student is not catered to where as the present day on-line packages not only have real audio but also real video so that it is like a virtual class room. The student can go back to that place, which he did not grasp, as many times as possible. With on-line chat facility as part of the package, he can even interact with the faculty concerned on his doubts. This is where the e-Learning scores over the CBT using CD's.

To give the statistics on the growth and popularity of on-line learning, Masie Centre Annual Report says that 92% of large organizations are implementing network based training in 1999, 41% have currently placed at least one course on online for the employees, 39% have a learning website, etc. There is a clear cut case study from ADC, a Global Provider of broadband communication products and services. ADC needed to provide up-to-date training to 16,000 employees all over the world. To provide instructor-lead training was impossible and ADC did not like to lose good employees. So the only way they could think of was to go for on-line training with the help of click2learn.com and it proved to be successful.

Unfortunately, the Indian Industries are yet to adapt to network-based e-learning.