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Whatever you spend on e-learning tools, platforms or content, it is important - in these days of "lean" operations and doing more with less - that you get value for money. Low-cost solutions used appropriately can yield amazing benefits - but they are a poor investment if they do not help you to meet your learning and/or business objectives.
This was the starting-point for one-day conference in London on valuefor-money e-learning solutions, which attracted not only a sizeable audience but an international line-up of speakers.
The event was organized by the eLearning Network (eLN), a communityinterest company (CIC) which is a key source for guidance on best practice and future trends in technology-based learning and development at work, with more than 2,000 members in the UK and beyond. The eLN is a non-profit organization run by the e-learning community for the eleaming community. It has more than 2,000 members.
Among the speakers were Cathy Moore, live from Indiana in the USA, via the internet; Stuart Chadwick, of e-learning solutions provider Kineo, and Matthew Lloyd, managing director of the e-learning solutions provider Omniplex.
The pros and cons of rapid-authoring tools
Omniplex, which has offices in the UK and Canada supporting clients across Europe and north America, aims to become a trusted resource to whom its clients can turn, safe in the knowledge that, as it is not tied to any one particular technology, it will give unbiased, reliable advice. The e-learning solutions supplied by Omniplex address the full value-chain of technology-based learning, including rapid-authoring tools and services, learning-management systems, as well as innovative solutions for learning re-enforcement.
Beginning by concentrating on learning-management systems (LMSs), Matthew Lloyd recalled the times - some ten years and more ago - when an LMS cost seven figures and implementing one was a major exercise in enterprise-wide IT management.
He said:
Things have changed. Today, we have lots of LMSs from which to choose and, although there are wide variations in price, most of them are a lotcheaperthan in the old days.
Unfortunately, many of them look hideous - with screens that are grey, boring and reminiscent of Windows 95. Thankfully, there are some LMSs which present their information in an attractive way and, with today's hosted solutions - using...